First time Azamara questions

[teddie2]

Hi there

I have read some not so good reviews about this company lately and know they were sold so hoping that by next year things will have improved as we have never cruised and had planned a trip on Princess however due to some circumstances we have to switch gears and are now looking at the Pursuit Greece and Croatia trip which looks good.  The website though leaves alot of questions unanswered and i don't always trust what I get from the customer service reps.  Will call but interested in hearing from those who have traveled with them.  One question is with the basic drink package that is included with the fare, is there a limit to the number of drinks in a day.  Also re internet package for 19.95 a day. is that for only one device?

Thanks for your response

[java spot]

The internet package is for one device at a time. There is currently no limit on how many drinks you can have on the basic package.  I've done about a dozen cruises with Azamara however it seems to be changing and it has been over a year since last on board. Maybe someone with more recent experience will chime in if my representations are false. 

[Grandma Cruising]

48 minutes ago, teddie2 said:

Hi there

I have read some not so good reviews about this company lately and know they were sold so hoping that by next year things will have improved as we have never cruised and had planned a trip on Princess however due to some circumstances we have to switch gears and are now looking at the Pursuit Greece and Croatia trip which looks good.  The website though leaves alot of questions unanswered and i don't always trust what I get from the customer service reps.  Will call but interested in hearing from those who have traveled with them.  One question is with the basic drink package that is included with the fare, is there a limit to the number of drinks in a day.  Also re internet package for 19.95 a day. is that for only one device?

Thanks for your response

Was on Journey earlier this month. No limit to the number of drinks you can have. Wifi is for one device at a time, but you can log out of one device, themn log back on another.

[tgg]

On Onward right now (12/31/23) and the internet is incredibly slow. I've paid for unlimited internet and upgraded, for another $7.95 per day, to faster speed. This is still slower than my speed at home, but it is tolerable. I've been able to use Skype with no problems.

 

The basic drink package doesn't limit you to a certain number of drinks per day.

[teddie2]

I thought the internet package is 19.95 per day per device for unlimited. Did you pay an extra 7.95 per day for faster internet??

[Rus Tee]

I understand the "unlimited wifi" is unlimited in the minutes you can use it but is quite slow, suitable for email etc but nothing that may need a wider bandwidth i.e streaming and live calling. The $7.95 upgrade gives access to faster (and more reliable) broadband. However no broadband at sea is totally reliable.

[tgg]

12 hours ago, teddie2 said:

I thought the internet package is 19.95 per day per device for unlimited. Did you pay an extra 7.95 per day for faster internet??

Yes.

Because we are frequent Azamara cruisers, we get a 75% discount on the full cruise unlimited charge.  The $7.95 per day fee for faster service actually costs more than the unlimited for us. It is NOT discounted.

On many other cruise lines, this would have been included.

[teddie2]

Oh sorry that's confusing because they don't show that as an option. Just the 19.95 per day unlimited

 Not see anything that said 7 95 faster service

[ECCruise]

22 minutes ago, teddie2 said:

Oh sorry that's confusing because they don't show that as an option. Just the 19.95 per day unlimited

 Not see anything that said 7 95 faster service

You won't see it until you sign on the first time and it is offered as an option. 

[Dr H]

