Vivaldi

My speculation about the reasons for cruises disappearing from the online calendar might not be quite right - the SofA has a trip called "Scandinavian Explorer" (renamed from "Baltic Capitals") on June 5 2023, and the SofD has "Contrasts of Scandinavia" on May 21, and both of these are still shown on the calendar. They both visit Helsinki, Kotka and Tallinn, as did the cruises which have been removed from the online calendars. If there were deemed to be problems with cruises visiting the Baltic, these would also have been subject to change, I would think.

Ivycottage, if you could let us know which cruise has been cancelled, it would be very helpful. And if Saga ever gives you a reason for the cancellation, that would be even more helpful to know! I just hope it's nothing to do with debts, inflation, rising interest rates and falling share price ... 

On the SofD the "Baltic Capitals" cruise leaving on July 16 2023 has also disappeared from the online calendar. I wonder if recent gas pipeline events and general nervousness about the region would explain it?

Looking at the SofA calendar online, there is a gap between a 7 night sailing leaving on August 21 2023 and the next listed cruise which leaves on September 11. The cruise which has disappeared is the August 28 "Great Cities of the Baltic", so I assume that this is the one which has been cancelled. Does anyone have a clue why this has gone? It is rather far in advance to cancel a cruise if it is because of poor sales. 

9 minutes ago, arlowood said:

Saga is all inclusive and for 2023 they are including premium wines and spirits in the offering.

Although premium spirits will be included in 2023, I believe the wines which are included will be the same sort as in previous years, which, while generally drinkable, could not be called "premium".

3 hours ago, hapzfl said:

Just another thing:

it is Wienerschnitzel and NOT Weinerschnitzel 😊

I was tempted to make the same point!

Some years ago there was an academic music journal called "Die Reihe". If you got your "ie" and your "ei" in a muddle, the title of the journal became a bit unsavoury!

The biggest problem is that, having experienced a de-luxe cabin, you might be a bit less satisfied with a standard cabin in the future! 

While I would be delighted to be offered an upgrade like that, I would stress the "offered" here. I do think that Saga should have contacted you and proposed the upgrade, rather than just doing it and informing you. People can have reasons for booking a specific cabin, whether that is to be near friends, to be on a certain deck, or on a particular side of the ship or whatever. 

I've just seen nosapphire's latest post (#9), and am glad to note that Saga would normally ring someone first to see if they were happy with the change. 

Anyway, I'm sure you will be delighted with your new cabin.

4 hours ago, Wacktle said:

We were in Bordeaux on SoD in Oct 2019 for a full day and overnight.

We were on that trip as well - that was our third visit to Bordeaux, a city I love.

If you are interested in wine tasting, Medeba and LondonLad60, Le Bar à Vin, which is run by the Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bordeaux, is very much worth visiting. It is closed on Sundays, but open on the Monday from 11am, so you could manage it before your departure from Bordeaux. It's at 3, cours du XXX Juillet, near the tourist office and is very walkable (staggerable!) from where the ship docked in 2019. 

Have a great cruise!

23 hours ago, Tothesunset said:

Is Saga our new favourite? No, it's not. Money being no object would see us back on Silversea but we just aren't happy to pay a per diem rate double that of Saga.

Many thanks for your very  informative and entertaining reports, TTS, and it's good to hear that you enjoyed your cruise. 

Leaving aside considerations of VFM, might I ask you in what respects you prefer Silversea . It would be interesting to know if these were things which Saga could improve in its own offerings, or simply things which reflect the different styles of cruising between the two companies - for example, visits to more distant places necessitating 'plane journeys, or a more international clientele, or a greater age-range in one's fellow guests. 

And lincslady is quite right: with increasing age I find the door-to-door service an absolute boon! 

Apologies again for being off-topic (won't do it again!). 

My last post spoke of £77 pppn but an advertisement in today's paper for a cruise on Ambience this September to Canada, Greenland and Iceland says that cabins are available from £44 pppn. High quality food can't be a priority.

On 7/17/2022 at 6:56 AM, tim_london0 said:

For me, the food was (on average) OK.  Though some of it was poor.

Sorry for being a bit off-topic with this, but Ambience is doing a Round-the-World cruise in 2024 and has been quoting a price which works out at £77 pppn for the cheapest inside cabin. Given the costs of running a ship, including fuel costs, crew, repairs and upkeep, admin costs, port charges, to say nothing of advertising, and depreciation of the vessels, at  this price I can't see that there is a huge amount left for food! The food cost allowance per head for all the passengers must be fairly modest and it would be a challenge to provide outstanding meals. It is sometimes true that you gets wot you pays for!

19 hours ago, Tothesunset said:

Then selected cheeses to finish off. 

I'm greatly enjoying your informative and entertaining reports. Thank you!

