uktog

I was using incognito but no joy 😞

Or is it they are giving such primacy to travel agents over customers that this is what the cruise line wants. You see it on these boards. People who are travel agents on these boards. always saying this is what you should ask your travel agent about. Have you wondered why? By pushing you to talk to the travel agent, it takes you further down the sales journey and locks you further in to process of the conversion of interest to sales that the agent and cruise line want to see. However, for me, it overlooks the buying behaviour of many people and the role of the research before committing plays for many cruise passengers. Because calling retail store travel agents by phone is not straightforward - it goes to a central call centre along with all holiday queries today, I am heading off on a 40 mile round-trip just to go to the store to talk to the travel agent about a change in cabin. I do not know if this change will happen. Granted if it does, this will be more revenue for Azamara, but if the sort of cabin I want is not available (I need to see what type of club continental are available) I’m not going to be very happy at having had to drive 40 miles to find that out a question I used to be able to answer in two minutes on the website. It will not let me move on the booking process because I already have a booking for that sailing

If he is not much of a drinker, it might be better if he just bought a glass as he wanted it - he would need to drink 3-4 Jack Daniels or other non included drinks to break even given the cost of the package. They do usually have Jack Daniels

Gone from some information to no information and it won’t even let you submit a form Not sailing for a while so I’ll leave it but it seems each time they say they’re on the case my own personal information gets less and less accurate. Im glad they are hiring more staff. Is this in addition to the staff they already said they were recruiting or is it just those staff coming on stream anyway

But travel agents aren’t open 24x7 and when they are open it’s better they aren’t focusing on those not yet ready to book Many of us browse exactly when agents are shut. Potential guests will head to those lines where you can see specific cabin availability. That is VERY important on Azamara where 50% of Club Continental suites are no use to many guests. A quick browse in the past could tell if a cruise was even an option or not for those wanting that category of room.

Very much depends on the travel dryer. Some more expensive ones are far better

I thought I would submit the form to highlight 4 missing cruises and 2 cruise again certificates when were there yesterday had gone. Unfortunately I think the box that the forms go to is full and the form just froze where I pressed submit

Yes you could not make this up I could see everything until yesterday. How would they have email addresses of those who are booked through UK agents for example

We have just received global update communication email from the CEO. I’m sure someone will paste it here soon (can’t from my phone)

Yes on Pursuit you do, only onward has lost the hold down to date. They really are not powerful enough for mu type of long hair but others might have fared better

But the crunch is, does that contract allow the guest to reserve seats before the ticketing deadline? Most people would be unaware of what happens (eg when does the cruise line pay the airline) if from their customer experience they can access the seat (and for some extra suitcase menu) as soon as they are aware who their carrier is/what flights they are on. For Viking that is 60 days before sailing and if you upgrade from economy to business, as soon as you ask for that deviation. Works well for lots of guests. The cancelling I think is a glitch as a result of the RC contract being shut down and for some, maybe not all airlines, this leading to what appears to the customer to be a full cancellation given the messages the airlines are maybe incorrectly giving them. There is one lesson for the cruise line in this - historically guests would sit, wait to hear who their flights were with and do nothing, accepting what seats they got (that was certainly how it was in our early days of cruising Celebrity and using their air). Now many guests (especially those in Azamara's target market rather than the larger providers) are travel savvy, they know about pre booking seats and are much more proactive in how they can get the extra they want. Sounds like Azamara has to drop any RC think regarding air and move to a model that reflects their customer base. As an aside, I was arranging something where Azamara does not go with another agent that could have included an air bundle added by the agency. (The typical thing you see for some UK cruises, cruise plus air plus transfer) Her first words were - we do this but its so limiting Im not sure you will want it and I dont think the cost savings are that great for the restrictions. I like that honesty.

Or given as a charity donation in the give us your unused currency drums many charities have. Same goes for dollars

And for many if there is not a way to select and pay for seats earlier it’s certainly not going to be a great travel experience. I’ve no issue if the actual ticketing is delayed so long as the arrangements with the airline are such that once provisionally booked a guest can arrange seats if they wish (paying for the seats if they do not have airline status). I hope I’m wrong but this feels like a financial driver taking precedence over guest experience. That said, apart from Viking and Ama where airfare is a standard inclusion for UK guests (the credit if you have it removed is very low to be not worth it) we do our own air so are not affected by this issue.

Viking cruise in late August was ticketed in early February and we were then able to arrange the seats we wanted

We decided not to take the after cruise package in Chicago well before the current saga. We looked at it (you are right is still says Sheraton), but decided as we wanted a day longer anyway and I could actually do us more sightseeing (including a Gangsters Tour and a Pizza Foodies tour), the Intercontinental and the same boat tour for three days for less £ than they wanted for their two day after cruise package. Maybe we take a big hit on £ packages as they think oh they will take it they will want to stay.

