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As expected, further suspension announced to September


uktog
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26 minutes ago, uktog said:

Not unexpected announcement.  Hope the refund process can cope

 

https://www.azamara.co.uk/cruising-suspension

I don't think it is realistic to have any cruises in 2020. Putting the ships in lay up in Glasgow just proves that. They are all supposed to be in the Med in late September. 

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2 minutes ago, oddjob16 said:

I don't think it is realistic to have any cruises in 2020. Putting the ships in lay up in Glasgow just proves that. They are all supposed to be in the Med in late September. 

Unfortunately I have to agree

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44 minutes ago, oddjob16 said:

I don't think it is realistic to have any cruises in 2020. Putting the ships in lay up in Glasgow just proves that. They are all supposed to be in the Med in late September. 

Sadly I agree. It's a huge task to get restarted with the crew all home. And that's without the border opening issues they are going to have. Royal have enough funds for a year out apparently. But there will be some difficult decisions to make. What a mess!

 

Phil 

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We were due to sail to the Black.Sea on 12 September and lifted and shifted it a couple of weeks ago. We thought it was unlikely to sail. That was our second cancelled cruise in this crisis. Will we be able to sail from Cape Town in March 2021? Just hoping all the crew are safe and able to return to Azamara to give all of us a fantastic time at sea and that enough cruisers wish to take to the sea again.   

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18 hours ago, oddjob16 said:

I don't think it is realistic to have any cruises in 2020. Putting the ships in lay up in Glasgow just proves that. They are all supposed to be in the Med in late September. 

 

I agree re 2020 sailings, but disagree that laying the ships up in Glasgow proves that!

 

To put a positive spin on this, let's suppose they are sailing from late September.....Quest and Pursuit are scheduled to sail from Barcelona, so Glasgow is not a million knots from there! Re Journey, the first cruise I can see is early October, from Athens....so, put in place a repositioning cruise say from Southampton enabling sea trials and crew orientation between Glasgow and there. TBF, that would be incredibly difficult with an exceptionally short period for bookings!

 

To be clear, I DO NOT believe sailing will resume until 2021....simply pointing out there may be method in the apparent madness, selecting Glasgow. 😉 

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I am supposed to be saily from Venice on Journey on 10th October.  I am the stage now when I just wish someone would take the bull by the horns and make a decision to cance all for 2020 rather than keepin extending the dates by a few weeks at a time. I dont see much point in paying over several thousand pounds for a cruise that probably wont happen just so I can get my deposit back.

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I agree that 2020 sailings seem doubtful. We were excited to make the switch over from Celebrity to Azamara, but I just canceled our December Quest sailing from Argentina to Brazil for NYE. I just don't realistically see how that will happen and I have no intention of making a final payment while cruising is suspended. I've already made that mistake once... 

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33 minutes ago, uktog said:

I have just had an email from my travel agent relating to my May cancellations - refunds are now taking 10-12 weeks average........

Good luck with that.  I'm at 12 weeks, and waiting -

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It is ambiguous the wording of the email, it could even be 10-12 weeks from when they get the money from the cruise line!

 

Azamara team, I asked before for an explanation of the process so we could work out where the delays might be but that remains unanswered, I appreciate its not a good news post but I think it could put Azamara in a better light if we could get a sense of Azamara's time lines vs the agents activities.

 

My agent has confirmed that no port taxes are due back if you opt for a future cruise cert -  is that correct, it may be but its part of the confusion, some are saying we got it back from our agent, some say we got it back from Azamara and some say we don't get it at all.  For me the taxes would be so small but I wouldn't like to think they are hanging on to them.

Edited by uktog
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7 hours ago, uktog said:

It is ambiguous the wording of the email, it could even be 10-12 weeks from when they get the money from the cruise line!

 

Azamara team, I asked before for an explanation of the process so we could work out where the delays might be but that remains unanswered, I appreciate its not a good news post but I think it could put Azamara in a better light if we could get a sense of Azamara's time lines vs the agents activities.

 

My agent has confirmed that no port taxes are due back if you opt for a future cruise cert -  is that correct, it may be but its part of the confusion, some are saying we got it back from our agent, some say we got it back from Azamara and some say we don't get it at all.  For me the taxes would be so small but I wouldn't like to think they are hanging on to them.

 

It has been fairly obvious from a number of posts both here and on social media that some Travel Agents have held on to refunds for several weeks.

 

Fees and port taxes should be refunded. We have had all of ours for the first March cancellation for which the only option was refund plus 25% FCC, all of which eventually arrived.

 

We are still waiting for about half of the fees & port taxes for the second of our cancelled cruises for which we have 125% FCC.

 

Both FCC and fees & port taxes appeared to come to us directly from RCCL, while cruise fare refunds to credit card appeared to come from the Travel Agent.

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An interesting outline of what safeguards Ponant cruises will be introducing, upon returning. Bear in mind they are 'boutique' ships, between 180ish and 260ish passengers, with acres of space! This is direct from the Ponant CEO, not the opinion of any travel agency or similar.

 

There is no way we would be sailing, with these restrictions in place!

 

 https://fr.calameo.com/read/00013242371fe0f908d85?authid=ekgNT5Wj7RSN

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56 minutes ago, hamrag said:

An interesting outline of what safeguards Ponant cruises will be introducing, upon returning. Bear in mind they are 'boutique' ships, between 180ish and 260ish passengers, with acres of space! This is direct from the Ponant CEO, not the opinion of any travel agency or similar.

 

There is no way we would be sailing, with these restrictions in place!

 

 https://fr.calameo.com/read/00013242371fe0f908d85?authid=ekgNT5Wj7RSN

Sounds like a really fun cruise. ....... NOT!!!!

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Just now, Norn Iron Man said:

Sounds like a really fun cruise. ....... NOT!!!!

Not that I've ever visited NI by ferry, but I wouldn't even sail from Cairnryan to Belfast under such restrictions! 🤣

 

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It sounds very comprehensive and clinical but not sure it would make for a relaxing holiday. I can imagine being told not to waste our Dr's time with a heath questionnaire. It would mean paying a private Dr a fee to complete a questionnaire which I am not sure isn't just a box ticking exercise in case of future litigation.

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16 minutes ago, hamrag said:

Not that I've ever visited NI by ferry, but I wouldn't even sail from Cairnryan to Belfast under such restrictions! 🤣

 

 

The Cairnryan ferry could even be more fun than a Ponant cruise. Stena offers a nice drivers lounge. 🙈

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1 minute ago, norn iron said:

 

The Cairnryan ferry could even be more fun than a Ponant cruise. Stena offers a nice drivers lounge. 🙈

The Stena Plus lounge is a wonderful oasis of calm and more especially if you are on the early sailing on a Saturday with 20 coachloads of football supporters.  Wonder how social distancing will work with these huge revenue earners

 

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12 minutes ago, excitedofharpenden said:

With these kind of protocols in place (even some of them) I will not be cruising so just pray that a vaccine or effective treatment will be found.  Then I’ll come back. 

 

Phil

Me neither

I won't waste my savings on something I would not enjoy.  I understand the reasons, but, even though I need to maximise my seeing of the world in the next 5-7 years 2020/21 will not be a peak travel time for me despite what we had originally planned

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