Journey Oct 12th/13th 2011 Docked Seville

[nuneham]

The itinerary for this cruise shows us docked in Seville rather than Cadiz. I have queried this with AZ by phone and email and in both responses it has been confirmed that we will be docked in Seville.

[Spursgirl]

Hi,

 

I am sure you will be docked in Cadiz - I am sure that Seville is inland!!!!!

 

FYI, Cadiz is a very interesting city and very underated.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

 

Spursgirl

[nuneham]

Thanks for that. I had expected Cadiz but am assured it's Seville - it is possible by river, I think. I noticed that none of the AZ excursions began with a coach ride from Cadiz. I did the original posting in the hope of getting a few responses - has anyone docked in Seville?

[englishlee]

It's definitely Cadiz that your ship will be docking in. It's shown on the Port Authority website as arriving at 0700 on 13th October and departing the same day at 7pm. If you want to check for yourself then this is the link

 

http://www.puertocadiz.com/opencms/PuertoCadiz/es/galerias/descargas/puerto/boletines/Cruceros.pdf

 

Seville is on a river, but a ship the size of the Journey would be unlikely to be able to make the trip and I'm not sure it would be able to turn around even if it could make that far upriver.

[nuneham]

Thank you so much. Now I can make my plans for the day. I knew that CC members would be able to help.

[Lottie A]

It would definitely be Cadiz - which is a lovely place in it's own right.

 

We were there in February and the weather was glorious. We were glad we elected to stay in Cadiz because people who took a trip to Seville told us that they actually only had about an hour there, because the traffic was so bad on the way that it took them much longer than normal to get there - due to road works I think. :(

[englishlee]

To be honest if I went there I'd catch the train from Cadiz to Seville rather than a bus tour. It takes about 1hr50 costs approx Euro 26 round trip and there are regular departures through the day. An alternative would be to catch the train to Jerez de la Frontera (where sherry comes from) and that takes about 40 minutes and costs approx Euro 10.

 

However if you haven't been to Cadiz before then I'd stay there, it's actually a very interesting and much under-rated place.

[nuneham]

So grateful to you all. Not only have you answered my question, you've given travel advice too. And now I think I shall stay in Cadiz, which I may not otherwise have been inclined to do. Thank you.

[baldmtn517]

This Port Authority news not only means we won't be in Seville, it means we won't even be in Cadiz overnight as our itinerary states.

 

I'm sure Cadiz is wonderful, but Seville is the only reason we signed up for this AZ itinerary, there were no other cruises with overnights in both Seville and Barcelona. If we hadn't already paid for our flights, we'd probably think about canceling.

 

I called AZ today and they acknowledged hearing from a number of passengers. They tried to say that it was always clear we'd be in Cadiz--until I pointed out that all of our shore excursions say Seville and they're only 2.5 to 3.5 hours long, barely enough time to travel to Seville and back.

 

Anybody need any research on where to see flamenco in Seville? I've got lists and reviews of tablaos, theaters and bars . . . .

[suec12]

Well by listing the port as Seville and NOT Cadiz as used on other sailings, its not surprising that there is confusion - and the excursion descriptions were also unclear.

 

Now we see the port notice as to the docking hours....if we do not arrive into Cadiz until the morning, will we be staying longer in Gibraltar and not departing at 2pm?

 

I know Bill has stated his job description is not to resolve individual issues but it would be nice if he could provide us with some clarification here.

[nuneham]

I'm also bemused/concerned about the missing hours. I view individual issues as the particular concerns of a small number of passengers relating to specific incidents. Here we're talking about a whole shipload of people who have been given confusing and incorrect information, have resorted to port schedules to establish the itinerary and still have questions unanswered. Is anyone at AZ listening?

[Jade13]

The itinerary for this cruise shows us docked in Seville rather than Cadiz. I have queried this with AZ by phone and email and in both responses it has been confirmed that we will be docked in Seville.

 

This says Seville. It looks like you dock at 8:00PM on Wednesday and have the full day to go to Seville (even if docked in Cadiz) on Thursday October 13. You are there for 24 hours.

 

Wed, Oct 12 Seville, Spain Docked Arrive 8:00 PM

Thu, Oct 13 Seville, Spain Docked Depart 8:00 PM

Fri, Oct 14 Lisbon, Portugal Docked Arrive 1:00 PM

Sat, Oct 15 Lisbon, Portugal

 

Btw, this is a nice itinerary. It is too bad Azamara is not doing this in 2012.

[baldmtn517]

Jade13

 

Yes, that's what our itinerary says--arrive in Cadiz at 8pm on the 12th and leave at 8pm on the 13th.

 

However, scroll down to englishlee's first posting on this thread and follow his link to the official docking schedule for Cadiz. According to the Port Authority Journey isn't arriving until 7am on the 13th Oct and she leaves at 7pm the same day.

