How to File a Claim Against Azamara Cruise Lines

What is Small Claims Court?

You’re not allowed to bring a claim against the company and most courts but one exception is small claims court. This is an opportunity to bring your claim before a local judge up to a certain monetary limit. Most small claims courts will only grant monetary awards and they do have court limits on how much you can ask for.

When to try Small Claims Court

If you have a lot of time and energy on your hands you can make your case against the company using small claims court.

What you need to do to access Small Claims Court

Locate your state court website and your small claims court for your local area. Follow the steps that are laid out on the website for how to file your small claims court suit. Every court has its own procedure but rest assured small claims court tends to be a lot simpler than a regular lawsuit.

What to expect with Small Claims Court

If you follow all of the steps for your particular area precisely, and you have a strong claim with evidence that you can present, chances are you will get compensation. Additionally, the cruise line might even offer a settlement in exchange for you dropping the litigation.

What is the Better Business Bureau?

The Better Business Bureau and its local chapters are private organizations that collect information and complaints about companies good or bad and publish that information online. They give the company the collated rating based on this information and allow the companies an opportunity to respond to the complaints publicly.

When to try the Better Business Bureau

When you notice that Azamara Cruise Line is actively responding to other complaints you can submit your complaint and likely get a response at the very least, at acknowledgement of the issue and at best, solution. However, companies are not required to monitor their page and if no one is monitoring it, you might not get anything other than the ability to publicly voice your complaint for other customers to read.

What you need to do to access the Better Business Bureau

Visit the Azamara Cruise Line page on the Better Business Bureau site and follow the instructions to submit a complaint.

What to expect with the Better Business Bureau

The outcome again is based on whether the company is monitoring and responding to complaints.

What is consumer arbitration?

This is a legal option used by Cruise Lines. Rather than submitting some sort of legal complaint against the company through any other type of lawsuit, your agreement with the cruise line allows you to choose arbitration or mediation through the National Arbitration and Mediation company, or NAM. This is a company that lets you select either scenario and use non-jury sessions or hearings with a mediator or an arbitrator. So if you think that you can sit down with a representative from the cruise line and work through your issues together, you can use mediation. If you want a third party to make that decision for you and the cruise line, you can choose arbitration.

When to try consumer arbitration

If you don’t feel like dealing with small claims court or you don’t have the time, this is a good alternative. It won’t take nearly as long and while there is some paperwork you have a higher chance of getting a settlement much sooner and NAM provides a lot of resources to help you.

Just the same as with small claims court, the company might offer settlement as soon as you notify them that you’re pursuing this route in exchange for you dropping the case.

What you need to do to access consumer arbitration

First, you need to submit forms to NAM which include:

• Names, addresses, and telephone numbers for each party to the case
• Internal filing numbers for corporate parties,
• Whether mediation or arbitration is selection
• The nature of the claims
• And an agreement that the settlement can’t be publicly adjudicated, the mediator (in mediations) can’t be called as a witness, and the arbitrator’s decision (in arbitration) is legally binding.

This process is very similar to a non-jury trial and it has rules similar to a small claims court so in this case once you submit your forms you have 24 hours to notify the Azamara cruise line by giving them copies.

If you have questions about the procedures, they share their rules and procedures quite well here, or you can contact NAM at 800-358-2550.

If you opt for arbitration then you have to go through a miniature Discovery process just like a larger court case and that means but once the hearing is set, 10 days prior to the hearing you have to provide the arbitrator with the statement of facts, the claims you are making an any evidence you want to present.

If you opt for mediation this is content that you can bring to the sessions.

What to expect with consumer arbitration

For either mediation or arbitration, there are hearings scheduled by NAM.

For mediation you have a mediator assigned to your case and they scheduled the sessions. You can meet during those sessions with the cruise representative and talk things over until a binding agreement is reached.

For arbitration you have an arbitrator assigned to your case and they scheduled a hearing. You can choose to have an attorney or not during this process and you can choose to present your case through live testimony during that hearing or not. At the end, the arbitrator will make a binding decision.