luv2travel90266

Still $10 corkage. My wife doesn’t drink so I would have 1/2 bottle left I would bring to my room and back next night for dinner. I would tell the waiter I paid corkage the eve before and was never challenged. It saved staff from hunting for my bottle as a benefit.

This has been a problem for the last few years since Royal Carib sold the line. Bring your wine aboard, pay corkage, a better deal and you will be drinking better wine too.

I would suspect they may do a house cleaning. Sycamore Partners have a valuable asset and they are noted to create more value for their invested capital. This is more of a question of how quickly they can fix the problems. Like others on cruise critic we like the product from our previous sailings. The back office issues have been most of the complaints. .

I haven’t heard of anyone being turned away. 1pm and you will probably be in your cabin by 1:30pm

We had 2 booking numbers but the same cabin. A new photo and processed in the lounge at the B2B meeting the last day of the first leg before dinner. All went smooth except the specialty dinner reservations.

I did the back to back with Barcelona the changeover earlier this year. Received the keycard the day before and was allowed to make dinner reservations at that meeting which which they proceeded to lose. Figured it out when I didn't get the reminder cards left outside our cabin. Suggest at sail-a-way on the second cruise confirming the reservations made it into their computer. We left early morning as we arranged a tour on our own. It was a very short day in Barcelona and we wanted to view as much as possible to be back by 4PM for a 5PM sail-a-way.

Don't forget many of the cruises go through great wine regions. Any reasonable size town will have a wine shop where they would be happy to help you choose a few wines to fit your palate that you may not get to experience at home. I use google, an excellent source for finding those shops.

Well said. We are looking forward to our Sept 2024 cruise, the 4th with Azamara. The product isn’t perfect but the on- board experience on the prior cruises caused us to sign up again. My only negatives are the wine offered even on the Ultimate Package is poor. Note as you review there are others who consider the basic included wines great. Perhaps I’m a wine snob. The reasonable corkage makes it easy to buy more palatable wines in port. I continue to have concerns of their back office and hope they solve soon and not cause additional damage to the brand. We don’t see ourself back on the big ships and like the benefits of the “R” class ships.

I had previously priced these out on other cruises and found I could do much better on my own.

I did the reverse trip in April 2023 from Chioggia port to to Piazzale Roma ,Venice. I arranged for the group of 6 I was with private transfer with https://it.navettaitalia.com/ .

As long as they allow you to use the OBC for other services (specialty dinners and chefs table) the OBC won't cover all the excursion costs for a cruise. I do agree with you that the OBC is built in to the cruise price and the excursions are a highly profitable revenue source for Azamara.

I tried the Azamara Branded wines and they were of comparable quality to "Two Buck Chuck" (now about $4/bottle) and below the quality of a house wine in any restaurant I would go to. If it were to be sold retail it would be less than $5/bottle. I recommend finding a wine shop in port and paying the $10 corkage.

I have headed 3 roll calls on Azamara and a number of them on Celebrity. I found and put together small group private tours of 6 to 8 at a lower cost with much better attention by the guides. It depends how much you like being on a big bus with 40 of which several are also late fir the bus. All being done online prior months before the cruise. I agree that the meet and greets are poorly attended partially due to them being done during sail away and partially do to no invites separate to a line in the daily schedule. With all going on with the boarding I do understand the staff on board has higher priorities.

Someone from a roll call needs to begin the process. I did it for 3 cruises. One had no one showing up. Azamara will put a one line on the daily schedule which will be missed by most.

The 3 table tour is 1 night at Aquilina, 1 at prime-C and the third at your choice of either. I note they don't list the individual price but I think it was either $30 or $35 when bought separately.

You can upgrade the liquor package at dinner too. They will send someone over to your table to do it.

The upgraded drink package is also charged beginning the day you upgrade. You might try what is part of you package or bring a bottle on board and pay $10 corkage. I found wine in most ports which was superior to what was served even paying the corkage. If you want topline hard liquor the drink package might be better value to you but for me it wasn't. You can see what is supposed to be available but don't count on them having what you see here https://www.azamara.com/booked-guests/onboard-packages

The chefs table tends to fill up first. I typically go to the booking area immediately upon boarding to make reservations. They will know when the White Night is scheduled too.

Whenever we needed to leave early it saved time. Always served promptly with a smile by the crew!

Already planning my Greek cruise for 2024 and found several wine shops by the Acropolis Wine Stores . The low cost corkage charged is in my opinion the way to go. Also if you are doing the chefs table the wines are included regardless of the wine package you have and are quire good.

I started this string of posts 271 posts ago. Call me a wine snob. I do blind tastings monthly. I have wines I drink in my cellar of 1500 bottles from $20-$300/bottle. Azamara labeled wines are not quaffable in my opinion. Their offerings in their packages are substandard. Others found them fine which is great for them. After my 1st Azamara cruise I didn’t upgrade the wine package and at each stop found a wine store on google, brought the wines back and paid the very reasonable corkage. Love the ships, crew, food, itineraries so figured out how to keep myself happy. Don’t ask me about the internet 😵‍💫

Specialty restraints hold about 50 each. Everything sized down from the mega ships. Multiple bars around the ship.

There is a lot that can add to your enjoyment on the trip being part of a roll call. Many of us find guides to do small group excursions in the ports through local providers at a fraction of the cost booking with Azamara. I have met some great cruisers that have joined me for other trips. A golf friend met in Buenos Aires lives 35 miles away is Southern Cal and has done another trip to Europe with us. A great networking opportunity!

Once the tenders began never had a wait more than 5-10 minutes. They typically run 2-3 tenders which have a capacity of about 100 passengers each. Simple due to the ship size.

Very easy. Was just there in April. When you get off the ship taxi drivers outside the customs area will approach you and put together a group of 6-8 for a van. They will take you up to the top of the rock, to the caves and to the siege tunnels. They took Eurors or Pounds. I think the cost was about 70 Euros/person.