Hello Carol Cabezas (CEO), What on Earth is Going On?

[Host Jazzbeau]

6 hours ago, babykay said:

I hesitate, but I will name a few.  Last minute "operational changes" to itineraries often are forced because there are outstanding port fees due.  I have heard about so many of these changes as of late.  That is the major one.  

Are you talking about Azamara or Oceania?  That's the line I've been reading about with post-final payment itinerary surprises.

[Carnevale]

6 hours ago, babykay said:

I said a few so I owe you two more.  The turnover in staff is a good indicator of the health of a company.  And the lack of an interest in "making things right" - either by way of OBC or an extra bottle of wine.  On my last voyage, there were so many things that went wrong but no one even was willing to apologize.  AND the home office - nothing like I have even seen before. 

Interesting to see your comment about so many things going wrong on your last cruise.  Our cruise this summer on Journey was not the great onboard experience I had expected based on what I read in so many posts. We won’t be onboard Azamara again.

[blag]

11 hours ago, babykay said:

And the lack of an interest in "making things right" - either by way of OBC or an extra bottle of wine

Interesting comment.

We recently snatched a massively-discounted last-minute bargain with Regent. 4, 5, or maybe 6 days into this cruise we received, and completed, a questionnaire. Within 24 hours all the issues we had raised (apart from appalling internet and absence of all-fruit tisanes) were addressed and resolved.

In fact, to resolve one thing, the executive chef called in person to explain!

Not once on any cruise with Azamara have I received such service. In fact, I feel that Azamara ask you to provide feedback so that they appear to be interested, but that it is a hollow gesture. 

 

[babykay]

9 hours ago, blag said:

Specifics, please? 

 

 

This year I when I was on The Pursuit i ran into a woman in the Laundry ( the ship's version of a water cooler) was telling me she had a Norway cruise in several weeks and they had cancelled 2 ports of call - and they only found out about it reading the website.  No one told them.  I just read about a change of port for an upcoming South Africa cruise (THIS may well have been political unrest) and yesterday I was reading about the New Years voyage in Australia where one port had been eliminated.  

[lisiamc]

If I were going to choose a cruise line to worry about their financial health, I’d worry more about companies RCCL or Carnival. They took on a HUGE amounts of debt during Covid to keep things ticking over. As in 2.2 billion USD for RCCL. (And yes I looked this up.)
 

I wouldn’t worry so much about a canny venture capital company like Sycamore with a sturdy financial background and a history of backing the right horses (like Chateau St Michelle winery.) They fell into a pothole with the IT debacle, because there are not that many out-of-the-box software packages available for cruise lines the size of Azamara that don’t already belong to a huge parent corporation, and there was not enough time to develop a bespoke system. The system they chose is already in use for smaller companies, but of course it came with a load of sloppy legacy data (300,000+ records that Azamara had with RCCL) that had been patched, jigged and tweaked through the decades.
 

Also, have a look at which ports are being cancelled. Are they everyone’s dream port? There might be a few, but the ones I’ve seen have been “interesting” choices like Côte D’Ivoire, where I think I would have happily paid a premium NOT to call there. Have they cancelled Seville for intensive Spain itineraries, where they sail up the river to dock in the town? No, not so far. 

 

In 2022, they had to cancel Bermuda on the Onward transatlantic because of weather, and substituted Nassau in the Bahamas (not a favourite port of mine, but at least a viable substitute.) This resulted in extra fees, extra fuel and all sorts of other costs. Azamara obviously didn’t ask the passengers to pick up the considerable extra costs of re-routing. 
 

Edited September 7, 2023 by lisiamc

[Bo1331]

We’ve cruised many ships but this will be our first AZ, this Oct to Croatia.  We’ve never had this many issues booking stuff-OBC, excursions, upgrade booze package, terrible web site, poor info, etc.  I’ve had to deal with AZ directly as my TA got nowhere.  After many phone hours to AZ we finally got want we wanted.  They also gave me an invoice with AZ letterhead so hopefully we won’t have issues once board.  BTW, AZ told me they can only give invoices to my TA who them gives to me but them they sent me not one but two invoices.  Unfortunately this will be our last AZ cruise.  We’ll wait to see if they fix things if they can or they’ll go under.

[Grandma Cruising]

3 hours ago, blag said:

Interesting comment.

We recently snatched a massively-discounted last-minute bargain with Regent. 4, 5, or maybe 6 days into this cruise we received, and completed, a questionnaire. Within 24 hours all the issues we had raised (apart from appalling internet and absence of all-fruit tisanes) were addressed and resolved.

In fact, to resolve one thing, the executive chef called in person to explain!

Not once on any cruise with Azamara have I received such service. In fact, I feel that Azamara ask you to provide feedback so that they appear to be interested, but that it is a hollow gesture. 

