Riocca

Tatiana is supposed to be on Onward until the 5th January.

With a bit of internet digging it was 2006-2012 and he also oversaw the introduction of the Solstice class of ships. The new CFO was with Virgin Voyages so would have been involved with the financing of their new builds, so that’s possibly the direction Sycamore are looking to go in the near future.

This is the email address for Guest Relations on Onward, they should be able to help you. on_grd@azamaraships.com

Azamara has overhauled the Refer & Receive offer; https://refer.azamara.com/global_header?pk_vid=d39cea4992a30df0169947155170cdc8 How this works outside the U.S. is unclear but it’s a sign things are getting changed.

Sometimes happens if there’s a possibility of an itinerary change or they’re negotiating a charter, so it may be a case of wait and see.

Possibly just add some OBC to the current deal, that’s been done before so must meet the required criteria.

Pushing live bookings over future cruise vouchers has been going on for a long time well before the sale of Azamara it was common on Celebrity as well but with much stronger sales patter. I’ve never understood why a loyalty benefit is linked to onboard sales it’s something that seems exclusive to Azamara and has to be a negative influence on sales when you’re not onboard.

We’ve only done one Viking Ocean cruise back in 2019 but we had the same experience, it was impossible to get extra bookings in the Italian restaurant over those that could be pre booked with the stateroom. There were also often 45 minutes wait for the main restaurant but you could always get into the Chefs Table even as a walk up. We thought it was a great concept especially as they rotated the menu often and we could try things we wouldn’t normally choose from a menu, we did hear a few complaints that the portion size was insufficient but it was fine for us.

On the plus side you can view details of the past reservations, however if a b2b has been rolled into one reservation number you only see details of the first cruise on the front page. If you enter the booking you see details of all the cruises, this applies to both future and past cruises.

Another website update! Once logged in when you view upcoming cruises the presentation has been updated and you can view the itinerary and shore excursions without entering the booking there’s also a link to Easy Check In which hopefully will reduce the number of check in question. Only annoying thing, and maybe it’s just me, the cruise name is all in lower case. Although for the first time our cruises are displayed in chronological order. Additionally there’s now a link to past cruises although currently they can only display cruises after the 1st April 2023, I assume this is cruises starting after that date as our cruise that ended on the 4th April is not showing.

Onboard Onward a couple of weeks ago they were offering the standard package at $19.95 per day which gave up to 512Kbps and an upgrade to higher speed which was up to 4Mbps for an additional $7.95 a day. Any complimentary minutes including whole cruise package with combined suite & loyalty benefits were at the standard speed. Wi-Fi included with the Experience More packages was at the higher speed. Presumably you could upgrade any complementary Wi-Fi by paying the additional fee, we didn’t ask as the slower speed was ok for what we wanted but we were also using 5g when in port and usually getting speeds of around 500Mbps. Incidentally the high speeds being experienced earlier in the year was when they were experimenting with the capability of the Starlink system.

All you need is your passport, all explained on the Azamara website and it works extremely smoothly. https://www.azamara.com/gb/booked-guests/before-you-board/online-checkin

Does sound like you might have booked a travel agents package, in the U.K. it’s very difficult to spot unless you ask the right questions. Often travel agents will purchase cabins from cruise lines at net rates and package them with flights, hotels and transfers difference is that then the travel agent is the holiday provider not the cruise line. It’s OK and can provide a much cheaper option as long as the agent is ABTA & ATOL registered. We’ve been offered packages cheaper than we could book the cabin directly from the cruise line in the past, but they often don’t have the flexibility we often require. I’ve also known agents to blame everything on the various providers they’ve contracted with and refuse to take any responsibility when things go wrong.

Personally I prefer the current system, with Azamara there are so many things that can affect the choices of which nights to book. Things like the AzAmazing Evening, White Nights and availability of Chefs Tables, some of these things are only finalised in the pre cruise staff meeting so aren’t available pre cruise when people are trying to book. Just imagine the amount of questions that would be asked, when’s white night and what nights are the chefs tables and which ones, all these things are available at the booking desk onboard. It also allows those who aren’t internet and tech savvy who don’t participate in CC and other forums to have simple access with staff who can give guidance.

A lot of Azamara’s procedures date back to what the Royal Caribbean software system could handle which was basically booking Shorex before boarding with OBC and/or money. Possibly with the new software the facility to make speciality restaurants before boarding will be introduced sometime in the future but they currently have more important matters to deal with. We’ve never had a problem with the system but others obviously do, although those cruise lines that offer the facility usually do it in stateroom category order if Azamara follows suit given that suites have unlimited speciality dining it could put lower stateroom categories at a disadvantage over the current system.

Sounds more like you need a travel agent that’s more on the ball, the link they gave you hasn’t been used for about two years the correct email is AzamaraCustomerService@Azamara.com If you book with a travel agent all communication will be sent to them so if Azamara have sent receipts then they will have gone to your travel agent as it will be their contact details on the booking.

All cruise lines will change itineraries if they consider that there’s a risk to ship and passengers and will take any travel advisories issued by the U.S. government seriously. Unfortunately we live in a volatile world and things can change at the drop of a hat as we have recently seen so there’s no guarantee with any itinerary.

One other improvement we noticed on the last cruise was that the cruise disappeared from our account on the second day of our cruise and the points for the entire 18 nights of the b2b, now under one booking number, added to our account. We spoke to other passengers who had spotted the same happened on their accounts. These points took us over a 3 free nights threshold and Future Cruise checked with Miami who confirmed that the free nights would be available if we wanted to make a booking on that cruise.

It’s the lack of communication that’s disappointing, the website itself is now quite good and carries a lot of information but people don’t know it’s there, things like Easy Check-in are good innovations and fully explained on the website but there’s been no communication about it, so on other platforms there are weekly questions about online check-in that no longer exists. When it comes to the Seaware software that’s a whole different situation, and it’s interesting to see that Explora Voyages are also experiencing problems. Things have improved since the beginning but there are obviously still issues regarding OBC how it’s displayed and when and to what it can be applied, again there needs to be clear communication on this issue. Having made two bookings on our recent cruise, one new the other a change of booking, the process was quick and easy the invoice information was much better than it was just a few months ago. Onboard sales felt that once the bookings transferred from the old RC system have gone things would be much better. We also met a couple of travel agents who work for a large U.S. travel agent, they were saying things have improved immensely and they no longer need to protect their clients from the Azamara system.

Same here, it was definitely showing a few days ago but as it’s the same on all 5 of our bookings we will wait and see what transpires.

There seems to have been another update on the website, firstly it’s now working properly with the latest version of iPad software iOS17 it has been a bit unstable when looking at bookings. More importantly OBC is no longer showing, as it’s the same in all 5 of our bookings it looks more deliberate than some of the previous problems. Hopefully they are working on displaying it in a better format.

We’ve had plenty of coffee water on the other ships even from jugs with Dymo labeled jugs saying hot water. Possibly the jugs on Onward are a legacy from Princess as they’re obviously not new but the bigger clearer labels make them easier for servers to identify, something that could easily be adopted on the other ships.

All the hot water jugs onboard Onward have large hot water stickers on them, we had no problems with coffee water in the 3 weeks we were on. Disembarked on Sunday so it’s a recent experience.

Istanbul yesterday the ship was moved from Galataport to Sarayburnu Port, all passengers had to pass through immigration and they only supplied 1 agent. It wasn’t until almost 8.30 a second agent was supplied at the ship’s insistence. Ships are always in the hands of local authorities and with the best will in the world can’t confirm early departure will be possible.

Heike is now with Explora Voyages and Captain Carl is on leave returning to Onward in November.