Onward Greece Intensive Oct 18 2025 - is this a charter?

[Charlie Chan]

We are booked on B/B cruises on the Onward in October 2025.

 

On Monday, DH signed in and found that the 2nd cruise - 7 Night Greek Intensive (October 18 2025) was now listed as a booking on an Olivia Charter.  (The original cruises were booked directly with Azamara while onboard last year. Those cruises were subsequently cancelled and redirected to Japan.  We had little option but to change the cruises to October). 

 

We then checked a number of travel agent sites we have used and the cruise was shown as sold out or unavailable. It was also unavailable on the Azamara site.

 

We rang the local agent - they have been wonderful the past year - and the consultant we spoke to had no idea how this could have happened without any correspondence from Azamara.  He said he would escalate the issue with head office.

 

Tuesday - the cruise description after logging in had returned to the Greek Intensive - but it could not be booked on any site.

 

Wednesday - still showing as Greek Intensive but now bookable on both agent and Azamara sites.

 

Olivia Travel still lists the cruise as a charter.  They state they always book the whole ship.  Some room categories are shown as wait listed or limited supply so it has to be bookable with them.

 

We haven't had any further communication from Azamara regarding this issue.  I did take screen shots of the changes.

 

We would greatly appreciate any insight you may be able to shed on this issue.  I did check a similar charter for this year and it is well supported so it would appear that the charters are popular.

 

It's all very frustrating.

 

 

[govanguy]

I`m sure I read on here that it is indeed a charter. Posted by Riocca???

[Riocca]

44 minutes ago, govanguy said:

I`m sure I read on here that it is indeed a charter. Posted by Riocca???

I think you will find that was Pursuit from the 19th to 26th October 2024, but a quick Google search confirms it’s the same travel company and they are marketing Onward for October 2025.

Given that it’s a specialist company who do whole ship charters you would expect to find all the existing Azamara customers on that sailing to have their cruises cancelled.

However I think there have been instances in the past where the companies chartering the ship have been marketing the cruise before the charter is finalised and cruise companies won’t cancel their passengers until it actually is finalised. Given how far in the future this cruise is maybe it’s an ongoing situation.

Edited February 14 by Riocca

[Charlie Chan]

Thank you both for the feedback.  The link to the Pursuit was useful to see how their cancellation was handled.

 

We have considerable OBC on these cruises so will have to remain patient until we receive notice of the 'cancellation'. Even though it is in the future, it means a substantial change in plans considering the distances we have to travel to Europe.  Other cruises around this time are not suitable as they repeat cruises we have just recently completed.  I think publishing the cruise as a charter was obviously a big mistake on someone's part.