As far as cheese is concerned, could I ask how the offerings from Saga and Silversea compare?

On 6/16/2022 at 9:28 PM, david05 said:

We do use their laundry service for some of our clothes but not, as mentioned above, for anything delicate. The charges are reasonable if you don't qualify for free laundry.

Norbertsniece did put a photo of the laundry price list on her blog, at an entry dated January 24 on page 4 of that blog. I reproduce it here, although it is a wee bit blurred! From my recollection of prices pre-Covid, they do seem to be charging somewhat more than they did pre-Covid. 

We found the hanging space in the wardrobe on the SofD for a B2B to be adequate, with no shortage of hangers provided. Drawer accommodation was just about OK, but there was a distinct lack of space for shoes (I blame my wife for that!). If you look at the very informative blog in this Saga forum by Norbertsniece entitled "A Bit of a Blog" you will see that she had an excellent solution for this problem, with a shoe rack-type bag which seemed to hook over a door. 

Thank you, Kohima, for the suggestion about moving the life jackets to underneath the bed - that would certainly help. 

Overall, we managed to find a space for everything, although I did like the look of the walk-in wardrobes in the Deluxe cabins ... 

3 minutes ago, Vivaldi said:

We live over 200 miles from the ports, and were quoted an extra £409.50 to have a private car to and from Southampton in March 2022. 

I should have added that this is what we were quoted when we asked about it in 2021 - when it was not known that private transport would in fact be used at the start of 2022.

On 6/5/2022 at 12:37 PM, twotravellersLondon said:

In pre-covid times we paid a little extra... about £17... to have a car to ourselves.

We live over 200 miles from the ports, and were quoted an extra £409.50 to have a private car to and from Southampton in March 2022. 

If one is concerned about the driver or other passengers testing positive on the journey to the port, but less worried about that happening on the homeward journey, it might be possible to ask for a private car for the outward journey only, thus halving the expense.

I'd just add that, on two occasions when we have had Saga cruises we had a car to ourselves on the homeward leg, even though we had not requested it - just the way it worked out logistically, apparently. But that has never happened on the outward journey.

I hope that you have a great cruise, arlowood!

18 hours ago, JoJo1947 said:

The sea sickness pills had no charge but the injection did. 

Thanks for clearing that up! I imagine that if one were that bad, paying for the injection would be money very well spent. 

One my one trip on the Spirit of Discovery I got the impression that it was more stable than the Sapphire, but it is not really possible to compare ships on the basis of a single cruise when sea conditions vary so much. Perhaps someone with more experience of the two ships is in a better position to say if the SofD is noticeably better.

On 5/22/2022 at 11:52 AM, Holidayfun141 said:

We have just had a bad time on a Saga Cruise due to sea sickness

I greatly sympathise. I'd never had any problems with sea sickness in the past even on very small boats in choppy seas, but was surprised to find I was suffering on one cruise on the Saga Sapphire - I put it down to my increasing age or my problematic ears. Fortunately the reception desk had very effective pills which were given out free of charge - within an hour or two I was back to normal. For those who might be unable to keep a pill down the doctor can give an injection instead as  david05 mentioned (and I think that was also free of charge). 

If you feel that you are simply unable to cruise again then it would seem that you have good grounds for asking for a refund on the cruise you have booked. It might be that for medical reasons  you are unable to take the treatment offered (pills or jab) and I can't see that Saga would refuse a refund in those circumstances. 

It might be better to ask for a refund and then to book a Saga hotel stay, rather than trying to transfer your payment, as that would mean involving staff in different bits of the organisation and might prove to be a bit complicated. Good luck - and let us know the outcome!

19 hours ago, twotravellersLondon said:

In our view... Fred's priced himself out of the market. He just can't realistically compete with the brand new all-inclusive luxury boutique ships..

It does look like that. To add a little to my previous post, in the same newspaper where I saw the advert for Fred's Corinth Canal cruise there was an advert for a Regent Seven Seas cruise. The cost pppn for a balcony cabin on the Regent cruise was less than the cost pppn for a balcony cabin on Fred's Corinth Canal cruise. The Regent fare includes excursions, wi-fi, gratuities, speciality restaurants and all drinks, which might be additional costs on Fred.

I appreciate that different itineraries incur different operating costs, but the contrast here is stark, and I don't think that Fred Olsen is regarded as an equivalent in quality to Regent.

On 4/24/2022 at 12:13 PM, twotravellersLondon said:

We now calculate Fred's cruise prices on a like for like basis against other cruise lines. We take Fred's basic price for the cabin that we would like, add the extra for a freedom fare, add all of the extras that Fred charges as add-ons and other cruise lines have as part of an all-inclusive package and then work out the cost per day. Fred is losing out every time.