 

Not my experience, every time I’ve raised an issue in my mid-cruise feedback on Azamara I’ve received phone calls from the appropriate staff responding to my issues and explaining what’s been done to put it right.

[uktog]

2 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

Not my experience, every time I’ve raised an issue in my mid-cruise feedback on Azamara I’ve received phone calls from the appropriate staff responding to my issues and explaining what’s been done to put it right.

Some people have all the luck!

Whilst it used to be the case that people listened my experience of some ships more recently is either they respond extremely defensively or not at all. I felt that positive feedback is welcome negative even in a praise-improvement needed-praise sandwich is ignored. I also saw a big difference in attitude depending on who the hotel director was. What has been lost is the ability to take onboard all feedback and recognise whatever the message it is his the guest sees it 

[Grandma Cruising]

5 minutes ago, uktog said:

Some people have all the luck!

Whilst it used to be the case that people listened my experience of some ships more recently is either they respond extremely defensively or not at all. I felt that positive feedback is welcome negative even in a praise-improvement needed-praise sandwich is ignored. I also saw a big difference in attitude depending on who the hotel director was. What has been lost is the ability to take onboard all feedback and recognise whatever the message it is his the guest sees it 

Maybe I have been lucky with the officers onboard. On our last cruise the HD was Marcelo and he was very responsive.

[oceanpark]

We are going on our first Azamara cruise this month and it has been a nightmare for ourselves and our travel agent with regard to our ship board credits.  We have BTB cruises and over a period of three months and too many phone calls, it was finally sorted out.  They are obviously not training their staff properly as many did not know about the SBC per cruise for BTB, and one person even argued with me about it until I read the information directly from Azamara’s website.  I was told by three different people that the issue would be sent to a supervisor to look into,  but nothing was resolved.  It seems to be hit and miss when calling Azamara.  Our friends who are joining us have had the same problems and they have said they would have never booked these cruises if they knew it would be this difficult.  Depending on how the cruise goes, Azamara may have lost four customers.  

[takemewithyou]

3 hours ago, lisiamc said:

If I were going to choose a cruise line to worry about their financial health, I’d worry more about companies RCCL or Carnival. They took on a HUGE amounts of debt during Covid to keep things ticking over. As in 2.2 billion USD for RCCL. (And yes I looked this up.)
 

I wouldn’t worry so much about a canny venture capital company like Sycamore with a sturdy financial background and a history of backing the right horses (like Chateau St Michelle winery.) They fell into a pothole with the IT debacle, because there are not that many out-of-the-box software packages available for cruise lines the size of Azamara that don’t already belong to a huge parent corporation, and there was not enough time to develop a bespoke system. The system they chose is already in use for smaller companies, but of course it came with a load of sloppy legacy data (300,000+ records that Azamara had with RCCL) that had been patched, jigged and tweaked through the decades.
 

Also, have a look at which ports are being cancelled. Are they everyone’s dream port? There might be a few, but the ones I’ve seen have been “interesting” choices like Côte D’Ivoire, where I think I would have happily paid a premium NOT to call there. Have they cancelled Seville for intensive Spain itineraries, where they sail up the river to dock in the town? No, not so far. 

 

In 2022, they had to cancel Bermuda on the Onward transatlantic because of weather, and substituted Nassau in the Bahamas (not a favourite port of mine, but at least a viable substitute.) This resulted in extra fees, extra fuel and all sorts of other costs. Azamara obviously didn’t ask the passengers to pick up the considerable extra costs of re-routing. 
 

All the more reasons that Azamara should be flourishing at this point.  They were set free by RCCL due to the huge debt situation that RCCL had taken on……something had to go and it was Azamara.  Sycamore took them on and invested in the fleet.  Everything was going quite well until the IT disaster.  Azamara did have time to try to get things in order before the data transfer occurred.  There possibly was only so much they could do, due to corrupt data from RCCL.  I don’t know….

 

But what I do know is that the CEO was attempting to communicate through the IT disaster at a minimal level….not very well.  And then she has stopped even trying to communicate.  Why?  Not much improvement in weeks and months.  And now there are very frequent “sales” e-mails and emails going out to customers with bookings about discounted beverage packages that lead to more IT disasters.  Right now, I can’t defend any of their actions,

 

I do worry about Azamara’s financial situation because of the bungled IT disaster and the frustration of so many customers and their travel agents.  If TA’s don’t want to deal with this mess, they will redirect their customers to companies that have functional web sites and decent customer service. 

 

 

[JaneStarr]

1 hour ago, takemewithyou said:

But what I do know is that the CEO was attempting to communicate through the IT disaster at a minimal level….not very well.  And then she has stopped even trying to communicate.  Why?  Not much improvement in weeks and months.  And now there are very frequent “sales” e-mails and emails going out to customers with bookings about discounted beverage packages that lead to more IT disasters.  Right now, I can’t defend any of their actions,

 

I do worry about Azamara’s financial situation because of the bungled IT disaster and the frustration of so many customers and their travel agents.  If TA’s don’t want to deal with this mess, they will redirect their customers to companies that have functional web sites and decent customer service. 

