Azamara Club Cruises the upmarket cruise line of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. specializing in “Destination Immersion”, has unveiled some exciting news. To enhance its brand deliverable and better align guest experiences with the demand of today’s affluent traveler, the company is introducing Stay Longer. Experience more.
“Within this evolved positioning, there are two powerful guest deliverables.” said Larry Pimentel, President and CEO of Azamara Club Cruises. “The first is we’re shifting from enabling our guests to immerse themselves in the destination, to delivering over one thousand new and existing destination experiences for guests to select from in over 70 countries.”
Pimentel continued: “These experiences provide the second powerful deliverable: One-to-one human connection. Our land product will be curated to ensure guests get to connect in a personalized and unique way with the people in the destinations they visit. This may occur through people to people interaction, cultural experiences, enjoying local food and beverages, music, events and so on.” 
Azamara’s enhanced brand position continues to be grounded in Destination Immersion and still includes the brand’s signature longer stays and more overnights, but will now go well beyond that.
Immersive itineraries, Cruise Global, Connect Local and the company’s Boutique Hotels at sea, will provide an extraordinary experience for guests travelling with Azamara Club Cruises.
Immersive Itineraries
Azamara Club Cruises pioneered Longer Stays and More Overnights, but the focus on these extended stays and authentic local experiences is evolving. This evolution includes the scheduling of increasingly immersive itineraries that offer guests the opportunity to visit the destinations at night when many of the destinations come alive. Over 250 overnight and late night stays (8 pm or later) in port will be featured every year, making roughly 50% of all Azamara port calls a nighttime experience. Through the brand’s Destination Immersion programming, the carefully selected itineraries will continue to bring guests to ports where larger ships can’t visit. In fact over 50% of the ports Azamara visits are ports larger ships can’t visit.
Azamara will deliver experiences in 200+ ports worldwide in 2017 and 2018. The expanded palette of “World Events and Themed Voyages” includes the Monaco Grand Prix, the World Cup, British Open, the Venice Redentore Festival, as well as Wine and Yoga themed voyages.
Another new product is Azamara’s Country Intensive Voyages, which will allow guests to travel deeper and experience more of a given country, as the majority of the destinations are concentrated in one country such as Japan, Italy, Spain, Norway, New Zealand, Australia, Greece, Croatia and more.
Cruise Global, Connect Local
The brand is also introducing Cruise Global, Connect Local – a series of land programs that are designed to deliver personalized and authentic experiences. This includes land programs ranging from a variety of shore excursion groupings such as “Nights Local” for nightlife experiences like the theater, a local pub, or a cultural performance, or “Meet Local“, which are immersive cultural experiences that offer people to people connections at the homes, farms and villas of local families.
Cruise Global, Connect Local also includes “Stay Local“, which offers overland tours during the voyage and pre- and post-voyage experiences. For guests who want to create their own experiences, the brand offers “Customize Local” where personalized excursions are designed around guests’ individual preferences and desires.
The brands popular and locally immersive, complimentary AzAmazing Evenings Events will continue to bring the destinations’ local culture to life.
As Azamara itineraries seldom repeat ports, guests can make the most of their time spent traveling the world while getting an immersive look into a variety of destinations. By combining voyages guests can completely experience the Cruise Global, Connect Local promise.
Boutique Hotels at Sea
Azamara Journey and Azamara Quest, Azamara’s smaller, up-market and intimate boutique-like ships, which were completely reimagined and remodeled in 2016, now feature a contemporary and elegant design. For a closer look inside the reimagined Azamara Quest click here.
Known for their authentic, friendly and personalized service, Azamara Club Cruises is also announcing changes to the brand’s destination focused programming onboard, ranging from local culinary and beverage selections, to travel movies, lecturers and panel discussions on destinations and other relevant topics, as well as entertainment.
The many inclusive amenities ranging from gratuities and select standard spirits, international beers and wines, to bottled water, soft drinks, specialty coffees & teas and English butler service for suite guests will of course remain.