Werangels

Why have the comments querying which cruise I was unhappy with been removed from this thread please? Jazzbeau our moderator had commented but is now removed. It makes my first comments nonsensical…..

Firstly, just to clarify for everyone when I referred to being disappointed I was referring to the Azamara cruise. Mamafej, it was as you say ‘paled in comparison to the land portions of the trip’. I think when you were bear in mind that December is Winter everywhere in South Africa except Cape Town and it was cold (blankets by the pool rather than towels), rainy and we had many sea days with F8 seas, it wasn’t what we were expecting. Probably our fault for not doing enough research….. From booking, ports were changed due to unrest (which is fine) but left us with only 3 ports apart from Cape Town. Durban and Port Elizabeth are shockingly rundown, unsafe with many, many homeless so tours are imperative. None of the ports are pleasant on the eye. We had a couple of excellent safari excursions and enjoyed the 2 nights on the ship in Cape Town but in hindsight we could have had a far more immersive experience on land than sea for the 13 nights of the cruise. We didn’t visit Mossel Bay which we would have liked to but wasn’t included on our cruise. Our land safaris meant that we were able to do early morning and night drives which obviously you cannot do from the ship. Everything we did from Cape Town ie, Kirstenbosch, Table Mountain, Cape Peninsula, Franschoek, Stellenbosch could have been done from a hotel so, the reality is we spent 13 nights on a ship for 3 ports. We felt like the cruise didn’t really scrape the surface of South Africa however, as you are there for two months, you will have an amazing time. The sunset cruise at Vic Falls was lovely. A very lovely small boat experience with canapés, hundreds of hippos, birds and a croc or two! In fact, we were the only passengers which was fabulous. The Zambezi Queen and Chobe Princesses are owned by Accor Hotels not AMA Waterways and from that we took amazing lifetime memories. There were things we found disappointing on board also but that appears to be common with a number of other threads on here. I am not wanting to put anyone off and hope you enjoy your cruise and get better weather than we did. I think it has taught us to really consider whether a cruise is the right way to see some places or not. We love the immersive nature of AZ when there is a port each day where you can just step off the ship and be surrounded by wonderful villages and towns to explore. I hope you have a wonderful time.

If you can I would do more. Just to give some context - we did the sunset cruise on our first evening. We walked the falls the following day. We did the helicopter over the falls and the steam train dinner on the bridge. We also did two night game drives which were fabulous as well as shopping (lots of local craft shops) and pool/relaxation time. Seeing the falls from every perspective allows you to see the enormity of it. I will be honest, the cruise was the most disappointing part of the holiday. We were there for a month.

We did our own thing which included 5 nights in Vic Falls overlooking a water hole in Vic Falls game reserve. There is so much to do including safaris in the game reserve. Saw all the big 5 including lion cubs and a rare genet as well as being roadblocked on the road to our accommodation by 2 bull elephants having a stroll! We did the Zambezi Queen, the same boat as Jazzbeau and loved it. Loved Chobe and had wonderful elephant sightings. We would go back in a heartbeat.

Thank you. I understand.

I have really enjoyed reading this. Thank you. Was there as much cherry blossom as you expected or more/less?

Hi Jill i just came across your post as I was searching AMA for the Mekong. We stayed on the Zambezi Queen in January and it was fabulous. We enjoyed every minute of it. Going out on the little boats to see the wildlife is wonderful. We could happily have sat all day long watching the herds of elephants coming down to the river to drink and play. Our only regret was that we only had two nights.

How odd!

Cape Town has some of the best quality tap water in the world. They are in the top 1 so I doubt using tap water for bottled water would be the issue here?

I am not the OP but this is really useful for us as we will need a hotel later this year and it’s a very, very long time since I was in Miami. Thank you.

I don’t think they will commit. We asked a similar question about leaving early and they said you need to ask on board as they cannot say what the port authorities will allow.

People did this on our South Africa cruise this year.

I read that the laundry room has been reopened today for a short time.

All of the Pursuit cruises from the Xmas cruise onwards have had norovirus. The Xmas cruise, the buffet, etc was self serve from about half way through the cruise. The last cruise had the pool and spa closed for the whole cruise and I understand this had also happened on the previous cruise. There was no insistence of using sanitiser purely the captain asking for people to on a daily broadcast. We sanitised everywhere, never touched lift buttons or handrails, etc. I only saw the handrails being cleaned once; that isn’t to say it wasn’t being done more regularly. I have to say that in my opinion and before the virus got hold, I was aware that the ship wasn’t as clean as I would expect. Apologies but thought it worth giving some detail to Pursuit this year.

That’s great news. I shall have to telephone to do the same. Thanks.

Did you use your OBC to purchase the package? We found a package the best value for South Africa but had to wait until we were onboard to purchase the package using our OBC. I have put the enjoyments package into my basket for a future cruise along with excursions and if we could sort this now, that would be great. Incidentally, on our last cruise, they had included the $250 spa credit towards our excursions which was very useful.

I had it as a special pre-order on Pursuit. There were 6 ordered that night. So clearly very popular.

I’m not sure. We did have ultimate but it wasn’t mentioned and we only had the one bottle not two?

I requested Hendricks which we got. We also got Fevertree tonics and ginger beer. I also had a glass of champagne delivered with the afternoon canapés. The butlers trolley had many glasses of champagne that he was delivering!

I had the same thing happen on our last cruise. The TA stood firm, had recorded telephone conversations, etc with Azamara where they had checked and rechecked the price so Azamara had to back down and accept it. I think it helped that the TA is one of their biggest clients and my personal agent is very, very experienced. Glad you got it sorted.

I wanted to use OBC to pay for the package so had to do it on arrival. We would still have had to queue at guest relations to sort the Wi-Fi out and the queues were huge.

We had a similar debacle in booking specialities on the cruise we are currently on. We were also 2nd in line and there was only one desk for well over 5 minutes and the line grew and grew. Our check in was based purely on who the terminal staff judged had been sat there the longest and we were then sent for the safety briefing on boarding before being able to do anything else. That in itself would work beautifully if priority boarded first and/or had been able to book ‘stuff’ ahead. We actually spent over 3 hours on our first afternoon trying to sort dinner reservations, packages, excursions, Wi-Fi not connecting, etc. When you consider what you have paid as part of your holiday for that afternoon, it is ludicrous, We ended up completely stressed and exhausted before the ship had even left port.

I am aboard and it is the future cruise desk who suggested it.

Yes, that is what I meant. Thanks. Good to know you think they are worth it.

I am considering buying a future cruise credit whilst onboard as we cannot commit to dates to book yet. What are people’s thoughts are on these? Are they worth it? Thanks.