jwilcox

An additional question - I understand that to upgrade from the Premium drinks package to the Ultimate you simply pay the difference in the daily rate. But I've read a suggestion that if you ask for a spirit from the Ultimate list there is only a "slight upcharge" that reflects their difference between the a Premium level spirit and the desired Ultimate level spirit. Does anyone have any experience with this?

If this is not clear I'll make up an easy example (not using real prices). If a scotch listed on the premium list costs $10 and a scotch listed on the Ultimate list costs $12, are you charged just the $2 difference? Or, since you've ordered something not included in your package do you pay the full $12?

Do you any of you who have been doing this for a while know if Azamara ever offers their "Experience Packages" at a discounted price, perhaps as as an incentive for more people to sign up for them?

I am not a "wine snob". In fact, I specialize in finding and enjoying good, cheap wines. On our two Azamara trips the wines available on the Ultimate package were either not really available, or would retail here in California for under $10. There are good wines still available at that price, but sadly not the ones in the Ultimate package we had access to for our two trips. Calling the wines they offered "ultimate" in any way is a joke.

I should add that the same thing happened with some alcohol choices too. One reason we got the package was to have access to good Cognac and scotch. The best of what they had listed on the package list on the table where we signed up were also not really available. 

I understand things change and sourcing wines all over the world is difficult, but how hard would it be to put out a list that reflects what they actually have available, especially at the sign-up table. 

We have our second Azamara cruise coming up in a couple weeks or so. I thought that for the last one we received "documents" (can't remember what exactly, and maybe i'm not remembering this correctly) a few weeks before we sailed. Now we leave in two weeks and i haven't received a single communication from Azamara about our upcoming trip. Should I be expecting to get some communication from them at this point? 

The online system is showing everything is OK with the reservation including all the options we selected. But it seems odd that we would show up at check-in with nothing other than the confirmation we got way back when we booked over a year ago,

On 7/2/2023 at 11:23 AM, Dudeljo said:

We have OBC but it is not showing in our account. Like everyone here.

But we wanted to book excursions, using OBC so we asked Azamara how to do this. 

This is their reply:

Using Onboard Credit to Book Shore Excursions

To use your onboard credit (OBC) to book shore excursions, after logging into your account: Scroll down to Shore Excursions and select “Book” on the $0 Onboard Credit item to authorize use of your onboard credit Book your desired Shore Excursions Once your Shore Excursions are booked, navigate to the payment screen and click “Cancel" Your selected shore excursions are now booked, and onboard credit will be applied     Well, that looks easy. So I tried.  Step 1 ✅ Step 2 ✅ Step 3 ❓How to navigate to the payment screen? I tried a lot but nothing worked: no payment screen.   Is there anyone who knows?   Thank you so much, Jo

Exactly what I said a few posts above yours. Still hoping someone can tell me how to do this.

5 hours ago, fruitmachine said:

At the top of the list there are two tabs., Booked and Available 

Thank you. This took care of that problem Now if I can only figure out how to pay.

I seem to have an additional problem. When I first looked at excursions under the Manage My Reservation link I saw the full list of all available excursions. We we certain we wanted to take one of them, but wanted to think about others. So I signed us up for the one we wanted and hit STORE. We have finally decided on another we want to take but now when I go to Excursions it only shows the one we have already signed up for. I can't figure how to add another excursion to the first one we signed up for.  Has anyone successfully done this?

9 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

Just click on Continue then Pay Now, then click Cancel if you have OBC, otherwise you say who’s paying then put your card details in

When I first logon I get three choices - Make a Payment, Manage My Reservation, and the option for having a problem. If I click on either of the first two (Make a Payment or Manage My Rservation) it takes me to a summary screen that shows all the details about my reservatoin including the excursions I've signed up for, the Special Request we've made, and the extras we wanted. At the bottom is an option (the only option) that says "STORE". There is no CONTINUE option, although I seem to remember one back when I was entering my excusion choices. If I click on STORE all it does it give me a popup that says my reservationed has been stored. I have to click OK to make that popup disappear and then I am back at the summary screen with the option to STORE.

I am an IT professional. So I feel comfotable saying that the design of their new website is AWFUL. There are so many things wrong with it and so many terrible design features it is incomprehensible how they could have paid someone to design this for them. It looks like it was done completely without any user testing, or without any user experience people having input on it.

