New to Saga

[Denarius]

This short video might be of interest to those who have not sailed on SofD or SofA.

https://travel.saga.co.uk/cruises/ocean/our-ships/spirit-of-adventure.aspx

Edited May 3, 2023 by Denarius

[Ladycommonsense]

17 hours ago, Denarius said:

For those who might be interested, the standard single cabins are very similar but slightly shorter, with only one chair. The bed is the same, as is the bathroom.

Great filming - thank you!

[Jammy Bun]

On 5/1/2023 at 12:15 PM, Bloodaxe said:

 

 

Thank you, that should be fine for us, we have always liked the international people mix on our cruises, it will be a new experience with mostly British.

Saga is VERY British.   

[LondonLad60]

1 hour ago, Jammy Bun said:

Saga is VERY British.   

Rule Britannia! 

[Harry Peterson]

18 minutes ago, LondonLad60 said:

Rule Britannia! 

That was a VERY long time ago!

[Tothesunset]

Weirdly, when booking Saga states the you must have a UK passport. 

 

You don't have to. At least not if, like me, you're Irish. 

 

(And, yes, I did ring them to make sure!) 

[twotravellersLondon]

5 hours ago, Tothesunset said:

Weirdly, when booking Saga states the you must have a UK passport. 

 

You don't have to. At least not if, like me, you're Irish. 

 

(And, yes, I did ring them to make sure!) 

 

 

That seems a little odd. We've booked six SAGA cruises in the last year. The conditions that we were given were...

 

"I confirm that all passengers are UK residents and have a UK passport. If you are not a permanent resident in the UK or do not hold a passport, please call us."

 

So if a prospective passenger isn't a UK resident or doesn't have a UK passport... they can simply book by telephone rather than online.

 

Admittedly, inserting "UK" between  hold" and "passport" might make it a little clearer!

[GerryL13]

5 hours ago, twotravellersLondon said:

 

 

That seems a little odd. We've booked six SAGA cruises in the last year. The conditions that we were given were...

 

"I confirm that all passengers are UK residents and have a UK passport. If you are not a permanent resident in the UK or do not hold a passport, please call us."

 

So if a prospective passenger isn't a UK resident or doesn't have a UK passport... they can simply book by telephone rather than online.

 

Admittedly, inserting "UK" between  hold" and "passport" might make it a little clearer!

I'm a US citizen living on the West Coast (a long way from British ports). I'm finally going on my first Saga cruises after 3 years of waiting. Always have dealt with Saga by phone (they call me). Never saw the bit about requiring a British passport. I just know I'm not eligible for the Saga insurance and have to get my own here in US.

[Tothesunset]

5 hours ago, GerryL13 said:

I'm a US citizen living on the West Coast (a long way from British ports). I'm finally going on my first Saga cruises after 3 years of waiting. Always have dealt with Saga by phone (they call me). Never saw the bit about requiring a British passport. I just know I'm not eligible for the Saga insurance and have to get my own here in US.

Clearly Saga do not require travellers to be a UK citizen but when you book online (as in the dummy booking below) in the UK this message appears:

 

That just strikes me as odd. 

[nosapphire]

I'm guessing here ... but it may be that as Saga arrange all their cruises on the basis of all passengers being UK passport holders, they want to take the opportunity to talk to non-UK passport holders in case of any country on the planned itinerary needing extra paperwork.

I have met numerous non-UK/non-EU passport holders on Saga cruises (including a lady who regularly flew to the UK, ostensibly to visit her sister but mainly to go on a Saga cruise), all nationalities are always very welcome on board.

As Saga pride themselves on making life easy for their passengers by making as many of the "official" arrangements on their behalf as possible, they may have decided it is easier to discuss non-UK passports before a booking is made, rather than after.

As I say, just guessing.

[Bloodaxe]

I have seen reports that the coffee is not great on Saga, is proper barrister style coffee available on the ships or is it straight out of machines.

We are used to a proper coffee shop on Azamara availed all day long, what are the venues like on Saga.

[GerryL13]

10 hours ago, Bloodaxe said:

I have seen reports that the coffee is not great on Saga, is proper barrister style coffee available on the ships or is it straight out of machines.

We are used to a proper coffee shop on Azamara availed all day long, what are the venues like on Saga.

I am not a coffee connoisseur, but I did find the coffee drinks (lattes, cappucinos) a bit bland. It appears that most of the coffee drinks, even those delivered by wait staff, come from push-button machines. That may not be true of coffee served from carafes at meals. 

[Bloodaxe]

2 hours ago, GerryL13 said:

I am not a coffee connoisseur, but I did find the coffee drinks (lattes, cappucinos) a bit bland. It appears that most of the coffee drinks, even those delivered by wait staff, come from push-button machines. That may not be true of coffee served from carafes at meals.

Thank you, that is what I suspected, looks like we will be disappointed,  I would have expected better at Saga prices.

, 

Edited June 14, 2023 by Bloodaxe

[JoJo1947]

On 3/10/2023 at 12:18 AM, Host Sharon said:

Also note, as from April 1, any cruises booked through an agent won't count towards the Britannia Loyality Club.

There are some Agents Saga have association with that will honour Britannia club nights

[nosapphire]

16 hours ago, GerryL13 said:

I am not a coffee connoisseur, but I did find the coffee drinks (lattes, cappucinos) a bit bland. It appears that most of the coffee drinks, even those delivered by wait staff, come from push-button machines. That may not be true of coffee served from carafes at meals. 

