Is Azamara going under???

[BostonGlobetrotter]

I have been trying to talk to an Azamara agent and have been unable to get through--on hold for hours.  Has anyone else experienced this?  I am trying to book excursions for a cruise that is booked and paid for and is not showing up. I have requested support from their website multiple times....

any hints for getting through to a person?

[paf225]

37 minutes ago, BostonGlobetrotter said:

I have been trying to talk to an Azamara agent and have been unable to get through--on hold for hours.  Has anyone else experienced this?  I am trying to book excursions for a cruise that is booked and paid for and is not showing up. I have requested support from their website multiple times....

any hints for getting through to a person?

I've spoken to an Azamara rep twice in the last several weeks.  On both occasions I called around the time the call centre opens (8:00 a.m. CST)  or shortly thereafter and followed the prompts to request a call back.  In both cases I received the call approximately 5 hours later.  On the second call I booked new shore excursions and confirmed already booked shore excursions for a cruise in two weeks.  Regards, Paul

[Grandma Cruising]

10 hours ago, chrisbu315 said:

There are likely fingerprints all over this knife, but there is no excuse.  This transition was poorly executed.  There should always be contingency plans.

 

If I were Oceania or Viking Ocean, I would come up with a clever advertising campaign to lure over the Azamara faithful.

But not Explora as they use the same system - Verison Seaware

[Grandma Cruising]

10 hours ago, fruitmachine said:

How do you think Lloyds migrated millions of accounts to the TSB computer system when Lloyds and TSB merged?  Did hundreds of thousands of customers complain that their balances were wrong or all the history was missing from their accounts?  No.  [It was a different story when TSB split from Lloyds and migrated to Banco Sabadell's systems, demonstrating that with insufficient care it can go very wrong.]

It's more about repeated dress rehearsals, each time checking the quality of the post-migration data on the target system.  Is it what you expect?  Do extracts of both systems match up?  Is all your standing data like excursion descriptions present and correct?  

I can't see that any of this has been done?

I think you’ve made my point. When two companies merged it worked - because they became one (so no longer competitors) so working in parallel was feasible , but when companies split (as Azamara has done from RCCL) and become competitors it’s more difficult. Dress rehearsals would have meant RCCL’s agreement to divert resources to this - why should they do that?

[uktog]

34 minutes ago, Grandma Cruising said:

I think you’ve made my point. When two companies merged it worked - because they became one (so no longer competitors) so working in parallel was feasible , but when companies split (as Azamara has done from RCCL) and become competitors it’s more difficult. Dress rehearsals would have meant RCCL’s agreement to divert resources to this - why should they do that?

No separation is run the same way.
Been involved on the sidelines of two. Azamara would double input and carry out lots of tests along the way to compare the data.  Only when you’re sure that you are not getting rogue results do you permanently switch off the previous system it’s part of a standard agreement when you’re separating, 
however, double entry is expensive and requires a lot of discipline on every single operator. 

Several financial services organisations have had to do this when they were required to break up into smaller parts, and the regulator was all over them to make sure that the customer did not experience issues. The Cruise industry is not regulated so they may have taken shortcuts. I’m not saying, Azamara took shortcuts it could be the RC end that took shortcuts. 
 

Whatever the fix that is needed, I just wish Azamara would talk regularly to customers and give the reassurances people are looking for. Even if there is no new news, some communication is better than silence.  Rumour mills work so well in silence and they are so damaging.

Edited April 19, 2023 by uktog

[fruitmachine]

4 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

I think you’ve made my point. When two companies merged it worked - because they became one (so no longer competitors) so working in parallel was feasible , but when companies split (as Azamara has done from RCCL) and become competitors it’s more difficult. Dress rehearsals would have meant RCCL’s agreement to divert resources to this - why should they do that?

A fair point, but it's probably more to do with just being two companies rather than competitors. The work will likely be done by the software providers who should have experience, and they are not doing well!

[Grandma Cruising]

1 hour ago, fruitmachine said:

A fair point, but it's probably more to do with just being two companies rather than competitors. The work will likely be done by the software providers who should have experience, and they are not doing well!

The software providers are Verizon Seaware and their system is used by other cruise companies & other holiday companies.

[ghstudio]

I'm just waiting for reports from the ships that xxx isn't available, the menu's have changed (due to lack of being restocked) and similar.  If the "front office" is this bad, the "back office" is most likely having the same issues.  Will suppliers be paid, will tour operators be paid, etc.  We've already cancelled one Azamara booking late this year (and replaced it with a cruise on another cruise line) and would cancel our July Azamara cruise if it weren't already paid for.

 

Fortunately, our air tickets seem to be paid for and our reservation has shown up correctly on the Azamara site.