Having said that (hoping someone at Azamara reads this thread) I did get the notice. Fortunately I had already stumbled on the "Store" option which is not self evident. That was after having selected shore excurions more than once only to have them not show up next time - because I hadn't found the "Store" function. However I still cannot figure out how to pay for what I have signed up for. The announcement says to "Navigate to the payment screen". But I can't figure out how to do that. If anyone out there has figured out how to get to the payment screen I'd appreciate your letting me know how to do that.

We are staying at a hotel nnear San Marco after we disembark our Azamara cruise. I understand that we will arrive at Porto Maritima, but is not clear to me even after reading several posts how we should proceed from there. I think we could take a water taxi but that would cost something like 100 Euros. Can we take a vaporetto? If so, where would be the nearest vaporetto stop on a line that goes to San Marco, or San Zaccaria, and could we walk to it with luggage?

19 hours ago, fruitmachine said:

From posts on other threads, I think it is clear that you will be bussed by the port authorities to the Marittima Cruise Terminal.  The only exception to this is for those that are on earlier flights from Marco Polo Airport.

 

The options from there to your hotel include combinations of walking, People Mover, vaporetto and water taxi and are just the same as when larger ships docked at the Marittima Cruise Port.  Perhaps others will comment on the detail of that.

Thanks. That was what I thought but it is good to have someone confirm it. Now if someone can give me the specifics of the local tansport needed to get to our hotel. We ae 75 and healthy enough to walk a few miles, but not while schlepping our luggage. So the easiest way possible is what we would be looking for if anyone out there can help.

I'm really confused about where exactly I will "hit the ground" when disembarking at (what Azamara says is) Fusina. We added a few extra days at the end. How to do we get to our hotel which is very close to St, Mark's?

On 9/20/2022 at 12:03 PM, federalexpress said:

What intrigues me is that the Ultimate package is far from cheap, yet there seems to be little guidance on the quality standard that is provided, even allowing for the individual wines to change/rotate.

 

I'm planning on buying the Ultimate package on the basis of what I've heard reported as being offered. For example I've seen they offer (or offered) a Matanzas Creek Merlot which is a decent quality wine. I've seen that at $60 plus a bottle on their main list. I'm fine with that not being available but if I'm then offered a $30 a bottle Chilean Merlot from a mass producer instead, that doesn't work with me. The Ultimate package is quite a big extra cost, roughly $25 a day I believe. I think you have a right to know what you're getting for this in advance, at least on the guide price point. They must have plenty of wines available at a given price point range, which I assume (but don't know) is $40-60 or so per bottle (restaurant price, obviously their buy cost will be way lower, probably a third of that).

FWIW the Matanzas Creek Merlot was one of the few wines from the list that they actually had. On the other hand the Oregon Pinot Noir was gone and they offered an Italian Pinot that I think cost about $10/bottle, and was pretty awful. I talked with the sommelier. Told him I understood the supply chain issues and that my problem was with their having a sheet showing wines on the ultimate drinks package on a table where they were advertising the package while knowing that many of the wines on that list were not really available. He told me the list came from the corporate office and they couldn't update it even though they know it's out of date. On the plus side they were also out of Couvoisier VSOP cognac but substituted Remy Martin VSOP. So that was a good swap.

On 9/3/2022 at 4:45 AM, asnaleah said:

Thank you for this information. We have been considering bringing wine on board. Did you find the wines available on the Ultimate package pretty good? Many choices?

Just got off the Quest a week ago. My suggestion would be not to bother having someone send you a copy of the wines available on the Ultimate package. As soon as we boarded and sat down on the rear deck for a champagne toast we discovered that the one listed on the Ultimate package list had been substituted with another. Portends of the future! The next four times we ordered a wine off the list we received a substitute, or at least an offer of a substitute. 

Quite frustrated at the moment. I tried to book an experience package over the phone using OBC and they told me I could not do that in advance but I would be able to use OBC to buy the package once on board. They convinced me to pay for it with credit card and then ask Guest Relations to use the obc once i was on board and refund what i paid to my cc. So I boarded a couple hours ago and was told I could NOT use obc for experience packages. Hmmm. Then I thought maybe everything would work out as long as they used Azamara obc first and refunded the obc from my travel agent. They told me the travel agent obc is not refundable. So now I'm left with lots of obc that I expected to use for the experience package. I'm also left having paid for something with cc after being told it would be refunded once on board only to have ship staff refuse to do that. This can't be something decided by individual ships. How can I find what official policy is on use of obc?

