pvkatmom

Go to Tikal-- it's an amazing site!

I am quite confused about the Insider Access Tour for my cruise, as well. Our cruise is 3-6-17 Auckland to Sydney on Journey. On Azamara's website, it features a Feeding Frenzy Tour in Hobart...HB 69 an the Insider Access Tour. When I follow the link to book it for 3-19, it is not there! Not offered! That is not good!

 

I am getting concerned that tours that we may want to book for our bucket list cruise will not be offered and/ or cancelled once we get onboard. I am even willing to forgo using OBC to secure some of these tours, but there seems to be quite a few problems with the shore excursion department!

 

Bonnie, this is the only concern I have with my upcoming cruise on Azamara. I know everything else will be good, but this is a concern for a cruiseline that advertises itself to be all about the destinations.

 

I guess I am going to have to do all private excursions to make sure we get the tours we want.

I recommend http://www.eyeseetasmania.com.au/. Judy and her staff are fantastic, we were with her for a private tour in 2010. Her little company has 266 five star reviews on tripadvisor. Will show you whatever you want to see, but also has several suggested itineraries. We loved petting and feeding the wallabies and kangaroos (and the mamas with joeys in their pouches-- just the cutest) at Bonorong park and seeing the koalas and the almost extinct Tasmanian Devils up close and personal as well as many other sights around Hobart with Judy. She and her sidekick were super sweet and friendly and brought a fabulous lunch (homemade items) we ate after hiking to a waterfall. In Hobart, she is your "go-to" person for a private tour. I imagine the website I posted will be removed, so here it is in another format: eyeseetasmania dot com dot au

Personally I'd take that option there are times when the logistics are too challenging to DIY. We did a cruise ship overnights option off Azamara in Israel a few years ago. The doubters said not enough time etc etc I know we saw as much as everyone could have done and the organisation was spit on

Agree with Bonnie and uktog--in your situation, I would take the ship's tour!!! For an AZ for a Buenos Aires to Rio cruise (Christmas 2014-New Year's 2015), I'd decided that seeing Iguazu Falls was a "must do." (as Eleanor Roosevelt commented on seeing Iguazu Falls, "poor Niagara.)" Anyway, I tried hard to figure out a DIY plan. Flights to get there were few and far between and there were many logistical issues. I did not want to deal with an overnight as it didn't seem necessary.

So, we went with Az's tour and it was GREAT!!! Yes, we had to be ready to go by the shore ex desk area at 4:00am, then bus to airport, then flight, then bus to the Falls. The escort and guide and the flights AZ had arranged were terrific. It was a looooong day, we didn't get back to the ship until about 7:30 pm, but we really got to see Iguazu (from the Argentina side, which I think is better) and to see numerous falls and go in a boat under some of the smaller falls. The Falls are magnificent!

How wonderful was the company AZ had hired to shepard us (we were a group of maybe 20-25)to the Falls and back? We were in the airport closest to the Falls waiting for our flight, and my husband realized he didn't have his phone and had left it on the bus. Our escort called the bus driver who by this time was probably 20+ minutes away and told him to come back to the airport. She runs down to meet the driver curbside, finds the phone in the seat pocket, and sprints back to the boarding gate with about 5 minutes to spare before the ramp was removed. Our heroine! Shows you that AZ hires high-quality local tour providers that will look out for AZ passengers (this lovely woman really went above and beyond).

AZ sends a crewmember on (almost?) every excursion, in case of emergency, so any problems can be communicated to the ship, but also to evaluate the quality of service given by the local tour provider. When we were hiking to gorgeous Lopes Mendes beach in Ihla Grande, Brazil, we were with the IT officer in charge of the ship's satellite reception for TV, Internet, etc. and he told us this.

Be advised that the "Chef's Table" may consist of those higher tables that essentially have bar stools as seats (height-wise). That was the way I saw it set up at the entrance to Prime C on our way to "regular" dining at Prime C on Journey for the Dec/Jan Holiday cruise 2014-2015. I personally dislike that height of table and seating, as I don't find it very comfortable, particularly for a leisurely meal with several courses (I like having my feet on the floor :) ), but will sit at it, if need be. I mention it here because those with mobility issues may find it hard to even sit at such a table. That said, my husband and I are looking forward to trying a "Chef's Table" on our upcoming Dec 2016 Holiday cruise.

We get a Club Continent Suite so that we can have a bathtub (actually it has a shower, too, over the tub-- the classic tub/ shower combo). On the other hand, many who book CC suites love the large walk-in showers. If you prefer one set-up over the other, be very careful to make sure your particular CC suite has the bathroom set-up that you prefer! As others have said, CC suites do have the perk of dining at the specialty restaurants being included, and we make good use of them, and use our included computer minutes and laundry bags. We don't make use of the butler service. As we spend little time in our suite, we've never considered getting an Owner's suite or a new Spa suite or another larger suite category than CC. Another perk of the CC suites and above is that use of the thalassotherapy pool and lounge chair area is included-- good if it is a sea day in warm weather and the main pool area is crowded/busy. Overall though, there are almost no crowds/lines on Azamara-- which is why we like it! ;)

Get what works and is worth it to you-- you will love Azamara. Very friendly and accommodating staff and nice fellow pax, too.

