Azamara Cruises

Mm-hmm.

But then on the Azamara cruise, just to get back to that, so Azamara, every cruise, they do what's called an Azamazing evening, which is what George was alluding to before.

And this time, the Azamazing evening was in Florence.

And what they do is for every Azamazing evening, they sometimes would do them on the ship.

And that was just I thought, wow, just the logistics of getting the whole ship entirely off of the ship, onto buses, onto this thing, into this theater.

And then to do this hour long opera concert for us specifically was just fantastic.

I think Azamara, I don't think any other cruise line that I can think of does something like that.

They may do shore excursions that are included with some company that's doing it.

They don't plan trips from a desk.

In the past year alone, they've sailed more than 15 cruises across nearly every major line, icon of the sea, celebrity ascent and apex, Norwegian Lunar, Star Princess, MSC World America, Carnival Celebration, Virgin Scarlet Lady, and an Azamara sailing through the Mediterranean, to name a few.

On land, they've covered the map.

London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Budapest, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Venice, Tuscany, and the Amalfi Coast in Europe.

It's the one place in the world that I absolutely love.

And I just want to go back there and just soak it in.

And so as soon as I got the go-ahead to travel, Tosh put this trip together, and it was Paris, Barcelona, nine days on Azamara, nine or ten, I forget, and then Rome.

So the cities that we went to specifically, we had been to before.

And we almost ran into each other.

He was on the Azamara ship when we were on the Queen Elizabeth in the Port of Victoria a couple of weeks ago.

So anyway, thank you, Bright Sun, for your brightness and sunshine.

Jake

But the other three ships are quite nice hardware.

And as my good friend, Christopher Kite, who runs this travel outfit, Uncommon Journeys, and Chris actually put me on board the Queen Elizabeth last month, He had an extra cabin available and he asked me if I would go and I said, sure, why not? He describes Cunard as sort of this Potemkin village, you know, where it's artifice and, you know, I guess you step on board and you're sort of in a fantasy world where you're pretending that you're on this Cunard that may or may not have existed of this grand era of ocean liners, you know, but then the realities of the food and the service, you know, and the overcrowding.

In a way, it's a mass market product that's served up in a gilded cage of know ocean liner tributes and that part of the ship i found you know very charming beautiful paintings in the stair towers some very lofty spaces the royal court theater the grand lobby the double deck library which i describe as something out of harry potter and even the grand dining room they're really beautiful spaces and sort of a modern interpretation of the art deco era But again, you know, I just, I'm lost when it comes to the food and service and I just, I'm puzzled how people would choose Cunard, if they knew any better, over a company like Viking or Oceana, Azamara, you know, with smaller ships and everything.

truly good food and often excellent service.

Nobody cares about the gift shop.

You know, yesterday, Azamara will have a rewards program.

Oh, give it a rest.

Nobody cares.

Yep.

Azamara Cruises has launched a new shopping rewards program that turns onboard spending into benefits guests can use long after the cruise is over.

Called Azamara Shopping Rewards, the program was created with Starboard and is being described as the cruise industry's first retail rewards program of its kind.

Guests earn reward points when they make eligible purchases in Azamara's onboard shops.

Those points can then be redeemed through an online marketplace for items such as wine and luggage, as well as culinary experiences, concert tickets, hotel stays, and even flights.

Azamara CEO Dondra Ritzenweiler says the program is another way to add value while creating a more personalized guest experience.

Starboard says the goal is to extend the relationship beyond the ship by turning onboard purchases into future travel and lifestyle rewards And of course, there's another benefit for Azamara, giving passengers one more reason to spend money in the shops while they're on board

One of the reasons people listen to me is that sometimes there are backstories to stories.

But now let's get to our star interview today with Windstar's Helen Begg and Augustus Lanzer.

Helen Beck began her career in travel almost 30 years ago as a Regional Sales Director for Royal Caribbean Group, where she spent 15 years overseeing international representatives in Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara.

She then did a four-year stint at Crystal as the Vice President of International Sales and Marketing, followed by another four years at Explorer Journeys.

Then, in May last year, she joined Windstar as the Managing Director of Global Commercial.

I know the product inside and out.

Also, I'm focusing on Azamara and still Oceana products.

I chose them intentionally because I enjoy selling them.

For me, it's easy because I know them inside and out and I'm really confident selling the product.

Well, so of course, because I specialize, I sell everything, but I specialize in those.

I'm confident in the product.

I'm confident in if it's Azamara, I'm confident in their crew, what they include.

And also I've built amazing relationships with on the land side of them.

Bottom line is there is a market for the Renaissance ships.

Azamara has that market.

You're welcome to, when all of the R ships disappear from Oceania, you are welcome to sail there.

And let's be very honest, they don't care.