lisiamc

You’ve got (or should have) your receipts, either from the credit card company or your bank, to prove that you’re paid in full, which is the most important part. As far as I can see, you can’t get any further anyway. I wouldn’t pay any extra, because that is going to cause all sorts of new problems if you pay twice. I’d wait until things get straightened out if the cruise is in the future, or until I board if the cruise is imminent. There is pretty much nothing you can do now on the website that can’t be done later, or once you are on board. I’m not hearing that those with a zero balance showing are able to get a boarding pass or luggage tags, or book excursions, drink packages, etc, either.

I started to write a couple of paragraphs and I’ve written a novel! As others have mentioned, the small ships can get into places that larger ships can’t. The itineraries are imaginative too. We just finished a cruise along the coast of West Africa that called at all sorts of ports that I never thought I would visit. If the distance into town is not walkable, and if local rules allow, there will usually be a free shuttle. Because we do a lot of repositioning cruises with more sea days than ports, we don’t always get an Azamazing Evening. When we do have one, they have always been a highlight for us. And even on a cruise with a lot of sea days, I never have trouble finding a nice place to sit and read, or chat to friends. The ship never seems crowded. I think the ships are as important as the destinations for us. The ships are not new, of course, but are comfortable and well-kept. I know that the bathrooms, and especially the showers in the non-suite cabins are small, but after 16 years of cruising on Azamara ships, we’re used to them, and they’re big enough to get the job done. (I will admit that I think the heated bathroom floors on Viking ships are blissful.) Azamara beds and bedding are VERY comfortable. There’s a useful amount of wardrobe and drawer space. I find the food generally very good, and frequently excellent. I’d rank it with Viking in that regard. I liked the food on Silversea, but found the dishes too covered in sauce and other fiddly bits. We’ve been lucky and not had the experiences with cold food that others have occasionally mentioned in the months since cruising restarted. We eat a lot of dinners in the Pool Grill, where the food is cooked fresh to order. It’s delicious, and we like it as much as Prime C, with the bonus that there’s no extra charge. The wine has been an interesting experience over the past year or so. We generally get the Ultimate package, mostly for the better wines. We have always been able to find several somethings we like, but there have been supply chain issues that mean that some wines change frequently. Often this is a really good thing, like the bottles of Perrier Jouet Champagne, and the extremely nice Italian red that was in the included wines for a few weeks. Sometimes it’s less of a good thing, when the replacements don’t quite measure up. I still prefer this to the way it used to be in the RCCL days, when the Ultimate list was unchanging, heavy with drinkable but boring, standard-issue California wines, and very few flashes of brilliance. But the element that makes our cruises special, and makes us want to come back is the crew. They make us feel so welcome, like we’re among friends and family. Nearly always, we feel like we’re on a happy ship, with officers who are visible, involved with helping the crew do their best, and keeping things running smoothly. I’ve seen officers kneeling on the stairs, helping crew members complete a major polishing job on the brass trim and railings, or clearing dirty dishes off the tables in the buffet during a busy lunch time. I can’t say I’ve seen this on any other cruise line. We have had great service on other cruise lines, but there’s something about the service on Azamara that makes us feel welcomed on a personal level. They seem to pitch it just right for us.

Azamara is my favourite cruise line. We have cruised other lines with nice things to offer, like Celebrity, Silversea, Seabourn, and Viking, and enjoyed them, but we keep returning to Azamara. It’s a very friendly atmosphere, with kind and personable crew members. We meet a fair number of solo cruisers, and they seem to have an easy job finding people to socialise with, both couples and other singles. There are quite a few opportunities, some hosted and some spontaneous, for solo travellers to dine together or just get together for fun.

In the absence of a boarding pass, I wonder if a copy of the invoice might work. If it happens that the majority of passengers on a cruise have no boarding pass, I’m sure there will be a workaround. I’d hate to be the security person holding back several hundred grumpy cruisers!

Since the gatherings are mainly un-hosted these days, and the previous links on the website are gone for now, maybe we should plan to coordinate our own Meet & Mingles from the roll calls? I know many groups get together at sail-away, and someone with organisational skills might be able to coordinate a second meeting and get it into the Insider for another day.