 

Let me provide some background on how we got here in case somebody from AZ happens to read this:

 

Originally I tried to make plans for being in Cadiz. I checked train schedules to both Seville and Jerez, hoping to get to both. I found the one tablao in Cadiz that puts on a small flamenco show most nights. But at first there were almost no shore excursions linked to our cruise. So I did a search on Azamara's site for any Cadiz shore excursions they offer on any sailing.

 

All of those excursions state Cadiz in their titles and clearly describe and include enough time for the long bus ride to Seville--they are even coded "CD" before the number of the tours. Then few weeks ago AZ posted more tours on our itinerary. They didn't mention Cadiz at all, there times were too short to even get to Seville from Cadiz and get back, and they were coded "VZ" not CD.

 

At that point fellow passenger Nuneham called AZ to clear up the confusion. She was told that we were very definitely docking in Seville, which was great news to many of us. To make sure, she also wrote to AZ to get this confirmed. They did confirm it by email. It explained the differences in the shore excursions and I happily started planning to be in Seville.

 

To be absolutely positive Nuneham started this thread on the main board, hoping to put all our questions to rest. That's when englishlee shared the port schedule with us and raised even more questions, sending us back to AZ for clarification. Not surprisingly they were confused by all the contradictory information, too. I'm waiting to hear back, but I'm not holding my breath.

[nuneham]

That's it in a nutshell. And it is usual to name the port after the city if the ship does not dock in the city itself - as our itinerary shows with Rome, Florence and Granada. I love AZ but this is a mess which needs to be sorted. And do you know what? I'm still optimistic that it will be and that someone from AZ will give clarification. It's a fairly basic level of service to let your passengers know where they can expect to be at any given time.

[englishlee]

SUEC12 looking at the port authority schedules for Gibraltar you are scheduled to dock at 0930 and depart at 1300 on 12th October. FYI there are three other ships in port that day.

 

It could of course be that the port authorities have not updated their websites but generally they are pretty reliable.

 

I'm still convinced that you won't be docking in Seville as even if the ship could get that far upriver it would take a fair amount of time to get there and back from the Med and looking at the schedule you don't really have that amount of time. Hope I'm wrong for everyone's sake.

[emel]

I checked the ship facts against the Port of Seville stats and this is what I found

 

Ship Facts

Occupancy:*694

Tonnage:* 30,277

Length:*593 ft

Beam:*95 ft

Draught:*19.85 ft

Cruise Speed:*18.5 kts

Inaugural Date:*May 05, 2007

 



 

Draught:*19.85 ft = approx 6 meters

 

 

Seville port

The port is located in the southwestern part of Spain on the Guadalquivir River, 80 km from the Atlantic Ocean.

 

Location


Longitude: 6º 0' W (Greenwich)
Latitude: 37º 22' N


The 80 km-long river channel to the port is 6.5 m deep and has a sandy bed.


The port entrance features a lock of the following dimensions:


Length: 200 m with gates closed and unlimited with gates open.


Width: 24.36 m


Depth: 8 m


Air draught: 42 m


A dredging project is currently underway for the construction of a new lock with the following characteristics:
Length: 250 m with inner gates closed
Width: 40 m 
Depth: 8 m

 

Based on the above, not sure it could make it up the river. Here are my references. http://www.andaluciacar.com/uk/information/seville/seville_port.php

 

http://www.azamaraclubcruises.com/plancruise/ships/ship.do?shipCode=JR

 

Hope this info helps, Mary Lou

[Bill Leiber]

That's it in a nutshell. And it is usual to name the port after the city if the ship does not dock in the city itself - as our itinerary shows with Rome, Florence and Granada. I love AZ but this is a mess which needs to be sorted. And do you know what? I'm still optimistic that it will be and that someone from AZ will give clarification. It's a fairly basic level of service to let your passengers know where they can expect to be at any given time.

Hello Nuneham and all,

 

It’s Cadiz.

I checked with our deployment director who confirmed that we will overnight for 24 hours in Cadiz during the Azamara Journey’s Oct 4 – 15, 2011 voyage, Rome to Lisbon.

 

I appreciate your frustration in not being able to obtain accurate information when you visit our website; it’s an “expected” part of our responsibility to you and you should be able to trust the accuracy of the information. I apologize for any frustration that we might have caused and I can imagine some of you shaking your head in disbelief as you read the thread and wondering when Azamara will get it right and how can we let things like that happen. I’ve often mentioned that our mission at Azamara is to deliver to our guests a seamless positive experience on land and sea.

