Riocca

The meeting on our recent Onward cruise was very well attended, many had signed up but these days that has no effect as there are no longer invites in your cabin. As with many other cruise lines it’s down to the roll call to ensure participants know when and where to look for the information in the Insider.

The registration on the old website was a Royal Caribbean thing and I don’t think anything like that will appear on the new website. Based on recent experience Azamara will continue to facilitate un hosted meetings it’s going to be a matter of looking in the Insider to see when. With port intensive itineraries it’s often on embarkation day so it’s important to look at the Insider for that day.

Rules are quite complicated and vary country to country, if your itinerary is all EU then the VAT charged throughout the cruise is that of the country of embarkation. Rates vary between 10% & 22% some apply it to goods in the shops only others include drinks and other services. One exception to the non EU port rule is Spain, even if your itinerary includes a non EU port Spanish VAT will apply to shop purchases while the ship is in Spanish territorial waters.

Same here iPad shows correct points but iPhone is showing more at 2550, before Easter I could get into all my bookings on Safari but now I can see the bookings but not get into them. However using Chrome for iPad I can get into the bookings, details of our October cruise looking better although invoice amount is still a little out possibly because it’s showing a cost of £30 for the AzAmazing evening. Had a look at my Celebrity account and it’s showing the Azamara cruise we completed last week although it’s not showing any future Azamara cruises so there must be some data sharing between the companies. I’m sure it’s all going to be resolved soon but it must be an epic task to check all the accounts and bookings.

I don’t think unless it was done manually onboard, which the ships probably didn’t have the resources to do, the old system could differentiate between the different types of OBC, over the years we’ve used Shorex OBC for other things many times without problems. However looking at our current bookings our OBC is showing in two categories general & Shorex so I have a feeling the new system once fully implemented is going to be a bit more pedantic.

I understand the concern of those who are cruising in the next month or two but some others are creating problems, there was always going to be problems as RC’s system dates from the 1990’s and is most likely written in a totally different way from Azamara’s new system. So the likelihood of data conversion being flawed was always high add to this the fact that however much you test a new system once in the hands of the general public they will find errors, just look at what happens with Apple’s iOS releases. If you have an existing booking you should have a booking confirmation with the correct details and any Shorex bookings will have been confirmed by email. We booked onboard Onward and the trade booking engine was working fine so travel agents should be able handle bookings even if the website system is not quite right at the moment. Yes in an ideal world the transition would be seamless and currently it’s worse than expected but if you’re not traveling for a few months hence just let Azamara sort things out first before adding to the workload.

It’s supposed to represent well traveled luggage although it’s only a covering for the original ceiling, currently onboard Onward tonight is White Night and the Atlas Bar is extremely busy must be a good revenue source for Azamara. Our favourite bar would love to see it on all the ships.

Four out of five future cruises now show the correct final payment and date although the invoice details show things included like insurance and Shorex that shouldn’t be there. The only incorrect booking is a very complicated one that includes free days and future cruise credits, balance not due until July so no need to worry for a while yet.

Website and account was shut down when we boarded, Express pass not required nor luggage label, no issues with saying cruise had an outstanding balance, correct OBC showed up overnight first night as usual and tour tickets in room as booked.

I think you need to disconnect what’s showing on your online account, we’re onboard Onward and despite being in transition the information on the ships system was completely correct.

From another thread, should have gone to TA’s and direct bookers.

Just been looking at my bookings on my account, the one made onboard this week on the new system is 100% correct but all the ones brought over have errors, to me this confirms where the problem is. I know Azamara are working on it but just think how many bookings are having to be manually checked, it might be frustrating but give them time if your cruise is in the future wait don’t phone it only makes matters worse.

Future cruise on Onward is Ke Wu, she is fully up to speed with the new system and extremely efficient. We were impressed with the speed of booking with the new system possibly helped by the good wi-fi connection. With the old system it often took a while before we received a quote then another day before the booking confirmation, this time we were working in real time could check all the details on screen including cabin availability. Booking was done deposit paid and confirmation printed within 15 minutes biggest delay was us choosing which cabin we wanted.

Having spoken to people onboard it’s the reverse, Versonix Seaware is a respected IT company that has experience with a large number of cruise lines however having been promised a clean data package from RC what has been provided is anything but. Apparently RC’s system is decades behind and a lot of the data is corrupt meaning Azamara has to manually update the information. If anyone is incompetent it’s Royal Caribbean for providing poor quality unusable data. Good news is Azamara’s back office operating system is working fine has been running for over a year now and we’ve no problems onboard certainly not gone hungry or thirsty, for those boarding soon don’t worry online check in is unnecessary and won’t cause any problems. Just turn up at the times Azamara has indicated and enjoy the onboard experience.

We’re on our way to deck 10.

Lisa, we’re watching the white night chairs being put out, off to ours is sailing out of Seville in a couple of days time. Atlas bar is as good as ever 🥳

Just to make you jealous this is the speed onboard Onward in Gibraltar 😁

I’m seeing the same including the booking we made onboard a couple of days ago, we were told when we made the booking that the onboard credit area wasn’t working at the moment so she had to manually write it on the invoice. Looking at the invoice data they have added insurance at considerable cost to all our bookings except the one we’ve just made, so it’s moving in the right direction but glad I’ve kept information on all my bookings.

Yes, don’t worry having boarded Onward last Saturday all the check in details will be on the new system and the boarding pass does nothing but help them locate you in the system by name and stateroom number which won’t take long to ask you. At check in in Gran Canaria they allocated a boarding group number as you arrived based on stateroom category and loyalty level, we had already chosen a boarding time but I think there’s a previous post in this thread showing the boarding times for cruises during the time that the system is down. Our boarding was very quick only had to wait for a bit because the taxi transfer from hotel to port was quicker than expected.

Location and speed test onboard Onward today.

Currently onboard Onward made a new booking for 2025 without a problem, we were told that there are errors in the system but it’s improving every day and hopefully by the 1st April it will be fully functional.

We boarded Onward last Saturday and although we had bag tags from the old system on our cases new Azamara tags were put on the bags at the drop off anyway.

On the upside we are currently onboard Onward no problem with check in, OBC added to account normally nothing to indicate any problems with the back office systems.

Azamara’s system is provided by Versonix Seaware who run systems for a number of different cruise lines including MSC & NCL so are very experienced in this type of system. As said elsewhere the old system is still live and running RC & Celebrity, I doubt very much that Versonix have access to RC’s system and are relying on data transfer. Those of us who experienced the old system will be unsurprised that the data transferred is far from complete or clean.

Under normal circumstances you could run parallel systems however on this occasion you have to remember the old system is still very much live and running Royal Caribbean & Celebrity’s account and booking system. Azamara have just received a data package which obviously has some serious issues.