[uktog]

2 minutes ago, ghstudio said:

I'm just waiting for reports from the ships that xxx isn't available, the menu's have changed (due to lack of being restocked) and similar.  If the "front office" is this bad, the "back office" is most likely having the same issues.  Will suppliers be paid, will tour operators be paid, etc.  We've already cancelled one Azamara booking late this year (and replaced it with a cruise on another cruise line) and would cancel our July Azamara cruise if it weren't already paid for.

 

Fortunately, our air tickets seem to be paid for and our reservation has shown up correctly on the Azamara site.

It is a different back end management system via V Ships.  They have been using it for almost a year and the only supply issues have been those every line has been experiencing due to global problems

[fruitmachine]

2 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

The software providers are Verizon Seaware and their system is used by other cruise companies & other holiday companies.

This is why it's particularly shocking that we're experiencing the current mess.

They will have done migrations repeatedly before, and will already know how to check data quality before ever accepting it onto the new system.  But the problems we're experiencing are much worse than that - for example something as simple as the excursion description - i.e. basic standing data - is missing.

[JM0115]

9 hours ago, uktog said:

No separation is run the same way.
Been involved on the sidelines of two. Azamara would double input and carry out lots of tests along the way to compare the data.  Only when you’re sure that you are not getting rogue results do you permanently switch off the previous system it’s part of a standard agreement when you’re separating, 
however, double entry is expensive and requires a lot of discipline on every single operator. 

Several financial services organisations have had to do this when they were required to break up into smaller parts, and the regulator was all over them to make sure that the customer did not experience issues. The Cruise industry is not regulated so they may have taken shortcuts. I’m not saying, Azamara took shortcuts it could be the RC end that took shortcuts. 
 

Whatever the fix that is needed, I just wish Azamara would talk regularly to customers and give the reassurances people are looking for. Even if there is no new news, some communication is better than silence.  Rumour mills work so well in silence and they are so damaging.

It is amazing to me, as someone that has run several companies, that there are no proactive communcations from AZ. I would be sending out weekly emails explaining what is going on and what they are doing about it. I would also be sending all those with bookngs some kind of perk such as a small amount of OBC. I am not trying to get them to do that, not trying to get something for nothing, but I think it would be in their best interest to do something. I also understand that many executives do not understand what customers are going through or think they know better.

[takemewithyou]

31 minutes ago, JM0115 said:

It is amazing to me, as someone that has run several companies, that there are no proactive communcations from AZ. I would be sending out weekly emails explaining what is going on and what they are doing about it. I would also be sending all those with bookngs some kind of perk such as a small amount of OBC. I am not trying to get them to do that, not trying to get something for nothing, but I think it would be in their best interest to do something. I also understand that many executives do not understand what customers are going through or think they know better.

Communication is lacking and that’s the problem that I see.  Agree with your comments.  Most of this could be tamped down with frequent updates from Azamara.  

[aussie travel bird]

On 4/18/2023 at 4:15 PM, Marylebone37 said:

Yes, you sure would run parallel once you received the data files.  It's like Data Conversion 101 — very basic stuff for any IT department.

 

And as DenGNNJ mentioned above, we've been talking mostly here about their front end booking engine and customer reservation management system.  I wonder how bad things are with their inventory management, catering, and all the other systems that are relied upon to run a successful cruise operation? With this kind of corporate IT management in place, it must be pretty bad.  I wonder how long before we hear of the on-board experience being impacted, which admittedly, has not been the case of as of now (well, at least here on Cruise Critic).

Onboard the pursuit now and would have no idea that the ‘my account’ or migration issues exist. Nothing was correct before we boarded in Athens on Saturday but the back end Azamara information had it all correct. Have sone patience and if your Cruise isn’t immediately wait a little while to sort. Mainly don’t panic. 

[CHTobi]

FYI - my travel agent called in a final payment on a future Azamara sailing on 7 April 2023. Normally and before the IT migration, she was able to run the charge through my credit card herself. Due to the implementation of the new system, Azamara told her that they would run the charge on their end. To play it safe (and as my TA has been having a lot of trouble working with Azamara) my TA had the Azamara representative read back the exact amount due. Minutes later my card was charged AND overcharged to the tune of $3,182.40. I saw this on my online credit card account the day of the charge, reported it immediately to my TA and my travel agent reported this to Azamara the same day. We are now 12 days past the report of the error and my agent has spend a tremendous number of hours waiting for call-backs and actions and results. The Head of Azamara PR in Miami is also involved (I had a lengthy phone conversation with her about other things related to Azamara but also mentioned the overcharge). This whole IT migration and the resulting mess are an absolute PR disaster for Azamara and anyone who is trying to rationalize and justify this mess with "...well, this happens when data gets migrated..." is simply wrong. Smart companies have a plan B, a plan C AND a plan D in place when a migration becomes necessary. And smart companies do not let $3,182.40 errors "sit there" and collect dust. They solve the problem - very quickly. I hate to say it - Azamara is not handling this terribly smartly...