Here, hear!! I agree with every word of this.

 

[ghstudio]

2 hours ago, takemewithyou said:

All the more reasons that Azamara should be flourishing at this point.  They were set free by RCCL due to the huge debt situation that RCCL had taken on……something had to go and it was Azamara.  Sycamore took them on and invested in the fleet.  Everything was going quite well until the IT disaster.  Azamara did have time to try to get things in order before the data transfer occurred.  There possibly was only so much they could do, due to corrupt data from RCCL.  I don’t know….

 

But what I do know is that the CEO was attempting to communicate through the IT disaster at a minimal level….not very well.  And then she has stopped even trying to communicate.  Why?  Not much improvement in weeks and months.  And now there are very frequent “sales” e-mails and emails going out to customers with bookings about discounted beverage packages that lead to more IT disasters.  Right now, I can’t defend any of their actions,

 

I do worry about Azamara’s financial situation because of the bungled IT disaster and the frustration of so many customers and their travel agents.  If TA’s don’t want to deal with this mess, they will redirect their customers to companies that have functional web sites and decent customer service. 

 

 

Excellent summary of the current situation. I would be (and am) very wary of final payments due in the next few months without good insurance. The status quo can not continue and hopefully Azamara gets it's act together (in HQ), the cruise quality doesn't start to decline, passenger loads fill the ships....or the obvious financial alternative if things go south.  The lack of information flow from the top is very telling at this point....perhaps a COO does not make a good CEO.  One requires marketing expertise, the other operational expertise....and they can be very different. 

[Marylebone37]

6 hours ago, takemewithyou said:

All the more reasons that Azamara should be flourishing at this point.  They were set free by RCCL due to the huge debt situation that RCCL had taken on……something had to go and it was Azamara.  Sycamore took them on and invested in the fleet.  Everything was going quite well until the IT disaster.  Azamara did have time to try to get things in order before the data transfer occurred.  There possibly was only so much they could do, due to corrupt data from RCCL.  I don’t know….

 

But what I do know is that the CEO was attempting to communicate through the IT disaster at a minimal level….not very well.  And then she has stopped even trying to communicate.  Why?  Not much improvement in weeks and months.  And now there are very frequent “sales” e-mails and emails going out to customers with bookings about discounted beverage packages that lead to more IT disasters.  Right now, I can’t defend any of their actions,

 

I do worry about Azamara’s financial situation because of the bungled IT disaster and the frustration of so many customers and their travel agents.  If TA’s don’t want to deal with this mess, they will redirect their customers to companies that have functional web sites and decent customer service. 

 

 

And speaking of sales, another new one today and the offers are getting sweeter.  I brought this up early on in the thread as something to watch out for.  Warning, Warning! Danger Will Robinson!  (Some humor for those fans of Lost in Space… loved that program!)

 

Dear Carol, is there any update on the status of the issues and expected resolution timeline?  Total silence from management for a LONG time. Surely you can spare a few minutes to update your loyal clientele. I experienced a wonderful cruise on the Pursuit in late spring, however will not consider booking again until I have some sense of when these issues will be resolved.  Thanks so much for any update you can provide.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2023 by Marylebone37
Temper some of the commentary

[AnnaNicole]

12 minutes ago, Marylebone37 said:

And speaking of sales, another new one today and the offers are getting sweeter.  I brought this up early on in the thread as something to watch out for.  Warning, Warning! Danger Will Robinson!  (Some humor for those fans of Lost in Space… loved that program!)

 

Dear Carol, is there any update on the status of the issues and expected resolution timeline?  Total silence from management for a LONG time. Surely you can spare a few minutes to update your loyal clientele.  Although, maybe management just doesn't care at this point and are ready to jettison all of us and move on to a new and younger population of cruisers.   Thanks so much for any update you can provide.  We truly would appreciate it.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes.  Azamara is a sinking ship.   Everyone overboard!  LOL

 

Give it a chance.  Let's hope it's growing pains.    

[Mackdogmolly]

11 minutes ago, Marylebone37 said:

And speaking of sales, another new one today and the offers are getting sweeter.  I brought this up early on in the thread as something to watch out for.  Warning, Warning! Danger Will Robinson!  (Some humor for those fans of Lost in Space… loved that program!)

 

Dear Carol, is there any update on the status of the issues and expected resolution timeline?  Total silence from management for a LONG time. Surely you can spare a few minutes to update your loyal clientele.  Although, maybe management just doesn't care at this point and are ready to jettison all of us and move on to a new and younger population of cruisers.   Thanks so much for any update you can provide.  We truly would appreciate it.