Teddie, regarding the bad reviews, I've read, and seen, them. Everything bad you've heard about the IT and the web site is true. But it ends there. We've been with Azamara since 2010, and we are up to about 20 cruises with them, most recently about 3 weeks on Onward (our first with it/her/them), which dropped us off in Ft Lauderdale on November 30. There will always be complainers, disgruntled, confused, angry people out there, and the internet seems to bring them out in droves. The cruises are spectacularly good. The food everywhere is excellent. Service is excellent. Martinis on Quest were definitely better than on Onward. There is one awful waiter on Onward, and I brought him up with the Hotel Director. One, not 10, certainly not the whole staff. One. Service in the Cafe was not as attentive as it should have been, and again, I brought it up with the Hotel Director, who assured me the issue would be taken up with their next staff meeting. With the expansion from two ship to four, they had to hire a significant number of new people, who needed to be trained up to Azamara standards. But what you get is a small ship, max 690 passengers with a very large crew, people who will know your name in days, and bend over backwards to accommodate you, without having their hands in your pockets, fishing for tips. As for the drink package, we aren't heavy drinkers, but you have a choice of 4 wines at almost all times, red/white/rose/sparkling, 4 beers (including Bud Lite for those so inclined), and a relatively decent list of hard stuff. We usually walk off the ship with a $50 bar tab to cover our upgrades, which invariably is covered by our on board credit. Self service laundry is free, and includes the soap. The ship's laundry is amazing - much better than our home dry cleaner. You are in for a treat. As I like to say, worry more about getting to the ship on time than what comes afterwards. We are off to Rio in mid March for our next transatlantic and Spanish back to back. Iceland in June. And Greece and Turkey in October. We could have traveled with just about any other line out there, but we come back to this one for a reason.  Have a wonderful time. David

[Host Jazzbeau]

Wonderful post @Dr H  The only thing I would add is:  use a Travel Agent, and you avoid most of the website issues.  Then it's all good...

[Dr H]

Ultimately, the web site issues will catch up to the travel agent, but in fairness, things have improved dramatically over the past month or two. When I booked Lisbon to Barcelona, the cobbled up cruise, the cruise and its low price only showed up on the Aza site, where I booked it. Later that day when I  transferred to my travel agent of choice, which cannot be named lest its mysteries and perks become public knowledge, I reached said mystery travel agent in about 2 rings, and they in turn got through to Azamara in a minute or two. No, the Azamara kinks are definitely being ironed out, but from what people have been posting, even during the worst of the problems and confusion, the quality of the Azamara cruises was never an issue. And considering how heavily booked everything I've been looking at has been, they are going stronger than ever.

[oceanpark]

We have done many cruises and decided to do an Azamara cruise three months ago.  We loved everything about it, especially the staff.  If you wait until the second day of your cruise you will get a discount on the wifi.  We had lots of onboard credit and I upgraded to the premium drink package, but my husband was content with the basic package.  I won’t have paid to upgrade as other than wine, I didn’t notice a big difference.  

[Grandma Cruising]

2 hours ago, oceanpark said:

We have done many cruises and decided to do an Azamara cruise three months ago.  We loved everything about it, especially the staff.  If you wait until the second day of your cruise you will get a discount on the wifi.  We had lots of onboard credit and I upgraded to the premium drink package, but my husband was content with the basic package.  I won’t have paid to upgrade as other than wine, I didn’t notice a big difference.  

Pleased to hear you enjoyed your cruise.

The premium drink package doesn’t include wine, it’s only the ultimate package that includes a wider range of wine

[Dr H]

A standard, 750ml bottle of wine pours a healthy six drinks. I've found the Azamara wine list to be very good, and very reasonably priced. One of my most recent discoveries is purchasing a bottle of wine, which the two of us can never finish in one sitting, and letting the staff store the unconsumed portion. It lasts very nicely for 3-4 days. A $60 bottle of wine equals 6 drinks, or $10/glass. That is what I pay for my top shelf single malt scotches or upper tier martini. And with the very generous on board credits, it is usually included in the bus fare to begin with, without any of the liquor packages. This obviously won't work for everyone, and the packages make a lot of $$$ which helps keep the line afloat, but in the end, it works extremely well for us and it should for a lot of other folks out there. Bon Voyage!

[uktog]

Personally I have found the wine to purchase offering is poor compared to other lines and whilst some of the sommeliers know how to handle the wines some do not and in any event if you “leave some for another night” it’s storage is handled by a usually clueless assistant waiter.
 

And in one case our half bottle wasn’t stored but poured to other guests. Ok it was replaced and we did get the benefit of a full for a half but not without awkwardness as they tried to cover their tracks by hoping to convince us we’d finished it. 