[Marylebone37]

So true, CHTobi.  As Marcellus once said in Hamlet, Something Is Rotten in the State Of Denmark.  My gut tells me there is more to this than just an absolutely bungled system implementation.  

[Cruiser1854]

I have the same issue.  An overpayment was charged on final payment by Azamara which related to incorrectly charging our account for shore excursions which were on file.  These shore excursions were paid via  OBC and credit card.  Actually they would never have been on file if they had not been already paid for.  Final payment was taken by Azamara on 3/22.  Azamara has been contacted by my travel agent as well I, miraculously, was able to talk to a customer service agent at Azamara about 2 weeks ago.  I have yet to receive the refund.  I am a frequent cruiser, but this is the first time with Azamara.  Needless to say this leaves me feeling very frustrated with the ‘Azamara experience’.

[Ayden]

1 hour ago, Marylebone37 said:

So true, CHTobi.  As Marcellus once said in Hamlet, Something Is Rotten in the State Of Denmark.  My gut tells me there is more to this than just an absolutely bungled system implementation.  

"My gut tells me" that we have no way of confirming your suspicions and posts like this only fan the flames.

Certainly Azamara could do a much better job at keeping their clientele informed thus avoiding wild speculation online.  

We can only hope this website fiasco is near completion so we can all get back to anxiously anticpating our next cruise.

[Host Jazzbeau]

I lived through something similar with Scenic last year when their website was held for ransom and they decided to rebuild it rather than pay.  Many on Cruise Critic were predicting that the company was on the rocks.  But my cruise and all reports on Cruise Critic were wonderful.  And the company is still in business, and even expanding.  Azamara will get through this and next year it will all be forgotten.

[laurieb]

17 hours ago, CHTobi said:

FYI - my travel agent called in a final payment on a future Azamara sailing on 7 April 2023. Normally and before the IT migration, she was able to run the charge through my credit card herself. Due to the implementation of the new system, Azamara told her that they would run the charge on their end. To play it safe (and as my TA has been having a lot of trouble working with Azamara) my TA had the Azamara representative read back the exact amount due. Minutes later my card was charged AND overcharged to the tune of $3,182.40. I saw this on my online credit card account the day of the charge, reported it immediately to my TA and my travel agent reported this to Azamara the same day. We are now 12 days past the report of the error and my agent has spend a tremendous number of hours waiting for call-backs and actions and results. The Head of Azamara PR in Miami is also involved (I had a lengthy phone conversation with her about other things related to Azamara but also mentioned the overcharge). This whole IT migration and the resulting mess are an absolute PR disaster for Azamara and anyone who is trying to rationalize and justify this mess with "...well, this happens when data gets migrated..." is simply wrong. Smart companies have a plan B, a plan C AND a plan D in place when a migration becomes necessary. And smart companies do not let $3,182.40 errors "sit there" and collect dust. They solve the problem - very quickly. I hate to say it - Azamara is not handling this terribly smartly...

Had your TA tried to run it through online before calling Azamara?  Is it possible that it had gone through?  There were only a handful of days that online payment was not possible and that was back in March.

[CHTobi]

On 4/20/2023 at 6:37 AM, laurieb said:

Had your TA tried to run it through online before calling Azamara?  Is it possible that it had gone through?  There were only a handful of days that online payment was not possible and that was back in March.

This was called in during that short window when the TA could NOT run the charge herself. She would not have messed it up for sure. And again, I would be somewhat forgiving if the error had been fixed right away - but two weeks later - nothing. I have gotten my bank involved now with a dispute, they will certainly "breath down their necks" appropriately. BUT it should not be necessary to take such drastic steps.

[NicNata]

On 4/19/2023 at 6:20 PM, JM0115 said:

It is amazing to me, as someone that has run several companies, that there are no proactive communcations from AZ. I would be sending out weekly emails explaining what is going on and what they are doing about it. I would also be sending all those with bookngs some kind of perk such as a small amount of OBC. I am not trying to get them to do that, not trying to get something for nothing, but I think it would be in their best interest to do something. I also understand that many executives do not understand what customers are going through or think they know better.

