mare s.

Do I see a pattern? Every time there's a program change that dissatisfies some in the community the topic of survival comes back to the top of the list.

 

Be assured, as I am from my conversations with Larry this week, that Azamara Club Cruises is stronger than ever. Here are some facts:

 

We have hit or exceeded budget in each quarter.

We have the best occupancy in the company's history.

We continue to have excellent guest scores in rating the crew and product.

Our repeat guest numbers have never been higher.

Our advanced bookings for 2015 are the best we have ever seen.

You, our cruise critic readers voted us the best ships in the small category several years in a row.

 

Hopefully you will do so again next year!

Bonnie

Not trying to be argumentative here, but at least in this community (who are avid cruisers and Azamara loyalists, for the most part) I don't think you can really say that the changes dissatisfy "some" people. It's been an almost unanimous "thumbs down." And I think it's more than dissatisfaction; it's a feeling of being un-valued. If we can afford Azamara's prices, I think that most can afford some laundry or internet. But the new program is really smoke and mirrors and most here will see no benefit, just removal of some simple perks that were more a token of appreciation of our patronage than a huge monetary savings. The crew is what sets Azamara apart from other cruiselines and as long as the on board experience continues to be as good (and prices don't rise even more), I think Azamara will be ok. (But I wonder how much of the advanced bookings for 2015 are the result of the charters...and 2016 too!)

"I too have made initial negative comments about the changes as it seemed so counter productive but then remembered that we mustn't lose sight of the reason why we cruise Azamara and that is for the on board experience and wonderful officers and crew. We are returning home to Quest in 3 weeks and Journey in November and we can't wait."

Yes, exactly. That's why I suspect that after the initial uproar and complaints, many will continue to book Azamara cruises. (Let's all hope that the on board experience remains as wonderful as it is. The changes in Aqualina bode well, but we'll have to see.)

I can't see why this change would be regarded as bad? We dined in Aqualina twice on our recent Quest TA and enjoyed it both times but will be just as eager to go and try the new restaurant when we are on Journey next year and with the menu changing every few days, we may be tempted to visit more often. :D

I do agree. This is one actual enhancement, IMO. Nice after all the negative stuff going on. We ate in Aqualina the last time, because we loved the atmosphere and because our favorite waiter was now assigned there. But I'm glad Azamara is trying something different. The Grand Marnier soufflé is yummy too and I hope they keep it on menu. I've always felt that the desserts on Celebrity and on Azamara were not as good as the rest of the food. Princess was certainly a cut below Azamara, but they managed to put out perfect soufflés every night in the MDR.

I do hope they keep the goat cheese appetizer. I loved it!

My head is spinning after reading all this! Am I wrong or are there so many terms and conditions that achieving the free nights or upgrades is a practical impossibility? (or that the savings are illusory as one has to purchase the original fare at brochure rates?)

Just like I discovered when I thought I'd take advantage of the new BOGOHO promotion...prices had been raised so much since we originally booked, that the new promotion turned out to cost more!

Bottom line is that for the most loyal customers there are very few who will qualify for the "enhanced" benefits. Azamara Joel can spin it however he wants but what the majority of us take away from all of this is that we have lost benefits.

I am not encouraging anyone to cancel -- just wanted to show that it is possible so that those who do want to cancel will know.

 

We are also itinerary driven -- I found another option that works for us -- combing two cruises -- including one on a mega ship which we have been dying to try just for fun. We are sandwiching Allure between Oceania Nautica and Seabourn Odyssey -- talk about a change of atmosphere!!!

 

There are a lot of choices out there.

Azamara seems to have forgotten that fact.

Wow, what a combination of cruises! Should be very interesting. Do report back on your experiences.

Glad you were able to cancel. I was very angry when I read the "enhanced" benefits. I really appreciated the free internet and laundry and I was ready to cancel our 2015 cruise too. But cooler heads (my DH and friends who are going with us) prevailed. I also could not find a comparable itinerary with another cruiseline (we are very much itinerary focused) So we'll keep our cruise and hope that, between now and then, Azamara will come to its senses.

However, like a lot of other posters, I am very concerned for Azamara's future. They are alienating a fair number of loyal repeat customers. Once you've lost loyal customers, you've likely lost them forever and they will tell their friends, their travel agents, etc. Unless things change, I expect next year's cruise will be our last with Azamara. Very sad as we love the on board experience.

I was on Jpurney in Augsut and notihng was said anywhere. .this makes the le club voyager job easier with no laundry and free internet.. but i had no problem dining at ngiht in specality places.. i like 8 or later so it was easy. I still care more about laundry than internet as half the time it does not work.. wheni do lunch or dinner in port i look for free wifi as i can post pictures to facebook and friends.

