Larry Pimentel Resigns as Azamara CEO

Longtime president and CEO of Azamara Larry Pimentel resigned this week as part of a larger round of layoffs and restructuring at Royal Caribbean Cruise Ltd., the line’s parent company.

Pimentel had been at the helm at Azamara since 2009 when the line was still known as “Azamara Club Cruises.” He helped grow the brand into a destination-immersion centric line, with voyages that featured Longer stays and more overnights and touring in cities around the globe.

In June 2019, Azamara rebranded with a new name, logo, and a stronger focus on destinations. Speaking to TMR at the time, Pimentel said that the brand “wanted something fresh” and that “simplifying thing in a complex world was an important ingredient.” 

“It is seeing the destination comprehensively by providing deeper travel. It’s connecting people to people, and people to cultures,” Pimentel said.

Pimentel’s career in travel spans more than three decades. Initially, he told TMR in a 2018 interview, he thought he would spend his life working as a teacher and got his professional start doing just that in California, eventually becoming the youngest head of the Social Studies department at the third largest private school in America.

Things would change when Pimentel sought to find a way to help his students travel, to see things they were talking about in class, outside of a textbook.

That passion would lead him to the start of a career in travel that would bring him from Classic Custom Vacations, to Seabourn, to Cunard, to SeaDream and, finally, to Azamara in 2009.

In a post on his LinkedIn late last week, Pimentel wrote that “in today’s travel environment, there are many uncertainties in how we will move past this pandemic. But the one thing I am certain of, is the exceptional service our Azamara crew delivers, regardless of the circumstances.”