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If TAs are not getting through to Azamara (as I recall, they have different numbers to call), or choose to just give up trying because of the hours-long delays, that's a far bigger problem than any individual client's issues. My own TA has spent many hours trying unsuccessfully to contact Azamara, for months now, for quite a number of clients, not just me, and this is affecting their business, with their lines and their time being tied up unnecessarily. Certainly, my own experience of calling the Weighbridge number numerous times recently is that I never actually spoke to anyone in the UK - I eventually gave up on their automated system, and requested a call-back. Inevitably, I got a call back from someone in Wichita, Kansas, who could offer no help whatsoever. TAs don't have to use Azamara, and don't have to recommed Azamara to their clients. Their experiences will determine what they do.

I have been told by a local TA contact (who I trust) that they have been advised that, as of today, the UK offices of Azamara (don't know about other locations) are just not accepting calls until this situation is sorted out. Now, that may be an interpretation of what TAs are being told, or might be simply be that TAs have decided that it is not worth spending hours on the phone for Azamara to respond.....either way, it does not sound good.

My wife and I actually took the afternoon 'A City under Siege' tour earlier this year, and it was just brilliant. Our guide, a native-born Gibraltarian with Spanish parents, was out of this world (I guess I should be careful about any further ID, because these guys are all 'contractors' to Azamara) . He made sure we saw absolutely everything on the itinerary, and more, even when it meant over-running on the excursion timing a bit (but not unduly). His extensive knowledge and sense of humour (despite being a little 'quirky' from time to time) provided us with all the information we could want on the sights, the island in general, and its history. There was only one small problem for our cruise, the WWII tunnels were closed to the public for renovation work, but this hardly detracted from the tour at all, since we visited the others. Our guide also ensured that we visited, in a timely fashion, all the sites which closed in the late afternoon, rounding off the whole tour with a virtual circumnavigation of the island at dusk - brilliantly done. The tours are all done in mini-coaches, so the groups are not too large, and the guides are very careful not to 'tread on each others' toes', to ensure everyone gets the time they need to see everything - so the tour might not 'pan out' quite in the order of your itinerary above. Our cruise was early in the season so there was hardly any 'interference' from other cruise ships.We thought the whole exercise was very well organised, and provided exceptional coverage of an historic island. You say you are familiar with the history and particulars of the key sites, so I won't dwell on these, other than to mention that the museum is a bit small, but then, so is the whole island, however I very much doubt if you'll be disappointed going on this tour. We also used OBC for this excursion, and it was logistically extremely effective, and worth every cent/penny/credit we spent on it. Please do heed lisiamc's warning above about the apes (these Barbary Macaques are, however, one of the icons of the island, so don't necessarily miss them) - leave nothing loose about your person whatsoever. Hats, sunglasses and spectacles, for instance, are particularly vulnerable around them, and if your pockets aren't secure, get the contents into a secure backpack or bag that they macaques cannot just slip off your shoulder. Have a great time.

Sorry, but it's not the currency fluctuations that are the biggest problem - it's Azamara's unbelievable price fluctuations and its inability to provide the opportunity to purchase shore excursions in a reasonable fashion. The ability to 'monitor currency fluctuations', and to take the opportinities this may offer, are completely obliterated by the access to the Shore Excursion reservation system being unavailabvle for the vast majority of time. That, and the fact that Azamara has apparently increased prices in Sterling (but not in US Dollars) when Sterling has actually appreciated in value against the US Dollar over the past few months. Unfortunately, your suggestion that the exchange rate for Sterling which I obtained in an earlier booking this year on my cruise has not been sustained across the rest off my bookings at all - the latter bookings were made when the system, just a week or so ago,happened to provide a very short window of opportunity for me to make bookings before the window closed again, which I luckily spotted. I used this chance timing to try to ensure that my wife and I did not miss out on the tours we eventually (months ago now) decided we wanted.... not to 'finagle' around the currency exchange rate. I am travelling thousands of miles and paying loads of money for an experience in locations I may never be able to visit again, so I cannot but take any opportunities available to me to ensure that happens sensibly. It is Azamara which is playing fast and loose with the prices of Shore Excursions, the capability to book them, and to not suffer exchange rate 'gouging' (or sheer incompetence) in the process. As I said above - why is it unreasonable for me to pay US dollar rates for Shore Excursions - the currency they are 'offered' at on the generic website - from my OBC fund, which is also in US Dollars (and therefore doesn't need to 'revert' to that currency), if Azamara is playing around with these prices and currency exchange rates ? I am simply trying to make the best of a cruise I booked and paid for some time ago, at a point when I did not have time (due to preparing for another Azamara cruise) to examine in detail specifically what Shore Excursions I should like to make. Nobody said this fiasco would be forthcoming, starting at exactly the time I would be on another Azamara ship.

