JMMKUK

I guess it still is after Easter, technically. 🙃

Thank you so much for bringing back memories of our time on Silver Wind in 2017. OTD we were up a Fjord, the sun was shining, & people were sunbathing. A few days earlier it had tried to snow on us at North Cape. You have also brought back memories of the previous year's cruise (with Saga) when we went to Svalbard, saw a polar bear in the distance & toured the abandoned mining town of Pyramiden. Enjoy your final day on Wind & the rest of your holiday.

Looking good for them from the CM map.

Not being able to use the ship's tenders makes for the regular cancellation of trips to Scilly. On Adventure's inaugral cruise we tried twice. Second time one of the fishing boats came out. I was watching from A deck balcony & had already decided I wasn't going to try to get into it before the decision from the bridge was that it was too risky. Good luck with the weather for Tuesday.

Backwards down the Isle of Man to 'test reverse' on the new ship & 'parking' her in the middle of the Fastnet race. However safety is always his first priority so we never got to land on the Isles of Scilly. The helicopter practice paid off too as it happened in real life the following day. Happily the patient made a recovery. Love the relationship/rapport he has with Kevin Woodford as well.

Captain Franko was with them in 2021. He took over from Captain Darin halfway to the Caribbean so that Darin could spend Christmas at home. Liked him, but Kim's still my favourite.

We like breakfast in the suite so the butler does that, as well as keeping to fridge filled. They always seem to want us to give them more work but apart from booking speciality restaurants we can never think of anything.

We were 'how does that relate to us?'. We have no reason to cruise on a huge ship. We sailed Silver Wind & it didn't tick the boxes that our friends had experienced on Spirit a couple of year before but was very good & the Thames,Tower Bridge, was awesome.

Was the trip to Tresco today cancelled?

Sorry, I meant the actual terminal building which has plenty of facilities, although there was rather a lot of walking through it. I thought I saw wheelchairs being used in it.

Is Kevin one of the guest speakers? He & his wife are lovely if you get the chance to chat to them. Believe he was on the problem cruise so it's good if he's back on board.

The terminal is fine. It's the shuttle bus & all it entails that I don't like.

Hope you are having a fabulous time. Just looked at the CM route & the lines of your ship's travel look crazy & don't make sense. Hopefully the map's blip. Going back to Saga's home ports I wish they would use Tilbury more often. We had a great experience from it on SoA's inaugral cruise. Dover is too busy with ferries. Southampton favours Cunard, P&O & huge ships from other lines. Portsmouth is just a PITA with its drop off & shuttle bus.

Saga have the no tips policy. We always give cash to our butler & steward. Last cruise our bench seat Grill pals gave cash envelopes to their grill staff. You may need cash to do that. It isn't required. We didn't because we were served by different people in different parts of the grill.

We would love them to get a smaller ship.

Just checked the door to door for UK it is 50 miles. We were OK for Tower Bridge in 2017, there was a 50 mile route.Sorry, but they are drawing in on a promise they have no intention of keeping because of the small print.

We were told they planned to & I am surprised that it hasn't happened by now. Maybe they have nowhere to accomodate them if the single cabins fill up first. Sapphire had some interesting single cabins for entertainers. When we were in a Royal Suite the pianist was in a tiny inside cabin opposite us.

Really enjoyed the sudoku race & the afternoon quiz when we sailed on her. Met some great people through the quiz. That was in 2017 so before her refurb. Hope you have a fabulous time.

SS have been repeated calling us this week to discuss our future cruises. They don't get through because we have a caller filter & as yet I haven't put their number in. Just wondering if they are getting fewer repeat bookings & are going on an all out sales campaign. After reading this thread I'm not sure I want to talk to our cruise advisor.

You can request Saga to pick you up the day before & you pay for your overnight hotel.

We have Saga health insurance & had a letter recently saying they are partnering with BUPA for that. Loosely based on that I can't imagine them partnering with P&O or NCL.I did wonder if the NCL rumour started because of this NCL Connect partnership announced last week.

Our first Saga cruise was on Rose in June 2003 to the Baltic Capitals. What a great cruise it was! The Baltic was flat calm & the sun shone everywhere except Finland & Russia. We were the youngest couple on board. The only fly in the ointment was St Petersburg. We were treated very badly by security in the Hermitage & teens threw bricks at the ship as we left through the canal.

We shared a car with a Spanish resident although she probably still had a UK passport. We picked her up from her son's house so she got the free transport from there. The car was running late & he couldn't get through to her as he didn't have a UK number or mobile for her. He had her Spanish mobile. The online booking is very limited, I always end up calling them with the cruise details down to the online price on a screen for reference.

They do use an agent that offers fabulous deals though. When Saga used the same agent the only perk for booking though said agent was the agent's loyalty points. I made the mistake of booking with them before the pandemic & the cruise was cancelled. Caused me problems with the rebooking & using the lovely 25% Saga had allocated for the cancellation. Saga sorted it out for me but they had to keep agent 'in the loop' because they had taken the original booking.

Well done. That means no 35% for us off that cruise.