33 minutes ago, Port Power said:

You won’t see OBC in your account until you are on the ship. However it should show on the booking paperwork from your TA.  General OBC from Azamara is not refundable and will automatically be used first.  OBC from your TA is usually refundable, so if you don’t use it, you can take it as cash on the last day, or credit it back to your credit card.

Thanks. I had a bright idea and started to book a shore excursion. When I went to pay it showed OBC. Do you know if that would be the total of the two, or just Azamara's OBC?

I know I've seen lots of posts about OBC, but I can't find exactly what I'm looking for. My TA provided some OBC for my cruise and I am supposed to get some from Azamara. Where do I go in my account to see what the two amounts are, and make sure they are recorded properly?

6 hours ago, Delvinium said:

Hi All,

Experienced cruisers but first time Azamara with late booking for a cruise on Azamara Pursuit in a few days. I have emailed and tried calling to book an 'Experience more Package' but so far can’t get a response (cut the last call after a wait of 1hr 10m).  Would anyone know if these packages can be purchased on board?

Many thanks,

D

Our upcoming trip will be our first on Azamara. So I am as far from an expert as possible. However I tried to book one of these packages using OBC and they (Azamara phone rep) told I could not do that prior to boarding and I would have to do it on board. 

We're planning on being super careful, but Covid has a way of hitting even people who are taking precautions. So Im curious if anyone here knows whether the ship medical staff provide treatment, or just isolate the passenger and wait for them to get over it. Also wondering about the availability of Paxlovid. Does anyone know if ships carry a supply of it to administer if someone tests positive?

I've found information about flying and boarding my cruise (in Southampton), but I can't find any information about disembarking at stops along the way (France, Spain and Portugal). Are there any restrictions of passengers disembarking to take shore excursions in those counttries? Or, where can I find that information?

5 hours ago, federalexpress said:

I'd very much agree with that. I'm not personally concerned about the medical effect of Omicron, having had it recently only mildly ( I realise others have health conditions that make them feel differently) but the fear of isolation and a ruined cruise costing £10k plus is enough. I said previously, I feel the cruise lines are outsourcing the risk to us here....

Even if it is only a mild impact on you it could be much worse for others. For our part we are equally worried about getting it, and about unknowingly passing it on to others who might end up with a bad case.

8 hours ago, uktog said:

Where two are in a room one is moved to another room. Along from us are several rooms where people have covid. We see people in hazmat suits delivering meals. Looks like for 1 so I’m assuming the infected people stayed in the balcony room. What surprised me is Azamara is not testing these people daily. 
 

We also know people have dreadful coughs but not got tested. We heard some people had tested positive using their own tests but had said nothing. There was a lot of I don’t want to lose days of my cruise when I’ve only got a soar throat overhead by a friend on a tour. 
 

So some very responsible people interspersed with a few idiots. 

The version of Covid going around now is highly contageous. I was looking forward as much as anyone to not having to test before boarding and not needing masks. But right now ships full of unmasked people are just a  super-spreader event waiting to happen. If it were my call I'd resume testing before boarding to at least try to keep infected people from coming on board and starting an epidemic. Sure people could catch it on day trips, but unless it happened really early in the cruise hopefully that would not spread as fast as something that started spreading on embarcation day. Any way this kind of post has us thinking once again about what kind of precautions to take.

9 hours ago, yogagal47 said:

We were in Greece for 5 days pre-cruise. We spent almost all of our time outdoors and avoided Athens touring as we were convinced that crowds would increase the risk of catching covid. We stayed one night in Piraeus then took the ferry to Aegina and had a lovely 4 day stay there. We came back to spend a night at the Alex in Piraeus again before the cruise. 

We also hope to avoid crowds as much as possible.  Eating in our room or at a table for two should help, and that's why I'm disappointed to hear there's no outdoor seating for dinner, We've got some small group excursions planned and are worried about the close quarters on a van or mini-bus. But we're taking a whole bunch of N95s and plan to mask up when near others. I'm hoping others will do the same but, sadly, a lot of people seem to have given up masking. 

On 7/19/2022 at 1:19 PM, Zoey said:

I’d prefer to take the covid test and have the Patio open for dinner during my cruise. 

You'd think that with Covid raging again they would want people eating outdoors as much as possible

I can find likely temps in our ports of call for our cruise departing from Southampton and ending in Lisbon. But, we are spending two nights at sea in the Atlantic going from Southampton to Bordeaux (Aug 30 and Sep1). Trying to figure our how warm to pack. Anyone gone that route have an idea what the temps are likely to be like then. I realize we can be inside for that part of the cruise, but still interested.