Work in to Cruise 2023

Captain Carl is on his way. This is a letter that Carl wrote and found by a friend who is in training to be a deck officer.

“So that’s it. I am going home. 6 months and 10 days since I joined Pursuit in Buenos Aires on January 5th of this year. 3 and a half months and around 9000 miles since I was supposed to have signed off in Peru back in March.
We have the cables laid out between the Pursuit and the Quest, which will be the mother ship for this Cold Lay up situation. As I get in the car with Captain Magnus, who is also leaving today, they are connecting the two vessels together, and Pursuit will power down and go “Cold” tomorrow or Friday.
Captain Gianmario is staying in Command of all 3 ships for the next few weeks, and will then go home himself when Captain Filipos is out of self quarantine.
This whole contract has been an emotional roller coaster, from Antarctica and Rio Carnival through the west coast of South America, where the ports were closing in front of our faces. Disembarkation of Guests in Miami, well most of them, we kept 5 Argentinians an additional 5 weeks as they could not get home! Then the crew transfers off Cococay in the Bahamas. 18 Cruise ships transferring crew so that each nationality was accounted for on a certain vessel, an operation that took weeks, and was war like in its scale.
And now, here in Glasgow. We arrived with 54 onboard, and have seen our numbers slowly decline to a situation where there are currently 42 left, 4 more Indian crew are leaving an hour after me, and the rest will be moving to the Quest over the next few days, where they will live until everything is completed on Pursuit.
I’m going home. 6 months and 13 days ago I said my goodbyes, and kissed my wife and kids as I left my family. It’s been a bloody long time.
I will be home just after midnight tonight. 10 hours from now. 600 minutes. Not that I’m counting.....
Getting just a little emotional now.”
Carl

What a wonderful way to thank a few of the hard working nurses!  Way to go Azamara and Captain Carl!

https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/nhs-glasgow-azamara-cruise-ship-18593481

You can do a quick flight search to see what fights are available but you will need to change the return flight info as the system will pick up the return port and dates from the first cruise.  However as these are B2B this system does not let you book the flights on your own, you need to speak with the agent.  Also if your return flight is more that a year out the flights can not be booked yet.  I have used ChoiceAir for B2B cruises before.

20 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

I always book onboard, then transfer the booking to my travel agent.

$10,000 seems a lot - did this include any flights, transfers etc?

This was a package and included flights, they were around $1,800.  That still leaves $8,200 that I paid for a cruise that provided 4 ports and a 2nd cancelled cruise.

2 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

As I understand it, Travel Agents get commission on a sailed cruise. Commission they earned on a cancelled cruise is transferred to any re-booked cruise.

I wonder if all travel agents operate the same.  I paid upwards of $23,000 for B2B cruises  - we were 9 days in on a 21 day cruise when we were advised all cruises were cancelled.  Azamara stated we were to receive 50% cash and 50% FCC for the first cruise and the choice of cash or 125% in FCC for the 2nd - I chose the FCC.  To date Azamara has provided approximately $13,000 in refunds as they paid according to what the travel agency paid them.  My travel agent is now telling me I have been fully paid back and should not expect any more!   So in effect I paid $10, 0000 where as someone who booked directly with Azamara paid nothing.  From here on in I will book everything on my own and bypass any travel agencies.

Captain Carl just posted this update on his Facebook page.  Hopefully he will soon be able to return to his family!

I was able to access the link and complete this survey then out of curiosity I tried to access a second time and received a message that I had already completed it.  Perhaps this is why uktog is not able to access through this link.

We also had the same quandary - would we be able to handle a cruise with multiple sea days in a row?  As others stated above this is different for everyone and in my case will depend on how smooth the sailing is.   With that being said we just spent 28 days aboard the Pursuit - with 18 sea days in a row.  This was definitely an unprecedented situation and the crew were scrambling to keep the passengers entertained - they however did an absolutely phenomenal job!   We did have a few "exciting" days - watching the ominous day long task of loading much provisions by hand from a barge onto to the ship plus the day going thru the Panama canal.    The crew also made sure there were plenty of activities for us to participate in and put on some fabulous shows many written within a day!  Based on this cruise I believe a short 5 day sea stint will be no problem for us.  I strongly believe Azamara puts it's customer first, I know many of you have very negative thoughts right now with the refund situation, I to am waiting for my refund for my cancelled cruises.  I also believe if we should give them a chance - This situation is something no-one ever planned for and is changing daily.  I am due refunds from some of my privately purchased excursions, still do not know if I will get them. However I have chosen to stay optimistic and have booked two cruises on Azamara for next summer.  Positive attitude has a better chance of providing a positive outcome.  This is my belief and I imagine there are many who will disagree but I believe in Azamara and can wait to once again experience their phenomenal service.