Today I saw an advert for a 25 night Greek Islands and Corinth Canal cruise on the Braemar in May 2024. It looked a very interesting trip - but then I noticed the prices. For an interior cabin the price works out at £200 pppn, and for a balcony cabin it's £520 pppn. Seriously?

Really enjoying your blog - and love the photos of the food! Many thanks for it all.

Just a couple of points: the shows in the theatre always used to have a live band, and indeed in October 2019 we saw a show on the Spirit of Discovery called "We Are The Champions" which was "an ensemble of the greatest hits of Queen" which had a band on stage. Perhaps the absence of a band is another consequence of covid, or (and I hope not) a cost-cutting measure.

I had read that the Khukuri House restaurant was very happy to make spicier versions of the dishes on offer, if diners requested them. If that is the case, it really should be made clear to people when they order dishes. It would prevent  people being a little bit disappointed if they find their food a touch underpowered. 

Hope you enjoy the rest of your cruise! 

7 hours ago, krrgolf said:

For those going (really hoping we make it) there will be more space on board!

We'll keep our fingers crossed for you! In a post dated April 10 above, 111222333 reported Nigel Blanks as saying that he was confident that the no independent exploring policy would be lifted by the end of April. If that proves to be the case, then most of your cruise will be free from this restriction, which would be very welcome news.

Everyone posting here will be wishing you a thoroughly enjoyable trip. If you are able to give us an occasional update on how it is going, we'd be delighted to read it.

16 hours ago, Windsurfboy said:

However once they've been tested , if there is no evidence that they work,  then don't hang onto them just because they should work in theory.  That's the opposite of a scientific approach. They've tested no independent excursions at ports,  the evidence to continue with them is not there, even if in theory it looks like it should work.

I think our only difference lies in what we consider constitutes evidence, and how risk is evaluated. If we are looking at the level of risk but only taking into account the outcomes which have been observed, then the sample size (the number of cruises involved) is so small that, statistically speaking, the margin of error is vast. As a result, it would be difficult to reach any firm conclusion. Put another way, although the evidence to continue with restrictions is not there, neither is the evidence to drop restrictions. 

Basically, whichever option Saga takes, it can't win. All Saga can do is to give people a proper choice by informing them before their cruise whether or not independent shore trips will be allowed. How I miss the good old (pre-covid) days!

29 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

Banning independent excursions at ports,  clearly did not stop covid,  it may have had a small effect in reducing risk. However for many people it has a large impact on enjoyment, and who given the choice (and a full refund) would have cancelled

One of the points I intended to make was that it is very difficult to quantify any reduction in risk, even more so when the level of risk can vary from country to country and port to port. 

I fully agree with what you have said about the impact on enjoyment, and believe that passengers should have been told before sailing that independent trips were to be banned, and should have had the option of cancelling with a full refund. Not all would have cancelled. We have only ever taken one organised excursion on a cruise, and vastly prefer to wander around on our own ashore. However an even greater impact on our enjoyment would be the thought that we might be offloaded in an overseas port, put in a quarantine hotel and have to fly home, or (to a lesser extent) that we might be confined to our cabin for days on end. If (and I accept that it is a big "if") it helped to avoid these possibilities, we'd accept the ban on independent excursions, but know that other people have different and equally valid views.

The main point I'd make is that people should have the choice, and that means that Saga must let people know before their cruise takes place and must allow them to cancel without penalty if they feel that the regime adopted for onshore visits would seriously impair their enjoyment of their cruise. 

23 hours ago, Windsurfboy said:

But the main point is that your cruise which allowed independent excursions at ports,  did not experience the rampant covid of the subsequent cruises , and they had stopped independent excursions, but to no effect.

I wonder if it is all a question of levels of risk. As far as the possibility of catching covid ashore and bringing it on to the ship is concerned, if passengers are only allowed to go on organised excursions and are given no opportunity to be in contact with anyone ashore, the risk level will be low. The highest risk level will occur when passengers are allowed to go ashore independently. Insisting that passengers go on organised excursions, but allowed a limited amount of free time for them to do as they wish, would fall between these two risk levels. 

Consequently, it is possible that on one cruise there are still problems even when independent trips ashore are prohibited, and on another there are no cases even when free movement ashore is allowed. Some of that is just down to bad luck. How you quantify the various risk levels and so decide the best course of action is a very important and difficult question to answer. I doubt that Saga, or any cruise line, has enough facts to give a definitive answer, if an answer is ever possible.

1 hour ago, nosapphire said:

I wonder if the passenger count on this cruise is substantially lower than the other cruises

Ighten did say in his excellent blog that the ship was at 70 - 75% capacity, so that could have a fair impact on the number of people testing positive. It would be interesting to know how many guests were on the ship in earlier cruises.