And, Floris, you have the AZ December 23, 2016 14 day cruise with baytraller, baynanno1 (Peter and Trish) and me and my husband (Victoria and Steve). Looking forward to meeting you all at the Meet and Mingle. :)

So Baytraller, you're on our AZ Journey December 23, 2016 cruise and unless you're using a different name, you haven't checked into the Roll Call for that cruise yet? Hope to see you on our Roll Call, we've got 7 pages of discussion and 25 members on it. Cheers!

P.S. We have also sailed Seabourn. Seabourn and AZ our our favorite two lines.

Agree with others, these photos should be stickies, would answer so many posters' questions. I just looked at the pix now, thinking that some overzealous passenger had posted them (not that they can't take great pix, too) but the pix professionally cover ALL areas of the AZ ships very thoroughly. And the photo company has done the same for other ships. Such a great resource!!!

This is a photo of the current price list. Sorry it's orientated side on. I don't seem to be able to edit my photobucket at the moment.

 

 

Phil

Thanks for posting this, Phil! Actually I think most of the prices are quite reasonable-- $3 to have a long sleeve shirt washed and ironed-- that's cheap! Well, it depends on where one lives, I pay $1.95 in southern California suburbs per shirt, but my daughter and her husband who also live in Socal pay much more per shirt. But very reasonable considering you're on a ship at sea. Because we're on vacation, if we do much laundry at all, we do the bag thing (we get a free bag being in CC suite every 7 days, but only my husband's stuff goes in those bags) and hand wash delicates (I also bought a washing line with suction cups a week ago on Amazon). I didn't even know there was a free laundromat room. Thanks for your post, Phil, hope to run into you on Journey for the 12/23 sail!

Chewbacca, my husband said almost the exact same thing, you said Seabourn was a step up, he said it was overall a bit better all around. (and like you we never got to try Restaurant 2-- the days I liked the menu they were full and then some days the menu just didn't appeal, so I didn't even try for reservations).

But as I said in my post, on AZ one needs a Club Continent Suite for it to be comparable to Seabourn, having an AZ veranda cabin isn't enough (as you correctly note the tiny bathrooms). We booked a Club Continent Site on AZ for both our Christmas/New Year's 2014-15 and our upcoming Christmas/New Year's 2016-17 cruises, so we could have a bathtub, which is essential to us as we will frequently walk around in port or private excursions for 7+ hours, following which we (and our tired feet) want to relax/loll in a tub and not stand up in a shower. My husband likes showers for the morning, though. Any AZ future Club Continent Suite booker should be aware that after the re-furb, the bathrooms either have a quite large, walk-in shower or the typical tub with showerhead over the tub arrangement. One very nice feature of Seabourn is that there is a separate shower and bathtub, so two people can get clean at the same time. And I agree with you that depending on timing and itinerary, we're happy to be on either AZ or Seabourn!

Lastly, in reference to not being the person that says X line is so much better, I meant when on an actual cruise on line Y-- here on CC, hopefully everyone feels free to post their honest opinions!

Just off the Journey - you'll be pleased to learn that the wash line will, at some time in the future, be reinstated. During the Le Club Voyage cocktail party, we were informed that numerous photos detailing the creative and very visible solutions taken by passengers to dry their "smalls," had been taken by the Captain and HD and forwarded to Miami. The Captain expects a speedy return of the in-shower wash line.

 

I broke out our vintage, braided rubber travel version and found it easy to secure across the shower for overnight drying, but will be happy to leave it home next cruise : )

Good news! But, a week ago I ordered a washing line with suction cups for about $8 on Amazon. It also came with clips or you could wedge corners of the items into the elastic braided stuff. I don't know when "at some time in the future" will be and as we're on Journey over Christmas for 2 weeks, I needed to know I'd have a place to hang our bathing suits and my "smalls."

We were on Seabourn May 2015, Venice to Athens, loved it! Also, we were on Azamara Journey Buenos Aires to Rio, Dec 2014-Jan 2015, loved it (seeing the fireworks off Copacabana beach was truly a fantastic experience!) We're on Azamara Journey again this Christmas for Singapore, Indonesia, Bali. When on AZ, a Club Continent Suite is the way to go. Both lines feature smallish, intimate ships with quite good food and great service and crew. If you are on AZ in a Club Continent suite, you can eat in the specialty restaurants and also use the thalassotherapy pool and lounge chair area with no upcharge. The AZ specialty restaurants are splendid. We like that AZ stays longer in some ports, whereas Seabourn tends to do the "in at 8:00am, out at 5:00pm" thing. You really miss the local flavor of some places leaving that early. For us, its Seabourn or Azamara. Open dining is key for us, so Crystal, which is also much bigger, is out. Been on Crystal and Silverseas too (and other lines) but not as recently. Lastly, both AZ and Seabourn generally have nice pax, but we found AZ pax much friendlier, and they are a little younger than Seabourn pax, at least on our cruises.

