Grandma Cruising

Sounds good, one of my favourite programmes.

The best thing to order ahead is the dessert soufflé. There's usually 1 flavour on the menu(and you have to say you want it at the beginning of the meal), but if you give them 48 hours notice you can choose from a list of flavours - grand marnier, limoncello, chocolate, hazelnut etc. They are all delicious.

There is really no allocated dining room, all passengers can dine where they choose, but all Suite passengers can dine free in the 2 speciality restaurants, whilst inside, ocean view and veranda passengers pay $35pp to do so. (You can buy dining packages which give a bit of a discount). Anyone in a Veranda Plus cabin also gets a free meal in each speciality restaurant per cruise week. The dining venues are Windows buffet, Discoveries main dining room & the Patio plus the 2 speciality restaurants, Prime C and Aqualina, for which you need to make reservations - it's a good idea to book these as soon as you get on board.

Also offer laundry bags for $40 from time to time. Bags look little but you can get a lot in if you roll it tight

We have done Athens to Dubai 4 times with Azamara and every time the ship handled all the visas.

Yes, our Amex card also charges - not foreign transaction fees, but an interest rate for taking out cash from the day I take it out to the day I pay it.

I think he means that taking a discount on the cruise price works out the same as getting money (possibly in the form of refundable OBC) from the TA after the cruise.

Thanks uktog for such informative and interesting posts. Certainly food for thought.

Thanks for the information - especially about the Fever Tree!

Work on layers, only way to go.

Do Viking not have cushioned mattresses on their loungers (as Azamara has)? That would be a deal breaker for us!

I did contact Azamara about the two accounts. They confirmed that during the migration they created new account numbers all starting with 00. They said they are working through the issues, but that my husbands loyalty level is preserved.

Thanks for this - it worked for me. My account got sorted out after I booked a cruise, but my husbands was still wrong - showed him as having no points and no upcoming cruises. Using your system we could see two accounts, one correct with his original membership number and one incorrect with a different membership number and we could see our upcoming cruises. I’ll contact Azamara to ask them to remove the incorrect account.

Chouilly is a champagne too.

As I understand it in the UK you get one price drop honoured only if you booked the cruise onboard. However, sometimes it’s worth cancelling, losing your deposit & rebooking - we once did that & still saved over $1000.

You can pay for the package when you book it, unless you want to use OBC.

So sorry to hear that you had a poor experience on Journey in July. We’ve never had that sort of experience onboard Azamara in our 11 cruises, but we haven’t been on the Journey for a while. Pursuit in March and Quest last October/November were fine for us. We”re due to be onboard Journey in November so it’ll be interesting to see if our experience measures up to the other two ships we’ve been on.

Only in the US I think, not available in the UK. Our current offer is free upgrade & 15% off Suites

Aah, found it! So no-one has checked across the site for consistency.!!

Maybe I have been lucky with the officers onboard. On our last cruise the HD was Marcelo and he was very responsive.

This is very strange - I can’t see a Q&A section in the Dining & Beverage pages - my info was from What to Wear in the Dining & Wine pages https://www.azamara.com/gb/our-ships/onboard-dining

Just been on the Azamara website and under Packing Tips it says Out of respect for others, bare feet, tank tops, baseball caps, bathing suits, shorts, and torn/distressed jeans are not allowed in the dining room or specialty restaurants. When dining at Windows Café, guests must wear footwear and a cover-up or shirt. Followed the dining link and it said the same. Interesting that you said you were on the Azamara.co.Uk site. When I try to go there it just defaults to Azamara.com.

All inclusive means no gratuities to pay, drinks included at all times (not just with meals), but included drinks are limited to a list - branded spirits - Gordon’s & Beefeater gin, Famous Grouse w husky, Smirnoff vodka etc. there are also included beers and wines - wines are generally 6 - 2 white, 2 red a rose and a sparkling wine. Speciality coffees are included too and snacks. There’s free 24 hour room service. On most cruises there is an Azamazing Celebration which may be an excursion ashore or an onboard special concert etc. Balcony plus are just a balcony canon with a few extras - bottle of spirits in the cabin, a couple of nights in the speciality restaurant (normally $35 a head), free bag of laundry, free Wifi package. As far as sales are concerned, there’s nearly always some kind of promotion, they vary in value. We tend to look for a price we’re happy with and just go for it.

Not my experience, every time I’ve raised an issue in my mid-cruise feedback on Azamara I’ve received phone calls from the appropriate staff responding to my issues and explaining what’s been done to put it right.

That’s an old quote - Azamara haven’t said no jeans for quite a while. What they do say is no distressed jeans.