That is the correct hotel. All our paperwork and separate email correspondence from booking until the point we got the documents stated The Westin which was why we booked 15-17 in there See you onboard

Indeed but even if I get the English "versions" I will not be tipping that way in USA or Canada and so wherever you are, tip in the currency of the country unless your home currency is one that has widespread use in the host country. The dollar does not have widespread use in Europe - it does in places like Vietnam, Euro is generally useful everywhere in mainland Europe even if it is not the currency of the country - for example in Scandinavia where only Finland has adopted the Euro etc etc. The UK is not mainland Europe so tip in sterling (or not at all as you choose, we do not have an ingrained tipping culture and in restaurants a service charge may already be added which has to be shared to staff)

My frustration is a very minor one compared to others but is an example of how Azamara is losing both revenue and some goodwill I have a cruise next year and I can see there is a nice price drop on it. In accordance with the booking guarantee at the time I booked I would like to investigate not taking a price drop but giving Azamara more money as a splurge on a suite (possibly even a big one) is probably in reach. However 1. Because of how the website operates (and this is a permanent feature if I read right) I cannot see what suites remain and I need one with a walk in shower and not in a noisy location. So not being able to see the availability puts barriers on the making of this move 2. I am working with a travel agent, she would need to call in to get the suite availability (I would leave her a range acceptable and ones I would not rebook to so she does not have to call back again) and make the change. In all consciousness, I cannot expect her to sit on hold for hours for this move which I have discovered is not automatic for her to do on the system (I doubt it ever was). I also feel maybe that precious space in the line to get the call answered belongs to someone else. So rather than get a few £K more out of me certainly no revenue for Azamara at this moment in time. In the "olden days" this switch would have been done as soon as we saw it was an option

The Danish are very polite. What they did not tell you was how much they had to save for it to be worth it, the buy back rate is always worse and there are handling fees. Put it this way I’ve some nice Scottish notes sitting here. How well do you think they will go down on my upcoming trip to Toronto or Chicago if I give them as a tip to hard working waitstaff. Always tip in the currency of the country. Second best option if in Europe in a smaller non EU country Euros will be an acceptable alternative except of course in the UK!

I am so glad you prompted me to look. That trip is not offered on the Toronto to Chicago voyage but maybe it will be onboard, my experience on the Mississippi was there were extra trips on offer once onboard. I scrolled through all the Premium excursions on our cruise and I saw some extra information against our Niagara excursion indicating it is not available to book onboard and that immediately on booking guests would receive an email about menu selections. Well we had booked it and had a confirmation four weeks ago but have had no email about menu selections. Fearing the worst - this is AQ after all and my experience now is always looking at the worst, I contacted the online chat, very nice person on the other end but they cannot resolve what has happened so now we wait the Development Team to confirm if we did have a reservation as its a wait listed trip now - even though I have a confirmation number and copy of the email (which I have mailed to them). I do not know what else they could give me issues with on this trip.....

That is exactly my thought at present, though the refund AQV give me for not staying in their hotel is rather poor vs the cost in the Westin

I think that is your answer!

Certainly previously it had been our intention to place further bookings with AQV as we’d identified several other potential itineraries but sadly that is now highly unlikely. Still trying to work out our conundrum of move our extra two nights to the new hotel despite it being out of the way for sightseeing or stick with the original better location and lose several hours sightseeing plus hassle/cost of moving hotel. I think if we’d always been in the replacement hotel it might not have been so bad it’s just we’ve made dinner reservations and booked early morning tour on day 2 and 3 based on the previous location. I also feel a cruise line who can throw this spanner in the works just before you travel isn’t customer focused and trying to wash their change with spin (it’s a new hotel - yes- in a great location- no even reviews highlight it’s stretching the imagination to call it Yorkville) is not acceptable. We will make our hotel decision later today we will then forget about the other option so no decision regret but AQV you need to seriously up your game for future guests

If you are near Chinese waters you never used to get service on the old system

In case cruisers do not pick this up on the other thread, we got our tickets for our cruise leaving in mid May, They are NOT using the Westin Hotel as shown in all our previous confirmations. AQSC previously confirmed to me before I booked our extra nights in the Westin we were staying there. No notification of any change until now when we got our tickets, they are claiming building work (checked with Westin there is virtually no disruption). We are having our pre cruise night in a Hilton in Yorkville. So either you have move if you had made other reservations in the Westin as we had (and lose a lot of sightseeing time in the process) or move to that hotel (incurring higher costs as we had a good rate in the Westin because we booked ten months ago) and accept the location. They are trying to say it is a better location, no it is not for us, no option to visit things lakeside without using an Uber, likewise its not possible to manage timings to make it to our dinner reservations on two of the nights.