 

As we drilled down to understand how a mistake about our itinerary could happen on our website and reservation system, we discovered that this problem was caused by the operational challenge created by using the “shared services” that Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd provides for its three brands: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises. That means that we share the same platform for reservations, air programs, shore excursions, marine & technical, and more with two other brands. It is this concept of “shared services” that provides the corporation with cost advantages and marketing economies of scale but at the same time operating challenges related to how well we control the accuracy of the information which the system delivers. Although we have recently established a dedicated Azamara reservation team in Miami for the US and Canada, they share the reservation system with the other brands along with the basic website platform.

 

Here’s what we learned about the impact of control. Our North America 2011 Destination Guide produced by our dedicated staff in Miami lists correctly the itinerary for that voyage with Cadiz – we were in control; however, the website and our reservation system which we share with the other brands incorrectly list Seville. We found that the error on the reservation system and website comes from the system’s port codes which default to Seville. To correct that error, our IT department needs to create new ones that fit our needs. In some cases we may call at Cadiz or on other voyages we may travel up the Guadalquivir River to call and dock in Seville thus we need to have both options.

 

Our challenge is to gain more control of the shared services on land so that our output before you ever sail comes closer to the shipboard experience in which we have total control. This embarrassing mistake and your feedback have provided us with practical information that we can have corrected so that over time we will achieve our goal of seamless customer service.

 

Thank you for your patience and loyalty to Azamara.

 

Bill Leiber

_____________________

Chief Blogging Officer*

Azamara Club Cruises

(*CBO is an authorized and compensated representative of ACC)

[nuneham]

Thank you, Bill, for acknowledging that an 'embarrassing mistake' had been made, confirming that we will be in Cadiz for 24 hours and responding. My confidence in AZ was not entirely misplaced. Thank you, too, englishlee and Mary Lou, for your efforts to answer our questions - and you're not even on our cruise! We shouldn't have been in that situation - but now we're not. I shall move on and look forward to immersing myself in the special AZ experience onboard.

[suec12]

Thank you Bill for the information but I am still wondering why the port shows us coming in at 7am - or course it could be that their info is incorrect / not updated but maybe someone should make sure that those folks in the "shared platforms" department have given correct info to the Cadiz port.

 

As to the comment that Azamara might in the future sail up the river - I was so hoping for that on this itinerary - I think that would have been have been really special to be docked in Seville!

[nuneham]

Bill, just when I thought everything was sorted.....I received an email today advising me that we will be mooring and overnighting in Seville!! The problem clearly hasn't been solved. I assume you're correct but I would appreciate your comments. Well, some of them at least.

[fla742]

Hello Nuneham and all,

 

It’s Cadiz.

I checked with our deployment director who confirmed that we will overnight for 24 hours in Cadiz during the Azamara Journey’s Oct 4 – 15, 2011 voyage, Rome to Lisbon.

 

I appreciate your frustration in not being able to obtain accurate information when you visit our website; it’s an “expected” part of our responsibility to you and you should be able to trust the accuracy of the information. I apologize for any frustration that we might have caused and I can imagine some of you shaking your head in disbelief as you read the thread and wondering when Azamara will get it right and how can we let things like that happen. I’ve often mentioned that our mission at Azamara is to deliver to our guests a seamless positive experience on land and sea.

 

As we drilled down to understand how a mistake about our itinerary could happen on our website and reservation system, we discovered that this problem was caused by the operational challenge created by using the “shared services” that Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd provides for its three brands: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises. That means that we share the same platform for reservations, air programs, shore excursions, marine & technical, and more with two other brands. It is this concept of “shared services” that provides the corporation with cost advantages and marketing economies of scale but at the same time operating challenges related to how well we control the accuracy of the information which the system delivers. Although we have recently established a dedicated Azamara reservation team in Miami for the US and Canada, they share the reservation system with the other brands along with the basic website platform.

 

Here’s what we learned about the impact of control. Our North America 2011 Destination Guide produced by our dedicated staff in Miami lists correctly the itinerary for that voyage with Cadiz – we were in control; however, the website and our reservation system which we share with the other brands incorrectly list Seville. We found that the error on the reservation system and website comes from the system’s port codes which default to Seville. To correct that error, our IT department needs to create new ones that fit our needs. In some cases we may call at Cadiz or on other voyages we may travel up the Guadalquivir River to call and dock in Seville thus we need to have both options.

 

Our challenge is to gain more control of the shared services on land so that our output before you ever sail comes closer to the shipboard experience in which we have total control. This embarrassing mistake and your feedback have provided us with practical information that we can have corrected so that over time we will achieve our goal of seamless customer service.

 

Thank you for your patience and loyalty to Azamara.

 

Bill Leiber

_____________________

Chief Blogging Officer*

Azamara Club Cruises

(*CBO is an authorized and compensated representative of ACC)

 

 

Bill -

 

Having been involved in systems design and programming for more years than I care to think about, I find your explanation of the Seville/Cadiz problem totally fallacious.