On the Discovery, we saw the mealtime coffee carafes being filled up from the machines.

On the Sapphire and the Pearl II, the machine coffee was (to our minds) much better (tasted like a richer blend with mainly Arabica beans) so the suspicion is that Saga are now using a cheaper blend of beans.

Likewise, on the Sapphire and Pearl, the mealtime coffee was filter cafetiere coffee, not from the machine -  (the breakfast coffee was excellent, but the after dinner coffee tasted like a single bean to a gallon of water, so we always skipped that and went to the machine later).

Now it is all the same - acceptable, but not as good.

 

[Bloodaxe]

2 hours ago, nosapphire said:

On the Discovery, we saw the mealtime coffee carafes being filled up from the machines.

On the Sapphire and the Pearl II, the machine coffee was (to our minds) much better (tasted like a richer blend with mainly Arabica beans) so the suspicion is that Saga are now using a cheaper blend of beans.

Likewise, on the Sapphire and Pearl, the mealtime coffee was filter cafetiere coffee, not from the machine -  (the breakfast coffee was excellent, but the after dinner coffee tasted like a single bean to a gallon of water, so we always skipped that and went to the machine later).

Now it is all the same - acceptable, but not as good.

 

That's not good at all, are they trying to kid people, carafe coffee should be freshly brewed.

Not getting good impressions before our first Saga cruise, pleased that it's only a short one to try them out.

[Harry Peterson]

1 hour ago, Bloodaxe said:

That's not good at all, are they trying to kid people, carafe coffee should be freshly brewed.

Not getting good impressions before our first Saga cruise, pleased that it's only a short one to try them out.

Saga are heavily in debt and trying hard to cut their costs. What's been happening on P&O may well already be showing up in Saga cuts (for example having to share the transport from home to port).

 

Very recently they've reneagued on all the Life Memberships people bought some time back for a relatively sizeable upfront payment.  The commitment was to provide life members - for that upfront payment - with the Saga Magazine for life.

 

They've unceremoniously dumped that commitment recently and now want £29.95 per annum for what was included already in the life membership.

 

If they can treat their elderly life members like that, they're capable of anything, and although I was planning to switch to Saga they won't now be getting my money. And neither will any of their other products. 

 

Saga can't be trusted now to keep its contracts - and the only reason they've given is that they can't afford it!

[Kohima]

Factual correction: shared transport was always the norm over 75 miles. A temporary change (for safety reasons) from shared to private transport was made during the pandemic. Transport has merely reverted to the pre pandemic situation.

[Denarius]

For most passengers I doubt whether the quality of the coffee would be a make or break or even a significant factor in deciding whether or not to sail with Saga.

[Denarius]

1 hour ago, Kohima said:

Factual correction: shared transport was always the norm over 75 miles. A temporary change (for safety reasons) from shared to private transport was made during the pandemic. Transport has merely reverted to the pre pandemic situation.

Correct. On my 3 Saga cruises (all post pandemic) I have always been offered and booked shared transport, but on the first two occasions this was upgraded to private for health & safety reasons at no extra cost. On the most recent occasion I got shared transport as booked and paid for, as Saga returned to normality.

[nosapphire]

1 hour ago, Denarius said:

For most passengers I doubt whether the quality of the coffee would be a make or break or even a significant factor in deciding whether or not to sail with Saga.

There is no such thing as a perfect cruise line, it just depends what things that people consider important.

Saga was always - traditionally - a low-key, extremely comfortable line with excellent service and very good food.

Until the new ships came out, Saga adverts were always rather understated, so most people generally found that they received a much better quality experience than they expected.

The comfort is still there (actually, much better - anyone remember the eccentric plumbing on the Saga Rose? Or the way the "automatic" doors on the Sapphire had to be manually forced open and closed?) but at the same time the current advertising with so much emphasis on "premium" and "luxury" has given people much higher expectations - so when some things aren't quite as premium as stated, it gets noticed.

Still, we've had librarygate (a lack of books will still annoy me) so now we can have coffeegate.

 

 

 

[Bloodaxe]

3 hours ago, Denarius said:

For most passengers I doubt whether the quality of the coffee would be a make or break or even a significant factor in deciding whether or not to sail with Saga.

Very true, but it seems that it is a sign that standards have fallen.

[Kohima]

Lack of high quality coffee is not a sign that standards have fallen. In fact the coffee is much as it always has been. In my experience, over many years, the Saga ships have never had particularly good coffee. Now that people are becoming more used to fancy machines both at home and elsewhere they are noticing the Saga difference. 

[lincslady]

The 'machine' coffee on the old ships - Pearl and Sapphire - which you normally made for yourself was pretty good.  If that has changed, they must be using different and less good coffee.  It is to some extent reliant on individual taste of course; my favourite is what I make for breakfast every morning at home - Taylors Rich Italian, in a cafetiere and fairly strong.  I had a coffee at a Costa last week, and it was weedy and poor  - but some people like it.  A pity if Saga have changed theirs - if enough people mention it they might have a rethink.

[Wacktle]

38 minutes ago, lincslady said:

 I had a coffee at a Costa last week, and it was weedy and poor  - but some people like it. 

The coffee from Saga's machines is OK. I do agree with you about Taylors coffee. and I use their coffee bags too, if I want one large mug. I've found Costa was ok, but don't use it that often. I do however wonder how much Starbuck's barista training is to produce such vile brown liquid. 

Edited June 16, 2023 by Wacktle
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