One last note: on our AZ South American cruise, there was this older British lady who took every opportunity to loudly proclaim to everyone within earshot how much better Seabourn did things. "On Seabourn, they do X, on Seabourn Y happens" and on and on. It was very annoying, as the rest of us were having a perfectly lovely time on AZ. Please DON'T be that person! We hadn't been on Seabourn yet at that time. Now we have been, as we are itinerary driven, and choose what works with our schedules, and we very much like both AZ and Seabourn.

If you are not getting at least 10% of the commissionable, in cash back you can use as you please, you are leaving significant dollars on the table.

Further to this, I read on CC somewhere (search it) that the average travel agent gets 10-17% of the commissionable fare (which excludes port fees and taxes). The agent typically makes 11% of the fare with the balance of an overall 15-20% commission going to the agent's travel agency. Agents and agencies that do higher volume get the higher end commissions. I'm not trying to squeeze travel agents, but after being loyal to the same agent for over 20 years and all we get are airport transfers worth $140, I asked her if she could do a little better for me and she said she'd have to check with her agency. Ten percent of the commissionable in cash back on our December 2016 Journey cruise would be almost $1400...

And as I said in a prior post, all she does is book it. I figure out what cruise and stateroom I want and handle all the airfare, hotels, private guides, etc., myself.

The new toll road is great and makes a huge difference for visiting Borobudur.

 

We did both Borobudur and Probolnggo independently. We beat the ship tour in arriving and made it back to the ship ahead of the organized tours despite leisurely meal stops.

Oh, this is great news! We're doing Borobudur and Prambanan independently in a group of 8 and I was worried about timing. We "should" be back to the ship, AZ Journey, by 7 pm but as the ship doesn't depart until 11 pm we have a 4 hour cushion for traffic snafus. Love Seabourn, too, but this trip we're on Azamara.

Thanks, Bonnie, will look forward to what you find out. It just seems that to offer LDC but only allow booking on board, has been resulting in many tours being cancelled and consequently, unhappy pax. Also for those who don't have LDC and book and pay for a tour and then discover it's been cancelled (due to "insufficient interest") with little to no time to make alternate plans, this is also a problem. I've heard that for many tours, AZ now wants to hit 35 people to pile on a bus to run the tour. I've been on tours with AZ with that many and also with many fewer.

I think that although clearly AZ needs some number of people on a tour to run it, AZ should not cancel so many tours if there are a decent amount of pax signed up for it. While I now book many private guides, I am on AZ this December for Temples and Dragons December 23 and have booked and paid for a few AZ tours as timing (in port and distances covered) can be an issue. I sure hope they aren't cancelled, since having traveled halfway around the world to see certain sites and sights, one certainly wants to see them. And not find out semi-last minute that they can't. I have no LCD credit, but I hope that those that do are able to pre-book tours so they don't end up being cancelled. Thanks, Bonnie!

I agree.

We were told onboard this is not possible because they cannot wait until then to cancel if they do not get take up, their suppliers need longer notice

The obvious solution is for Azamara to allow people with Land Discoveries only OBC credit to pre-book so they have a headcount, so that tours can go forward. Then credit back the amount of their Land Discoveries OBC to their closing statement on departure. What is so hard about this?!?

Some will give you a cash rebate. Mine does.

Wendy, what percent of the cruise fare (minus taxes and port fees, which are non-commissionable to TAs) does your TA give back to you? I've had the same TA for 20+ years, and I like her, but other than booking the actual cruise (which I'e already selected), I do everything else myself (I book airfare, hotels, and private guides myself). She has a car/limo bring us to and from our home airport (worth about $140) but that's all I get from her. So just wondering?

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Hope this helps,

 

Laura

Thank you, Laura, for re-posting the instructions. I think this will help many on CC who either have a slow internet connection or who just need to get through threads faster. By the time I turned off signatures, I already knew that the frequent posters are also experienced cruisers, such as scapel, excited of harpened, uktog, ellbon, lottie, grandma cruising, etc., etc. I value their opinions and read them , but also greatly appreciate being able to get through threads so much faster. :)

My husband and I would go on a bike ride for sure. In Paraty, Brazil (on Journey) we rented bikes and went on a long ride.:)

For a while, I thought it was fun to see posters' cruising histories in their "signatures." Then again, it made it take soooooo much longer to get through a thread of posts. Someone ( I forget who, but, God bless them, gave instructions on how to remove the signatures... just search for it on CC). If you look at CC fairly often, as I do, this is a great time-saver.