 

It should not matter which brand is using the system, the port description should be dependent on the port code. Whether Cadiz (Seville) or Seville (Cadiz) they should have the same port code. If you really want to distinguish them than you use 2 different codes, tied together internally. Therefore, Seville only would have a third code. This is, in fact, the case. Seville (Cadiz) is CD and Seville is VZ. My guess is what you have is "operator error" But it is also obvious that your system does know the difference between CD and VZ since there are tours starting from Seville.

 

I really wonder where you are actually docking. I find it hard to believe that your shore excursion department has made arrangements for tours from Seville when you are actually docking in Cadiz.

 

Although this mix up does not affect me personally, it does confirm my suspicions about Azamara's corporate competence - or lack thereof.

 

I think however, that if Azamara's Captains have figured out how to go up river, it would certainly be a feather in your collective caps.

[Jade13]

[quote name=baldmtn517;28675139

I called AZ today and they acknowledged hearing from a number of passengers. They tried to say that it was always clear we'd be in Cadiz--until I pointed out that all of our shore excursions say Seville and they're only 2.5 to 3.5 hours long' date=' barely enough time to travel to Seville and back.

 

.[/quote]

 

This is the problem. It sounds like Azamara is selling 2.5-3.5 hour long excursions from Seville. The full day excursion from Cadiz will be longer and cost more.

[baldmtn517]

 

. . . . . In some cases we may call at Cadiz or on other voyages we may travel up the Guadalquivir River to call and dock in Seville thus we need to have both options . . . .

 

 

 

Bill

 

Thanks for responding, but I don't think you've answered all our questions.

Is there is a best person at AZ I could contact for more information?

 

Can Journey really make it to Seville? emel posted some pretty compelling evidence to the contrary.

 

Your information about our time in Cadiz does not match the port authority's schedule. Who's wrong?

 

Thanks to fla742 and Jade13 who both have also pointed this out, ALL of the shore excursions are still shown as beginning in Seville not Cadiz. Will that get sorted out soon?

 

After all the confusion, is there any chance we could have some input in designing a shore trip? Docking in Cadiz adds about 3 hours travel to any sightseeing in Seville, so it would be helpful if we could combine a few individual tours.

 

Thanks.

[nuneham]

Bill. this is still a mess and it still needs sorting. People are being made more, not less, annoyed. And it's so basic. Does the left hand really know what the right is doing?

[Bill Leiber]

Bill, just when I thought everything was sorted.....I received an email today advising me that we will be mooring and overnighting in Seville!! The problem clearly hasn't been solved. I assume you're correct but I would appreciate your comments. Well, some of them at least.

Hello again –

 

After reading all your posts which followed mine, it’s obvious that I have more work to do to deliver a response in which you can trust to be accurate. I will use three sources to reconfirm and/or correct my previous information: 1) our deployment director; 2) our Azamara call center manager and 3) our director of marketing who manages our website.

 

My first order of business, however, is to understand why an email was sent to Nuneham and I assume to others advising that the vessel would be mooring and overnighting in Seville. I’m as eager as all of you to learn the explanation. As Nuneham stated, “Does the left hand really know what the right is doing?”

 

I will reconfirm to you that both of our vessels are capable of navigating up the Guadalquivir River to Seville and to dock there. For example, our 2012 Destination Preview and website feature a 12-night Journey voyage departing August 20, 2012 which includes 2 overnights in Seville. Also, the Quest’s 11 night voyage departing Rome on October 27, 2012 will have guests disembarking in Seville on November 7, 2012. Further, Seville will be used as the turn-around port for the 13-night transatlantic to Miami.

 

Also, I will reconfirm with our deployment director that our scheduled time in Cadiz is indeed accurate since some of you have found that it does not match the port authority’s schedule. Based on my experience, I’ve learned that not all the schedules shown on port websites are accurate since they usually are not updated on a daily basis.

 

Further, I’ll seek more information about the shore excursions that we might be offering from Cadiz to Seville and request the amount of travel time between the port of Cadiz to Seville.

 

And finally to Fla742, I can understand how this situation would reinforce your suspicion that you’ve previously mentioned in other posts about the lack of Azamara’s corporate competence. In time, I’m confident that through our actions we might be successful in changing your opinion about how we manage the pre-cruise process. One last point concerns your opinion that my explanation was “totally fallacious” about the need for IT to create new port codes for the Azamara brand. I wished you had used a different word than “fallacious” because for me that word implies that I was intentionally trying to deceive all of you. I’m committed to being straight-forward. How about something like ‘brainless’ or ‘nonsense’?

 

I’ll get back to you when I receive the information that I’ve mentioned above so that we can settle this Spanish Inquisition once and for all.

 

Regards,

 

Bill Leiber

_____________________

Chief Blogging Officer*

Azamara Club Cruises

(*CBO is an authorized and compensated representative of ACC)