 

but this was a stupid move and will wait and see whati can find for 2016 for cruies.

Robin, the new dining program was only recently announced. I'll be interested to know how it impacts your upcoming cruises. As for internet, we found it slow but generally working. It made it easier to take knowing that we had free minutes to spare; I'd be totally frustrated if I were paying for those slow minutes. And since we are able to cruise only once or twice a year, I don't want to spend my precious time in ports looking for free wifi spots.

And I completely agree that this new program was a very stupid move for Azamara if they really value their returning passengers. I also agree with all the posters who have remarked that this is a very obvious play for enhanced revenue, as you have to buy something to get (??) something.

mare

The bottle of sparkly was a nice touch (but we hardly ever drank it!) But the free internet minutes and the free laundry were and are very important to us. We don't want to spend time in port looking for internet cafes! We're in the same position as a couple of other posters...at the Discoverer level already but unlikely to be moving up any time soon so the "complimentary" days are useless to us. We are not much interested in the "upgrade" opportunity either as we always book early to pick our preferred cabin location. And now, with the addition of the dining tiers and packages, suite passengers will find it much harder to avail themselves of complimentary specialty dining. So really that's another "perk" gone.

All in all, very very upsetting. We loved you Azamara, but with all the changes in the past couple of years (let's not forget the loss of the harpist and now great chunks of prime cruising time turned over to charters) and the increase in cruise prices and the loss of LCV benefits, we're going to seriously reconsider our loyalty. Time to look at other cruiselines and maybe convert our 2015 cruise to a land vacation instead.

i was in the copa area.. will never go back. prefer BA and al lhte wonderful things to see there. .but to me the worse is flying in and out of the airport.. one of the worse ones i have ever been too.

I think we enjoyed Rio because of our guide and because we met up with a Brazilian friend there, but I agree that Copa would not be my choice of places to stay. Our hotel in Ipanema was delightful. BA was great...spent a few days there too after the cruise and walked and walked! Lots to see and do. But I think our favorite of all the ports on that cruise was Punta Del Este Uruguay. Loved it there.

FWIW, we were in Rio last year and arrived a few days early for an Azamara S.A. cruise. We stayed in Ipanema and walked all around (even up and back to the botanical garden..a must see) and felt quite safe. We had a wonderful private guide for a couple of days and she advised us not to walk at night at Copa and she told us what really bad areas to avoid. With her we visited the suburbs of Rio as well as visiting an indigenous peoples' village. Rio is a lot of fun and we're glad we took the time to stay there.

We have always booked a balcony. I just love being able to go out in the early morning and see us pull into port...and then have breakfast on the balcony. I also prefer, on sea days, to sit on the balcony and watch the ocean. (I'm also a bit claustrophobic, lol, so I'm not sure I could handle a closed cabin, even if it does have windows.)

I always try to travel with just a carry on and a backpack. It can be done, particularly for a warm weather cruise. We spent three weeks in South America last year (two on the cruise and one on land) and managed just fine. (of course, we took advantage of the washers and dryers on board and the one bag of free laundry we got) I just don't trust the airlines particularly when there are connections. On our Mexico cruise from our home port, I took a large suitcase, over packed and ended up not using half of what I took. It's surprising how little one really needs.

Floris,

If your tale does not alert somebody to the issues after the time/money you have spent then God help Azamara.

Not sure if you are able to access twitter but a twit to Larry may be in order.

We are booked over Christmas on BA - Rio cruise but have not yet booked anything else until we begin to hear some positive things re pre cruise admin.

 

Good luck on Holland America as the age range is from 70 upwards.

We heard from our last trip on them that they trawl assisted living complexes and offer incentives for the homes for passengers.

I do not know your age but you still sound too young for them but good luck.

Our first couple of cruises (which hooked us on the concept of cruising) were with HAL and we were well below the "70 and upwards" demographic. We enjoyed HAL but we are itinerary focused and we also decided that formal nights were not really our thing. Tried Celebrity and then we found Azamara. On our last Azamara cruise there were lots of older folk with walkers. I think it really depends on length of cruise and itinerary. But I'd always prefer to cruise with "70 and up" than with partying 20 year olds! ;-)

"A rep called my TA about the online registration problem. The rep actually badmouthed me to the TA, saying that I did not know how to use the computer."

Wow! So the default response to a problem is to be rude to and demean the customer??? Same thing happened to Florisdekort.

Azamara...you really have an issue that needs to be resolved asap. Between sudden charters and worse than bad customer service shoreside, you are not only alienating past customers, but you are making it hard for new customers and making it difficult for travel agents (and how do you think that's going to play out in terms of T.A. recommendations to their clients?)