Hi there. Ah..... maybe didn't make it clear enough - these are 'Featured Shore Excursions' and just very coincidentally, this morning, the ones I want on my upcoming cruise are 'featured' and priced. Clearly, this is not all of the excursions available on my cruise, nor are all of the 'Featured' excursions that I can see priced. Just pure chance the 'Featured' and priced items today happen to fit my preferences. Sorry to get people excited unnecessarily.

Dear, oh dear, oh dear, 'plus ça change......' Quite conveniently, Azamara is now providing, on their generic website (i.e. without logging into my account) the current prices for all of the shore excursions I was able to book a few days ago for my upcoming cruise. Managing shore excursions is today, once again, not accessible to me. However, I now have the dollar prices for each of them - and they are either the same, or slightly lower than, the prices which were available some months ago. Crazily, the prices on two of these excursions are now marginally lower than they were at 4 hours ago. The sterling conversions in my account, however, are just as crazy as before (but the increases over original rates are not as unfavourable as some on here have experienced ) However, my OBC is in US dollars... I now, again, have the prices in US dollars for the excursions at the level they were originally..... and I will now (and, I think, reasonably) ask Azamara to charge these dollar excursion prices against my OBC in dollars, and never mind faffing around with currency conversion rates - unless they want to give me my OBC at one of the awful rates they seem to be using to price things in Sterling. This should just all be so easy..... Someone said the other day on the boards that the responsibility for this whole fiasco (i.e. not just excursions) lay largely with the former owners, rather than Azamara. There is a phrase originating quite some time ago, which has been a key point of legal agreements for many, many years - 'Caveat Emptor'.... i.e buyer beware ! I am no lawyer, but Azamara, in this case, was 'the buyer' and I am afraid it is solely up to Azamara to get its desired outcome from the process, not the 'seller'. In business to business contracts, it is generally held (at least in the UK) that the buyer has to do proper due diligence before commiting to a contract. The onus on the seller is, basically, to not deliberately deceive the buyer. Soon to be on my way.... and my big real concern at the moment is that currently, Azamara seems to be saying my flights are 'independent', and I do not have transfers from the airport to the hotel we'll be staying in the night before boarding. They were both paid for through Azamara. Kinda fundamental stuff before even getting to the point of 'everything will be all right once we're aboard ship'.

After waiting for quite some time now, at last I can actually see my booking for a cruise a few weeks from now. Much of the data is wrong. However, at the time of booking, we were in quite a rush dealing with, and taking, another cruise with Azamara, which was imminent at the time, and only made one definite shore excursion reservation for this new trip, because it was for a location we really wished to visit. Just out of interest, my wife took a quick note of some other shore excursions we might wish to take when we had enough time to do our homework... also jotting down the prices involved. Very shortly thereafter, the website went down, and we could do nothing more. But now, as I say, I can at least look at shore excursions again. Surprise - the cost of these excursions has gone up a fair bit; but even more surprisingly, given that, since our original booking, the £ Sterling has appreciated by around 7% against the $ US, the sterling cost of the shore excursions appears to have risen as well ! So it's not a £/$ currency exchange issue. And, in any event, Azamara presumably has its shore excursions for the sailing season pre-booked with local agencies, and presumably locked in at $ US prices. And if they don't.....well that means that there are potentially even more management issues. As of now, the cost of the one excursion we originally booked is around 8% higher, in £ STG, than our original booking price. Given that the system failure is, at the end of the day, down to Azamara (they either did not plan, or did not negotiate, well enough for a smooth transition), it's a bit much for the company to be, essentially, profiteering from the delay in allowing access to shore excursion reservations. Given our experience on our last Azamara cruise, where we noted the on-board prices for those shore excursions which we had booked, these were also elevated when compared to costs prior to boarding. I will have a lot of sympathy for those who may not get access to these services before boarding, as the costs could be significantly in excess of what they might have anticipated at the time of their original booking, even though that might have been just a couple of months ago.