 

 

 

 

 

Why “danger”? This looks like a really good sale. Although I would have a TA price it for me, as the prices don’t show up when you look at the cabins, only when you look at the T&Cs. It’s also combinable with the Quarterly Savings cruises for Circle Members.

[Marylebone37]

13 minutes ago, AnnaNicole said:

Yes.  Azamara is a sinking ship.   Everyone overboard!  LOL

 

Give it a chance.  Let's hope it's growing pains.    

I'm still rooting for them to some degree, but gosh, management is making that increasingly difficult.  

[Marylebone37]

Danger is because if things sound a little too good to be true… well then… you know what.  I hope that is not the case, but AZ is now into its 7th month since the system cutover (hard to believe!) and still so much frustration.  Growing pains should have come and gone by now.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Marylebone37
typo

[tango9]

I would not call this a sweet sale.  It is only for select sailings. And the one I have been considering has gone up in price 40% since yesterday, even with the sale. 

[Mackdogmolly]

5 minutes ago, tango9 said:

I would not call this a sweet sale.  It is only for select sailings. And the one I have been considering has gone up in price 40% since yesterday, even with the sale. 

Quite a few sailings though, including one I have been following. And the price has not gone up 

[excitedofharpenden]

11 hours ago, Marylebone37 said:

And speaking of sales, another new one today and the offers are getting sweeter.  I brought this up early on in the thread as something to watch out for.  Warning, Warning! Danger Will Robinson!  (Some humor for those fans of Lost in Space… loved that program!)

 

 

 

 

 

😃. Me too!  And the 1998 film was pretty good. Gary Oldman as Dr Smith. Still not quite the original though. 

 

Phil 

[Riocca]

12 hours ago, Marylebone37 said:

And speaking of sales, another new one today and the offers are getting sweeter.  I brought this up early on in the thread as something to watch out for.  Warning, Warning! Danger Will Robinson!  (Some humor for those fans of Lost in Space… loved that program!)

 

 

 

 

By that criteria we may be losing Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Princess & NCL who all have similarly attractive sales on at the moment. Or it could just be the sales season to boost what is normally a quite booking period, incidentally I did see a press release that Azamara did have their best ever “Wave” season for bookings.

 

 I do feel the odd one out however as both our online accounts have been working fine since the end of May, and other than a couple of minor irritations find the website reasonable and better than the old RC one. Made final payment on an upcoming cruise with ease every thing updated immediately something that was not possible previously.

Yes we have had problems but that was down to human error with someone making an action on one of our bookings that they were unfamiliar with, it was corrected and I received an explanation and apology within a week.

[BritishLandS]

On 9/2/2023 at 7:12 PM, Riocca said:

U.K. t&c’s were updated last year but as blag correctly says previous t&c’s didn’t allow for any free changes for bookings made off ship. During the pandemic free changes were being allowed as but that stopped some time ago.

That said the current t&c’s as shown on the website do allow for changes of sail date and ship with a fee of £75 pp it also goes on to say the new cruise will be charged at the current prevailing rate. Presumably you would therefore lose any incentives included in the original cruise, copy of the relevant information following:-

 

1.10 Can I make changes to my booking after it has been confirmed?
Should you wish to make any changes to your confirmed holiday, you must notify us in writing as soon as possible. Whilst we will endeavor to assist you, we cannot guarantee we will be able to meet any such request. For guests wishing to make a significant amendment to their booking outside of 90 days from departure, such as changing the ship or sail date, note that a booking transfer fee is applicable. Please note that any amendments for hotels, transfers and flights may result in the loss of the amount that was collected at the time of booking for these additional components. The transfer fee is £75 per guest which is limited to the first two guests on a booking, therefore any additional guests will not be charged as well.

Thank you confirming Riocca. I may follow up with them on this.

[bikerunner]

18 hours ago, Marylebone37 said:

And speaking of sales, another new one today and the offers are getting sweeter.  I brought this up early on in the thread as something to watch out for.  Warning, Warning! Danger Will Robinson!  (Some humor for those fans of Lost in Space… loved that program!)

 

Dear Carol, is there any update on the status of the issues and expected resolution timeline?  Total silence from management for a LONG time. Surely you can spare a few minutes to update your loyal clientele. I experienced a wonderful cruise on the Pursuit in late spring, however will not consider booking again until I have some sense of when these issues will be resolved.  Thanks so much for any update you can provide.

 

 

 

 

 

I just repriced mine and its over a 1500 higher.   and without premium drinks and wifi which I had included.  

[Riocca]

Interesting article reading between the lines I think they knew 2023 would be a challenging year.
 

https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/tour-operators/azamara-boss-hints-line-to-build-new-hardware