joyride

Hi Nordski. I don't know how Choice Air was a few years ago, but honestly they haven't been helpful at all to us. Initially my husband had booked this cruise with a TA friend of his and I wasn't involved because it was a surprise gift to me. Once I became involved, I did not want to fly in the day of the cruise, so we started looking at alternatives. We found a direct flight from SFO to Barcelona on Iberia that got there the day before our cruise. So, we booked that and paid in full for it. Choice Air had us on American Airlines, through Iberia, operated by Level. Everything was cool. We selected our seats on the Iberia website in December, paid directly to Iberia for an upgrade to Premium Economy. Everything was paid for and confirmed. Our return flights are on American Airlines. A couple of months ago we did get an email from AA saying that our flights home had a slight time change. No other communication. A few days ago we got a generic email from AA regarding our upcoming trip. At that time, my husband decided to check our outgoing flights and that is when we discovered that our reserved and paid for seats from December no longer appearing on the Iberia website. Our TA called Choice Air and asked them to contact Iberia and find out what was going on, they refused to do so. Iberia would not talk to our TA because he was not our "agent" Choice air was our Agent. Hence, we had to handle this ourselves. Choice Air and our TA were useless really. My husband called AA, Iberia, etc. and spent a good 6 hours on this. He got disconnected 3 times on the phone with Iberia, and when he did get through, had language difficulties a couple of times. In the end, he got boarding passes and new seats through the Iberia website, and hopefully we are good to go. We will find out tonight!!! 🙂 We will never use Choice Air again...

I've been trying to adjust a bit before our trip by going to bed early and getting up really early. I've only been to Europe once, and that time we had a couple days in Rome before our Cruise.. I was so full of adrenaline when we got there, I was fine. The first couple days were a bit foggy, but it was OK. That was a much longer trip, and I was younger. HAHA. This time we are only doing one night pre-cruise and flying home on debarkation day. Yep, it's going to be a whirlwind. I figure I'll sleep when we get home. LOL I have planned a very mellow day for our first port so we have most of the afternoon on the ship to just relax. Hopefully it all works out. I'm looking forward to the time that we can take our time more and do longer trips. My husband is still working and also playing music for an upcoming Opera and Theater groups, so his summer is full. Anyway, sorry, I digress....See you on the ship Andrcan, I'll look for you napping by the pool!

Thank you Xcelsior. It was a bit upsetting spending about 6 hours getting this straightened out and then having some unsupportive posts. But we made it through. Thank you for your good wishes! 🙂

Well folks, thank you all for your help and suggestions. We have boarding passes that say LEVEL, Flight IB2622 for seats 3D and 3E. I have to look at the bright side of this, at least they have 2 other seats in PE that we were able to grab. I am a BIG believer of booking my own flights, I can think of one time we used cruise air other than this in over 20 cruises. My husband made the booking for this trip and used a new TA. He gave me this as a Christmas Present. He originally had us flying from California to Barcelona arriving on the day of the cruise. So, I immediately told him we had to change that!! We probably will never attempt to fly Iberia again, and also most likely won't use this TA again. (He's a musician friend of my husbands and Rod just thought he would give him a try). Anyway, now I just have fingers crossed that the flight goes OK. We plan on arriving at SFO very early, as the boarding passes don't even have a gate number on them. We are leaving in 2 hours to get our PCR tests and we got our QR Codes for entry to Spain - So I think we are back on tract to have smooth travel.

No, that wasn't the case. The seats in Premium Economy are in a 2 - 3 - 2 configuration. We had 2 seats on the right in Row One. Now we have 2 of the 3 seats in the middle of row 3. However, just checking today and the 3rd seat is unoccupied, so unless someone buys that seat by tomorrow, it looks like I won't have to sit next to a stranger.

Thank you RW75. We are fine. Our return flight are out of Lisbon and are on American Airlines, so hopefully we won't have problems coming home.

Jeez FlyerTalker, I didn't know that making a post about the issues we are having required me to give YOU all the specific details about our Flight. But, OK, let's go there. We PAID for an upgrade to Premium Economy on 12/29 and received a receipt, and picked exact seats of 1J and 1L. And, yes, it's Level. We have a screenshot from the Iberia website showing our Flight AA8847. I guess it's Choice air, through American airlines, through Iberia, using Level. It's not exactly an easy thing to follow.... Bottom line is we have been sitting here for 5 months, confident that our flights were paid for, confirmed and good to go - and now 48 hours before we fly out we find out they have sold our seats to someone else. I don't understand what you FlyerTalker mean by seat assignments are never guaranteed. I don't get that. We picked our seats and paid extra for those seats. Does that mean that even though we picked our cabin on the cruise, we can get there and find that they have given it to someone else? I don't think so. Bottom line is, we will get to Barcelona and hopefully have a great vacation, But for us, this is a big trip of a lifetime and having this happen to start it off is not good. The thing that bugs me the most is that there's no explanation from the airline as to why this happened. It's horrible customer service... Just to clarify, according to my hubby. We paid for premium economy through our Travel Agent when we paid for our flights, and then later paid extra when we selected the seats on Iberia's website.