Oh, hooray, I can scratch buying a washing line with suction cups off of my "to do" list for our Christmas cruise! Glad AZ is putting these in, because really, where are you supposed to put wet bathing suits, if there are only a few hooks which are apparently already taken up by bathrobes and wet towels, according to what other posters say? Also we're on a 2 week cruise, so will likely hand-wash my husband's quick dry work-out shorts and some of my lingerie to hang dry (stuff we don't want to put in our bag-a-week of free laundry.) Last Azamara cruise my husband put some of his stuff on the veranda to dry, but then you have to worry about it blowing away, plus it is unsightly, and took up veranda space... Glad here will be a laundry line!!! :)

Yes that's great news. I don't think of them as an Azamara competitor though. Much more luxurious (every cabin has a tub and a shower, two sinks, walk in closet, etc.), more inclusive (premium wines and spirits) and more expensive :)

Price-wise, it just depends... we ended up on Seabourn May 2015 for Venice, Croatia, some lesser visited Greek ports and Athens. Why? Because the Seabourn cruise was actually cheaper-- not the identical ports, of course-- AZ had more in Croatia, which is what we'd wanted, but the Seabourn itinerary was good, too, although more of the 8am- 5pm port type stays. And yes, on Seabourn, we loved having a tub AND a shower and the two sinks, bigger closet, etc. When on AZ, we do get a Club Continent suite (nice to have more room and go to the specialty restaurants "gratis" -- and we specifically now book a suite that has the tub/shower combo. Will be on AZ Journey in Asia for this Christmas, looking forward to it. But will now always check both lines, as we like smaller ships. Seabourn has been discounting heavily.

Especially to and from the MDR. :). 20 minutes of walking is not even enough for a good cardio workout.

Well, given that when my husband and I are in a port city, we may've well already been walking for 7-8 hours since we are good walkers/hikers and want to see everything in a port-- (we walk all over) I'm not down for another 20 minutes of walking to get a sweater during dinner, especially because I'll miss a lot of time with my dinner companions by doing so. My point was more about the TIME to get to and from one's cabin on a large ship, than the walking. On AZ, we rarely take the elevators anywhere, we just walk up and down the stairs-- given the size of the ship, nothing is very far. And we use the AZ gym, if we haven't already walked our legs off, or if it is a sea day.:)

Leesre, thanks i agree. I will join you on the naughty step!

I was not going out of the way to be obtuse. Sometimes referring someone elsewhere isn't in my opinion appropriate,as in this case.

Tilly, I don't fault you at all! You responded first to OP and expedited getting him/her a voucher. By responding first to OP's question, why shouldn't you also be the one to get a voucher? What is this "fairness" nonsense? Anyone else on the Referral Sticky thread who read OP's question could've answered OP's question before Tilly did. First come, first served. You did nothing wrong, Tilly!

Incidentally, I was a Seabourn newbie (just last year) and was looking for a referral and posted asking for one on the Sticky thread about midnight- 1 am California time, just before I went to bed. Since most of my fellow Americans were likely asleep at this time, a Brit was the first to respond. Several others from various other locales did, too. So when I looked at all the responses the next day, I felt the fairest thing to do was to give the referral to the Brit, since he had responded first and and also supplied additional helpful info. As said above, first come, first served.

I agree with Ellbon/Robin-- one reason we don't like big ships anymore is that it is often quite a trek from where one is to get back to one's cabin. I forgot my sweater once and it was a bit chilly at dinner, but I just toughed it out without the sweater as it'd have taken me 20 minutes to go get the sweater and return-- this incidentally was on Diamond Princess which we were on about 5 years ago to Syndey/New Zealand. Not a real friendly ship, either. We've also been on Celebrity Constellation to Caribbean over Christmas/New Years and enjoyed it--wonderful New Years party. We now like AZ and Seabourn, great ship size, friendly people, no lines for anything. Loved AZ Buenos Aires/Rio trip Christmas 2014 (another fabulous New Year's seeing the fireworks off Copacabana Beach) and loved Venice/Athens Seabourn Odyssey trip May 2015. On these ships we often just take the stairs rather than waiting for elevators. Can't wait for our AZ Dec 2016 Christmas New Year's Singapore/Indonesia/Bali trip!!!

Crystal is nice, too and although bigger, the lines are not too bad and the food is very good. But we just love being on smaller ships these days (but don't like Silversea). Were I in OP's shoes, I'd take the AZ trip-- docking far away from the city center/where you want to be, makes you lose lots of precious time, and also you miss the wonderfulness of sailing right in and out of the heart of the port city.