Covepointcruiser

I received the email from the U.S. State Department.   U.S. cruise ships cannot visit Cuba.can still fly to Cuba as they ma be transporting family members to Cuba.   Is Azamara, Royal Cruise Lines American owned.   The ships are not registered in the U.S. but the company along with all of the Carnival Lines are traded on the U.S.Stock Market.

Check on the U.S. Treasury site.    Guess the cruises will be rerouted.

Sounds like the top cruiser will still get a free dinner on Celebrity.    The officers now dine with passengers in a Specialty Restaurant.    The officer always pays for drinks and an excellent wine.    The top Zenith folks are now receiving free extra premium wines and an audience with an officer.    I am certainly not Zenith (have a life outside of cruising) but I don’t see this as a negative change.

Hope this was really inexpensive!    Hope the second cruise has more exciting ports.

Is the weather really bad in California in June?     Guess when you are Zenith level the ship is always better than your home regardless of the ports.

Are you saying the sky suites on the Edge are larger than 381 sq. ft. on the QM2 or larger than the 335 sq. ft. On the Queen Victoria and Elizabeth?   These numbers are the minimum size and many Princess Grill Suites are larger.   Of course that size includes the Walk In closest and the balcony.

26 minutes ago, PSULion said:

Now I somewhat wish I booked that competitor's cruise listed above. 🤔

If yo are quick you can probably still book the Celebrity Cruise.    A different experience but if you are doing a transatlantic for the ports you won’t enjoy the Azamara.    By the way, we have taken at least 10 transatlantics on Celebrity and most of the cruises had ports cancelled or the days the ports are visited changed.   

1 hour ago, damugs said:

While this perhaps sounds fair, it isn't for us who have booked a second cruise on another line leaving the day after we were disembarking in Venice. It leaves us in a conundrum of decision making. We need to cancel one of them!

What does this have to do with the 11/5 cruise?   Did you mean to post on a different thread?

Didn’t hear anyone complain last year about the 2pm time change, and nothing about Lunch being too close to dinner.   We had other complaints about  the pool deck being repaired during our crossing.   We also had cold and rough weather on the crossing.    Even if they weren’t repairing the deck I doubt we would have sat around the pool.   We had beautiful weather in Kodiak and they were having a n outdoor crab festival.   King Crab was not in season but they had other fresh crab.   We had some passengers complaining about closures in Kodiak  because of Memorial Day.

Sure sounds like it especially if we make it to Cuba.    The first stop in Miami will probably give the most attention to the Azmara Crew as they have been in Europe since May.   I imagine Key West did not have sufficient Immigration facilities.   It’s too bad we couldn’t go straight from Bermuda to Cuba.

It’s received an email with a change of ports on this sailing.   Key West is deleted, we will also sail from Bermuda at 3:39 PM.    They are replacing Key West with Miami.   Doesn’t make sense unless we will go through immigration at our first stop in Miami.

I have found that United often combines my first and middle names.   Of course my full middle name does not show.  Never had a problem at the airport.    If anyone is dissatisfied with Choice Air, book independently.    We booked independently with United in April for a trip in November.   There have already been three schedule changes.   So far the type of aircraft is the same but I won’t be surprised if that changes.    There have been an unusual number of changes this year because of the impact of grounding the 737 Max 9.

If you are concerned about a new regulation being published before your cruise it would be best to cancel the trip before you face penalties.   We have one on Azamara in November and it is scheduled to dock in Havana.    We have been to Cuba before and while it would be sad to miss the port, we will live with wherever we dock.  As slow as the government works, I doubt there will be any new regulations this year.

You may want to debarked later and avoid the LA morning traffic since you don’t have an LAX flight to catch.   It’s nice to leave after the morning rush when it is easy to find your bags and go through immigration/customs without lines.

Yes they were last October.    They were usually served warm and were not appetizing.   They do make them to order, but you will have to wait until they have time to make your smoothie.    There is usually only one attendant in the Aqua Spa Cafe by the pool.

The ones served in the Blu Restaurant are included but there are only two or three kinds.

The lost hours are Way we always prefer an east to west crossing.    I much prefer an extra hour, 25 hr days instead of 23 hr days.   Are you turning the clocks ahead at 2 PM?    We did it that way on this crossing last year.

The nail services were fine, excellent products.   The price was three times what I would pay at home but the same as I have paid on Celebrity, Cunard and Seabourn.   It’s a way to use your OBC.

When we were on the Reflection we found it very difficult to get a drink in Michaels Club.

The bar tender was so busy with those seated at the bar those at tables couldn’t get a drink.    There was one overworked attendant and he could not keep up.   Before the bar, we would just walk up and order our drinks, can’t do that with the crowd at the bar.

I have always brought my own hair dryer on Celebrity.    There are no restrictions against hair dryers.

I am booked on this voyage and had no trouble accessing my booking on the Azmara site.

What indication did you get from the U.S. State Department that changes would be made and before November.    I signed up for State Department alerts on Cuba and have received no alerts.    If they end up substituting San Juan for Havana at least we will visit an island needing our tourist dollars.

We also had to call Azmara to have luggage tags sent, they came to our house soon after our call.

We are booked a n this cruise and a change in Havana is not a problem.    Hope they make up their minds soon as we already have our air travel booked.

We have never gotten the stockholders benefit on transatlantic sailings.   We have received it on Azamara sailings.

Ask this question on the Cunard Board and you will get more than a few replies.

We had James Taylor as a guest singer and sat next to the Prime Minister of Canada and his entourage (two tables of 8) in the Queens Grill.  I also remember Dr. Ruth.   We don’t travel on the QM2 as much as we would like but there are always celebrities on board on the crossings.

Remember that you do have to walk down a steep set of stairs to get to the tender.   I would say you should wear non slip, preferably flat shoes, so you don’t slip or fall down the steps.

22 hours ago, mom says said:

You make it sound as though these tender passengers were leaving the ship in pitch dark and feeling their way along.  Have you ever used a tender at night? In my experience,  the boarding areas are very brightly lit, so I fail to see any  increased danger from a visibility standpoint.  Or have you encountered situations to the contrary?

Artificial lights can never replace good old daylight.    Tendering in the middle of the night is dangerous and fairly unusual.   Of course if Celebrity scheduled a tour for the middle of the night, shame on them.    If they can’t dock they should not offer the tours.