I sure hope that between now and final payment next May, things improve. I never thought I'd say it, and I don't want to over react, but I am really re-thinking our booking.

If you use FF points and for whatever reason the cruise doesn't go ahead can't you get the points back and pay a small admin fee to the airline? Not sure of the rules you are bound by, but that is what I can do with British Airways and it does add flexibility.

 

Phil

We were planning to use a combination of points and pay for the flights..I don't know what the rules are if we cancel. We're certainly going to check that out! Let's hope we don't have to.

So sorry, Kimber and Sherry, that your plans are all messed up. The on board experience is so wonderful but I don't blame you for being put off.

When we first cruised with Azamara we noticed that the ship was not sold out. (Made for an even better experience for those on board, though.) And there are still lots of cabins available for our 2015 sailing, so (to play devil's advocate) who could blame Azamara if there was an opportunity to charter and sell out the cruise. The downside for Azamara may be that a lot of potential returning customers will think "once burned, twice shy."

mare

This was the reason for my previous question...I will be able to book my air in about a month for my cruise next August...surely there will be some compensation for my loss if they cancel the cruise?

If you're not booked through Choice Air, I doubt very much that Azamara would compensate. Travel insurance might help (if it is one that covers cruiseline cancelations) but it too is several hundred dollars out of pocket. This whole thing is extremely unsettling. I guess if worse came to worst and we had air but no cruise, we'd just make a land vacation out of it. Not what we wanted but there might not be any alternative.

I've been following this thread with some dismay. We have a September 2015 cruise booked and were planning to arrange our flights as soon as the schedules are released so that we could take advantage of frequent flyer points. But if Azamara is canceling cruises for charters only 9 months out, it give us pause. I've also been thinking that since these charters are so profitable (and are being increased) that, indeed, Azamara may be heading down the road as being a mostly charter cruiseline...hence no new builds. I do hope I'm wrong...the poll on future destinations got me drooling!

mare

Did you enter the Promo Code of BOGOHO for the right price?

yes. but the price for a veranda cabin has increased significantly and we originally booked with the upgrade promotion.

No advantage to rebooking under the new promotion for us. The veranda price would still be more than we paid under the upgrade promotion. Too bad, but I'm still happy with the price we got originally.

"but personally, I would prefer to do the Eastern seaboard of America in good weather, say New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston and then perhaps up to New York, Boston and even Canada. Would love to see Quebec."

A small ship would be perfect to do this itinerary and then along the St. Lawrence. We did New England/Canada on HAL as our first cruise and I would love to do that itinerary again, especially in the Fall.

Ok...as we suspected the new promotion appears to be 50% off guest. Would have been great at the prices posted a couple of weeks ago but not at the new ones. It would end up more than we paid under the upgrade promotion.

Hello JVNYC, et.al.,

 

We asked this community and you voted!

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2053272&highlight=poll

hmmm...a bit cryptic but the poll was in favor of 50% off second guest. That would be great except I noticed that in the last day or so prices on our cruise next year have increased significantly (over $1000 pp for verandas) So no incentive to change our booking. Not to be cynical, but I wonder if prices will come back down after the promotion (whatever it is.)

One point no one has really focused on is that Azamara published their 2016 schedules a year earlier than most other cruise lines. At the moment, Crystal is the only other line I can find with 2016 schedules. It would have been so much easier if Azamara had just held off a few months, since they must have known this charter was a possibility.

 

A second point is about the business case for such charters. This seems like a classic case of short-term thinking vs. long-term. The charters will buoy up [pun intended] Azamara's profitability in 2015 and 2016, but at the expense of severely impeding their ability to forge long-term loyalty relationships with customers. The only way this makes sense is if RCI said "Stop the losses and you can get new ships." Then this is like a baseball team trading away their high-priced All-Stars in order to "rebuild for the future." I hear that works in some parts of the country. In NY, we Yankee fans would stop buying tickets immediately. ;)

Exactly!

So a chip and signature card will not work in Europe? I am fairly sure that because they say chip and SIGNATURE in the literature that came last month with the card it is not chip and pin. United Mileage Plus from Chase? anybody know for this one?

from what I've been reading in the discussion on the Italy Forum, you can use chip and signature at places where there is a human being....however, unstaffed ticket kiosks, etc. require the chip and pin. And you can't just call the issuing bank and request a chip and pin...they aren't widely available yet. Apparently, banks will be moving to this new technology by the end of 2015.

Nonrev1...how did the restaurants process your non-chip card? I thought their cc readers wouldn't read a magnetic strip? Did they manually have to enter the cc number and information?