Windsurfboy

Has anyone written to Saga about Carribean cruise, more importantly has anyone heard anything back

Snap, very much worth joining. Anyone tried asking for discount after booked but before final payment

If you are a good sailor and don't have to be midships, then there are no bad cabins on Saga, they are all very good. So last minute guarantee bookings can be reasonable

Following this logic then , we should have no suites , no cabins with windows which aren't fair to insiders and one restaurant based on a works canteen

Perhaps the only tweak is not free speciality restaurants for suites , but guarantee of a place, so open them up to suites a week before rest

Agree about inside cabin and school holidays. But how about outside school holidays, a corner suite with extra large balcony with sun beds plus table and chairs, breakfast in Epicurean, priority boarding/embarkation , dining in different speciality restaurants every night so no queues, with vintage champagne or very good wine, P&O entertainment. All for Saga standard cabin money, certainly huge saving on Saga suite. I love Saga and have booked another 30 day cruise , but bored if every cruise I took was Saga, similiarly if every holiday was a cruise. Room for everybody taste.

I do believe them that they didn't know about it before we sailed. It was a new Captain from previous cruise (surprise surprise ), to sail with a known defect could cost his licence. However that doesn't change the fact that reliability and maintenance is Saga's responsibility . I just want them to acknowledge that we didn't get the cruise we looked forward too, and it was not all due to external factors weather etc. Not to pretend 3 days in Lisbon is normal. Neither can a Portsmouth Christmas market be deemed part of a Carribean Islands cruise. It's more about not being taken as a fool than compensation, fortunately this was just one of 3 cruises and two long haul holidays this year (Greta will hate me), but for some it could be a special holiday of a lifetime.

The biggest problem with this cruise was the 3 days fixing the "engine/propulsion /stabilisation" not weather related issues. Maintenance of the engine is a definite Saga responsibility, it cannot be thought of as the same weather, which is out of anyone's control.

I was talking about way out, why did we choose to stop at Lisbon, rather than Canaries or Maderia. We were told ship was fine as it left Portsmouth, the descision for Lisbon was made before then so at that time no reason not to go further south. If we had then 3 days in sun may have been a bit better than Lisbon.

The other question I have is why was our first port of call Lisbon. Given that this was a winter sun cruise. Once we could not go to Azores , why did we not aim for Maderia or one of the many Canaries ports where we would have more chance I'd sun. Rather than Lisbon.

I understand we will miss ports in bad weather at this time of year. However what I'm trying to get my mind around is reason for SoD deciding it's OK to sail though a gale yesterday, but not OK a week before. What has changed, what has made ship more robust and perhaps more comfortable in bad weather. This is all in context of 3 days in port in Lisbon whilst engineers were fixing and recertification of system. Was more work done in Portsmouth.

I completely agree with you, and so did many others. Hopefully everyone is letting Nigel Blanks and Saga know how they feel

The current bad weather in mid Atlantic is not relevant On the last cruise the route from Maderia to UK route didn't take us to mid Atlantic but up coast , through Trafalgar, then Fitzroy/ Biscay border into English Channel. We went early to miss a low , which according to Met office and others was gale/near gale with similiar wind to those you quote for SoD currently. That is what I meant by similiar. The forecasts were for gale not for next level up of wind ie storm force. We had a much smoother trip, but the sacrifice was no Maderia and a curtailed cruise.

The speed on TV always matched what the captain announced. Back to weather, what they are approaching/dealing with now is similiar to that weather they dodged on previous cruise and lost us a port and a day. The cynical amongst us might hypothesize that something has been fixed , recalibrated in Portsmouth. One will certainly never know

This looks just as bad as the weather we dodged.

Changing the subject completely, looks like its going to be a bit bumpy for SoD tomorrow in BoB. Met office shipping forecast Shipping forecast and gale warnings map Loading map… +− © MapTiler | © OpenStreetMap contributors iShipping forecast and gale warnings explained Biscay GALE WARNING Issued: 09:51 (UTC) on Fri 8 Dec 2023 Gale now ceased, but southwesterly gale force 8 later WIND West or southwest 4 to 6, increasing 7 or gale 8 for a time. SEA STATE Rough or very rough. WEATHER Rain. VISIBILITY Moderate or good.

The map is from an open source mapping system , however the longitude and latitude and speed are from ships navigation system . SoD doesn't have to ask someone else where it is or what speed it is going. It puts these numbers directly on the info bar below the map. Then plots it on map for our convience . Yes it only updates about every 5 minutes so is not real time as on bridge

The reason for all the speculation is simple , we were not told why

This was not cruise mapper but straight from ships navigation system.

12.5 knots

It was not wet on Wednesday so people could have had a choice to go ashore if we'd got somewhere earlier. Our speed dropped to 12.5 knots not 14 knots .I will post pictures of the TV screen later

No need rush agree , but could go at normal 16 knots. Depends if they thought giving passengers a full day ashore anywhere was of any value. It seems they didn't . Yes someone asked why go max speed of 18 -19 knots, which the Captain then defended as necessary. SoA and SoD normally cruise at a more comfortable 16 knots, which would have given a full day in a port , even if in Portsmouth. The 12.5 knots is a crawl which meant no useable time in port. The majority improvements in comfort comes from going just that bit slower.

The Captain announced at noon just before we saw SoA on Tuesday that the low pressure was well ahead of us, so no need to go slow because of weather. 3 days in Lisbon, one when not allowed of ship. Information was drip fed to passengers. Only 7 islands in Carribean not 8 as in intinerary. No Trinidad, St Marten instead of St Barts. Didn't get to Azores or Maderia. Arrived in Portsmouth at 2pm after crawling for 25 hours . Suggestion that passengers could have full day in Cherbourg, Falmouth, Fowey once safrly in English channelput Saga by email and to Captain over dinner by Lady we met his response was to laugh. No explanation of why not.

Yes , but it spent 3 days in Lisbon, one when we couldn't get off ship. So one day in Portsmouth is getting off lightly. It raises question when captain said no problems with ship! Perhaps and only perhaps this explains why it took us 25hrs crawling at 12.5 knots to get back to Portsmouth after meeting SoA, yet it took her only 19hs to get there.

Anyone on board can tell us what has been said