So I’d advise finishing any purchase in one sitting and if not, mark and photograph it’s level (we also had a 3/4 full come back 1/2 but as it was a gift we said nothing) 

[Host Jazzbeau]

1 hour ago, Dr H said:

A standard, 750ml bottle of wine pours a healthy six drinks.

Interesting choice of adjectives.  750ml is 26.4 oz.  If you pour six drinks that's 4.4 oz per glass.  Probably what the government is now pushing as 'healthy' for your health.  

 

The standard is 5 oz which pours 5 drinks.  I on the other hand like a really 'healthy' pour of 4 drinks per bottle... 😉

[Rabo]

Using my Coravin, pours are 5 ounces. Most Azamara servers probably pour twice that 🤣

[Dr H]

It's an American slang adjective, meaning "large or respectably sized". From the medical standpoint, yeah, alcohol does raise protective HDL cholesterol levels, but dissolves your liver and brain at the same time, so while I never discourage light to moderate drinking, I don't encourage it either, as in, "sure have two bottles a day with dinner and protect your heart at the same time." The standard bar tender/party planner rule on this side is that 1 bottle of wine serves 6 drinks. You can stretch it to 8 if you try, but seriously, as a rule of thumb, 6 per bottle, and do the arithmetic from there. As for the staff cheating, on Onward in November, I wound up buying a total of 3 bottles of wine. No cheating, very well stored, our sommelier Jun (I think...) was very helpful to this alleged wine maven. Oh, for the newbies, Azamara allows you to bring wine and spirits on board. You can drink in the privacy of your cabin, or there is a modest corkage fee if you choose to bring the stuff into the dining areas. There is no need to smuggle alcohol on board.

[uktog]

I did not say staff were cheating I highlighted they were making mistakes- a huge difference 

[oceanpark]

My mistake.  It was the Ultimate drink package.  I was thinking of the Premier drink package we had on Viking where we noticed a great difference between their included white and rose wines from the premier package wines.  We did BTB cruises with Azamara and as we had so much OBC left at the end of our first cruise which wasn’t transferable to the next cruise, we bought four expensive bottles of wine and drank them on our second cruise.  It was the Sommelier who made the suggestion.  As my husband wasn’t upgrading to the Ultimate package he was able to enjoy the lovely wine.  

[Mackdogmolly]

4 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

I on the other hand like a really 'healthy' pour of 4 drinks per bottle

Me too! 😀

[Dr H]

I think my friend UKTOG might need to heed Mack and Jazz's comment more than mine... Get a glass, take a deep breath, put your feet up, and relax. No one is accusing you or the staff of misbehavior when it comes to alcohol misappropriation! This is one of the disadvantages of a blog over a verbal conversation, it's very easy to misunderstand intent. That said, regarding Oceanpark's on board credit, it looks like the new Azamara policy of rollover OBC is going to become a very welcome change. And speaking of changes, has anyone noticed that a new "Stateroom and Suite Upgrade" package is "coming soon"? No mention of what it is or might be, but something is brewing  in that department.

[ECCruise]

1 hour ago, Dr H said:

. And speaking of changes, has anyone noticed that a new "Stateroom and Suite Upgrade" package is "coming soon"? No mention of what it is or might be, but something is brewing  in that department.

The upgrade process has been active for the last 6 weeks or so.  If there is availability, it will be offered to you via email shortly before your embarkation date.  It is a bid process, as before, with a minimum and recommended bid.

 

Not sure whether the $$$ was too rich for most people's blood, since there were lots of suites available on our November and December sailings.  And they got rid of those with bingo, spa and shops raffles. 

[Dr H]

We have upgraded several times in the past, and would consider it again, if... Our preferred cabin is a Veranda (zilch). However, over the past two years, we have both found that on port intensive cruises, Oceanview (that's ocean view, not obstructed view), is our sweet (not suite) spot. Port intensive you really don't get a good opportunity to use the veranda, at least if you are facing the port, and they tend to be a good $1000. less than the veranda. Suites are thousands more than Verandas, for a bit more legroom, a very nice bathroom, frequently with AM Deck 9 noise. Just not our cup of tea.