Yes I absolutely agree with you. I worked in customer service my whole career and the golden rules when things go wrong, and they will, are apologise, acknowledge that there is a problem, tell clients what you are doing to fix the problem and give an approximate timeline for the fix. Sweetening the frustration that your clients have experienced may not even be necessary if the above steps are followed but of course that is the icing on the cake. I have two current cruises booked, only the deposit paid, but am very reluctant to do anything further like pay the balance, book excursions etc. Like many others, my loyalty points are wrong and I have received no reply from Azamara to my request to correct this. I am also holding off on booking two additional cruises we had originally planned until there is some clarity. It seems to me that Azamara must be losing a lot of business at the moment quite apart from the damage they are doing to their brand. It must be very disheartening for the crew working on the ships as they probably have to hear all the stories of issues caused by the front end, even though they themselves had nothing to do with these issues.

[akpsibrian]

I am in the beginning of a terrible experience with Azamara.  I too have had a lot of difficulty calling them.  I usually call when they open (8AM Central) and request they call me back.  I usually receive a call back between 3:30 and 4:30PM.  That is not that big of an issue.  However, my wife and I were supposed to depart the US on 20 April and arrive in Venice on the morning of 21 April (the cruise departed on 22 April).  Unfortunately, our first two flights were cancelled but we were able to rebook.  We boarded our flight to Paris only to have mechanical issues and that flight was cancelled at 1AM on 21 April.  We tried to rebook any flight to Venice that would get us there before the ship departed but had no luck.  We tried to go through Milan or Rome and take a train but nothing could get us there in time.  We found on the website that Azamara said we could only join the cruise at a later if we pre-coordinated with them so we didn't have much time to make plans.  We called Azamara (knowing they were closed) to see if they could let us know what to do but no one answered.  We then rebooked a flight that would have been our last possible chance to get there.  In the morning, we called our travel agent who tried to call Azamara.  They sat on hold for 7 hours before they were disconnected.  We also called Azamara and got through to no one.  We unfortunately had to cancel because our flights were cancelled and Azamara was not available to tell us how to proceed...  I just got off the phone with them (had to call and say I was booking a new cruise to actually get through to anyone) and they pretty much said there is nothing they can do and it did not matter that we tried to get through to them for advice.  I am hoping travel insurance covers this but I did not have a good experience with Azamara and they did nothing to try to make the situation better.  Very, very disappointed and will not give them another shot.  

[CHTobi]

3 hours ago, NicNata said:

Yes I absolutely agree with you. I worked in customer service my whole career and the golden rules when things go wrong, and they will, are apologise, acknowledge that there is a problem, tell clients what you are doing to fix the problem and give an approximate timeline for the fix. Sweetening the frustration that your clients have experienced may not even be necessary if the above steps are followed but of course that is the icing on the cake. I have two current cruises booked, only the deposit paid, but am very reluctant to do anything further like pay the balance, book excursions etc. Like many others, my loyalty points are wrong and I have received no reply from Azamara to my request to correct this. I am also holding off on booking two additional cruises we had originally planned until there is some clarity. It seems to me that Azamara must be losing a lot of business at the moment quite apart from the damage they are doing to their brand. It must be very disheartening for the crew working on the ships as they probably have to hear all the stories of issues caused by the front end, even though they themselves had nothing to do with these issues.

The current shore side paralysis (for lack of a better word) speaks volumes. Systems seem pretty much collapsed, the hired staff in the customer service center are not educated and trained enough to deal efficiently and effectively with the many issues that passengers have. And "All quite on the Western Front" - no communication from the top. Whereas months ago there were eloquent messages with rosy promises and marginal apologies. Now - nothing! Again, paralysis through and through - to the point of clear damage to the brand. That's what happens when a cruise line sails (no pun intended) into the uncharted waters of a divorce from a big "mother company" WITHOUT proper planning. 

[hamrag]

4 minutes ago, akpsibrian said:

.....my wife and I were supposed to depart the US on 20 April and arrive in Venice on the morning of 21 April (the cruise departed on 22 April).  Unfortunately, our first two flights were cancelled but we were able to rebook.  We boarded our flight to Paris only to have mechanical issues and that flight was cancelled at 1AM on 21 April.  We tried to rebook any flight to Venice that would get us there before the ship departed but had no luck....

That is the reason we never book a flight and cruise package, we always book our own flights....not clear if you did so! For a long haul flight to board a cruise, we ensure to have at least two full days in the boarding port. Then, if stuff like this happens, we have a chance! 😉

[akpsibrian]

Just now, hamrag said:

That is the reason we never book a flight and cruise package, we always book our own flights....not clear if you did so! For a long haul flight to board a cruise, we ensure to have at least two full days in the boarding port. Then, if stuff like this happens, we have a chance! 😉

We booked our own airfare outside of the cruise.  I am torn if that was good or bad given how hard it has been to get in touch with Azamara...  We were supposed to arrive the day before our cruise to have time in the event something happened.  I never imagined the something that happened would result in a delay that took down our entire vacation 😞