It's been a crazy day, on hold with Choice Air, American Airlines, Iberia. We ended up getting boarding passes from Iberia for different seats in Premium Economy. Instead of the Row 1 seats we had, they have given us seats in Row 3 that back up to the bulkhead and do not recline. Also, with our first seats baggage was included, now the new boarding passes say baggage is not included. Not sure what's going to happen with that. In my opinion, they should give us the original seats back and compensate the people who they sold them to in error.. These non-reclining seats aren't going to be very good for an almost 12 hour flight and my husband's spinal arthritis. This is the whole reason why we paid extra and booked these seats so far in advance. Also, after being so careful about covid, I now have to sit next to a stranger for 12 hours.

We are now trying to call American airlines to see what they have to say. And, yes, I have a screen shot from the Iberia website that shows our seat assignments from back in December. We also have a receipt for when we paid for the upgrade.

Thank you Blag. Except for one thing - it was Iberia who collected the money for the upgrade. And we had 2 seats that consist of one window seat and an aisle seat. Showing available now are seats shared with others, which I wanted to avoid. I am thankful that it appears the flight is not full, and we will get there. LOL But, I want my fricking window seat that I paid for 5 months ago!!! Joyce

We are (hopefully) cruising on the Pursuit 5/31 out of Barcelona. We usually book our own airfare, but with Covid and all going on, we decided to use Choice Air. Our flight is this Sunday, 5/29 out of San Francisco to Barcelona and Choice Air booked us on Iberia (Through American Airlines) for the flight. We paid extra for premium economy seats (sort of like business class) in December and got our seat assignments way back then. Now, we have checked our flights for Sunday and we have NO seat assignment. Our paid for assigned seats have been given to someone else. Our travel agent has called Choice air this morning and they won't call Iberia to check on this. Iberia won't talk to our travel agent because they say our travel agent is Choice air. We personally called Iberia and got through once, got disconnected. Got through a second time and the agent (who we could hardly understand) said there was nothing they could do. At this point we aren't sure who to talk to. Azamara? Travel Agent? Choice Air? American Airlines? Iberia? Any suggestions? Jeez, So upset right now...

It's just a week Barcelona to Lisbon. I plan to do a daily "live from" like you did if the internet allows.

Thank you for the live report, I really enjoyed it. 🙂 We will board the Pursuit on Tuesday, getting pretty close now! Joyce

Good Luck. If you can't get a flight, I think we have a sofa in our cabin and you would be welcome to hang out if you need. I would love to meet you, as I am of German descent and Germany is on my bucket list. LOL

Oh good. I will be fine with all of those!! 🙂

Hi lvi. Thank you again for your travel log! Sorry to hear about your flight cancellation. Did you book it on your own or through Azamara Choice Air? In many years of travel, I have booked my own air most of the time. This time though, with COVID and everything else going on, we did book our air using the cruise line's Choice Air. I am usually our travel planner, but my husband had booked our cruise as a surprise for me for Christmas. He had us flying in from the US to Barcelona on the day of the cruise. The FIRST thing I did was change that. I NEVER do that, too many things can happen. Going home after isn't a big deal, but getting to the ship is. LOL

Hi Lvi! So excited to hear that the white night is back. This will be my first Azamara cruise and I was really looking forward to the White Night! I was wondering, I have another wine question. I saw that you posted the reds that are included daily, and I was wondering about the whites. Do they have a chardonnay or pinot grigio? I don't care for sweet white wine, I prefer dry....

Wow TraveleratHeart. I'm so sorry that happened to you. So basically you sat in a hotel in Italy, in separate rooms for a week and then flew home? I can't imagine. Were you very sick, or was it just mild? We are leaving this weekend for Barcelona and will test before we leave. But we will still be on the plane and overnight in Barcelona before doing embarkation on the Pursuit. I'm wearing my mask, but others aren't. We are both vaccinated and double boosted, but it seems that may not even be enough. Very sad to hear that Azamara didn't take better care of you guys. Did they take care of the hotel and flights home?

My documents and luggage tags were available as of this morning. 8 days out from the cruise.

Curious, how close to the cruise did you find out you got the upgrade?

I logged into Azamara's website this morning and my Cruise Documents and Luggage tags are now (Finally) available. We are 8 days from sailing on the Pursuit.

Things are good where I am. Thank you for asking. I live in Brentwood, CA close to San Francisco. Today, I am packing for my first Azamara Cruise on the Pursuit 5/31. It's currently Sunny and 99 Degrees in my backyard, and the pool is 82!! Getting ready to go for a swim. A week from now, we will be heading to the airport. I can hardly wait!

Just to clarify - it's OK to bring on a bottle of liquor, like Crown Royal to drink in the cabin?

We are 9 days out from our May 31st cruise on the Pursuit. We checked in online on the Azamara website and we have our boarding passes. However, we do not have luggage tags (still says "processing") and we do not have Documents available. I was wondering what is included in the "cruise documents?" Should I be concerned?

Hey Laurie, I will try as long as the internet is working for us. My hubby has to do some work everyday, so I'm hoping we will be OK. I noticed you were on Tahitian Princess 3 times!! We did that for our 25th wedding anniversary 15 years ago...What an incredible trip that was. I guess the Pursuit is comparable to that ship...