Surely everyone knows that all the goodness starts to seep out of that wine when the cork comes out (or the screw cap comes off)! It’s essential to see it all off before the day is over… isn’t it? That’s my logic, anyway! 😂😂

Are you maybe thinking of the app Cruise Shipmate? I’ve used them for years, and the app has an easy way to keep track of past and future cruises with countdowns, itineraries, dates, etc.

I’m sorry, I’m just not familiar with this “recork” concept! 😁😁

We are not super-adventurous, but going to Kyoto on the Shinkansen and seeing the sites is one thing we have done on our own. The Japanese make it incredibly easy to be a tourist. Getting tickets for the train was simple, and there is a specific public bus route in Kyoto with all announcements, stops, etc in English as well as Japanese, and it stops at all the popular tourist sites. If you are not able to do this through the ship, the way you would prefer, you really could easily do it on your own as a back-up plan.

Hotel Traiano has a lift. It’s an older hotel, and not glitzy in decor, but it’s spotlessly clean, the breakfast is very good and the staff are helpful and friendly. They can offer a shuttle to the port, as well.

The biggest problem we’ve had is trying to get a taxi from Heathrow to Slough a few years ago. All of the black cabs in the taxi queue refused our fare, or grudgingly offered to take us to our hotel in Slough for the same price as a trip onto the centre of London (£60, at that time!) This was with the full cooperation of the dispatcher. We solved the problem by phoning the hotel to send a mini cab to pick us up. These days, we’d arrange an Uber. No wonder Uber is popular! The black cab drivers that day deserved to lose a lot business. No sympathy for them after the way we were treated.

The process of migration to the new website is horribly annoying, I agree. But it will eventually work itself out, and it doesn’t affect the onboard experience that we’ve always enjoyed. It’s not an omen of things to come. It’s a glitch, albeit a very frustrating one. Babies and bath water come to mind…

If you still like the look of the cruises on offer, this could be the time to use a travel agent, even if you usually prefer not to. A good agent can save you a lot of hair-tearing at times like this.

So did I. And I’m one who hardly ever gets an email from Azamara. My travel agent got one too, which is very unusual, even though they work with Azamara a lot.

Don’t worry if you can’t print them. They will still greet you at the dock and welcome you on board the ship.

The internet was so slow on Journey that I couldn’t get the site to completely fill in all the bits on the page before it lost the connection (and the will to live, apparently!) I did enjoy the irony of not being able to see the Azamara website whilst on an Azamara cruise. Now that we’re home, it pops up nicely, and shows all of our upcoming cruises, in the order I booked them, rather than the order in which they will occur, which seems a bit quirky. They have our correct number of points and the correct loyalty level, so I’m happy!

Look out for flamingoes and ospreys on the way up to Seville, and the way back. We were lucky and saw both. I wasn’t expecting either!

We will be on Deck 7, waving extravagantly! Safe journey to your next port.

We will wave at you at sail away. I think we’re staying longer in port than you, since we have White Night tonight. It’s lovely to see Onward again! Enjoy the Atlas Bar on our behalf, please.

Since the moment we picked up StarLink, (22nd March) we have not exceeded .49 of a megabit. There is some other factor that needs addressing - maybe wiring onboard ship?

We are on Journey, docked next to Onward, using StarLink, and this is what Speedtest says today: 😢😢

Just an FYI, in case this happens to someone else. We had bid for an upgrade on our current cruise. About a week and a half before our cruise began, our credit card that we normally use for cruises had a fraudulent charge, and we had to have it replaced. In the meantime, our bid was accepted, but of course the charge was declined since it was on the old credit card, and they didn’t have the details of the one we are using instead. So no upgrade for us this time!

I think there is a remaining glitch, or maybe glitches, with the StarLink connection on Journey. We are now in Lisbon, and it’s still very slow, and somewhat patchy. It’s better than it was along the west coast of Africa, but nothing like the speeds we were getting on Onward after the changeover.

One large drill (stations A & B at 5 pm) on Journey 4th March ex Cape Town. I preferred the smaller drills post-Covid, but perhaps too labour-intensive to continue?

We are currently on Journey, and I’ve seen our friends eating a lot of sushi, which they report is extremely good, especially at lunch (from the buffet most days). It seems to have have expanded from just the Asian Night offerings. Beyond that, I think it’s swings and roundabouts. Both lines have nice things to offer, but it depends on what you would especially value. For us, it’s the longer time and overnights in some ports, the Azamazing Evenings, and the air of spontaneity with Azamara that gives it the edge.