How is Swan Hellenic now?

I had a couple of fabulous cruises on Swan Hellenic a few years ago before the change in ownership to All Leisure Holidays. I would like to hear from anyone who sailed Minerva in the past but who has also sailed recently. Is there any difference? The reviews on Cruise Critic seem mixed so I'm concerned.

I know my husband and I sailed on Voyages of Discovery after the change to All Leisure Holidays and the management was just horrible (mis-described tours, lack of port knowledge, poor communication, etc.) so I'm hoping the same has not happened to Swan.

If you sailed before All Leisure took over ownership of Swan, does that mean you sailed on Minerva II (now Adonia) before spring 2007? Swan ceased to exist after that, but Lord Sterling purchased the trade name and data base. We were asked if we were happy for our names to remain on the data base before his purchase. Lord Sterling subsequently (about 18 months later) came to some sort of business arrangement with All Leisure, who purchased the old Minerva (which was previously owned by Swan) from Saga. The ship was then owned and operated by All Leisure using Lord Sterling's trade name of Swan Hellenic.

We had travelled on Minerva II for a couple of cruises in 2006 and went on Minerva to Iceland about 4 years ago (it was the cruise when we were tendered onto St Kilda, which was really special). We found Swan to be impeccable in their operation of the ship and everything to do with the cruise experience for all our cruises. There seems to have been quite a bit of vibration low down and to the back of Minerva since the extra balcony cabins were installed (we travelled just before that work was done).

Voyages of Discovery (VOD) was an All Leisure company before Swan started to be run by them (about late 2007 or thereabouts). We sailed on Discovery for the last summer season that had been planned and marketed by the VOD brand of All Leisure, but CMV took over the operation of Discovery for that season, although the ship was still owned by all leisure. Discovery was OK but CMV used mainly Eastern European staff and they were very different to the VOD staff, which had mainly been transferred to Voyager, which All Leisure had newly acquired.

We travelled on Voyager last Autumn and the cruise was fine. It did not have the polish of Swan's operations, but was better than Fred Olsen or P&O in our opinion.

I have heard that there had been a lot of cutbacks for both Swan and VOD a couple of years back and some quite low quality flights were used for instance. We were concerned as we have booked 4 weeks on Voyager for next February, but we have been put on Emirates flights to and from Manchester - so fingers crossed.

My parents have been countless times, old and new regime, and are VERY happy with the ship, the service, the staff, the tours and the healthcare support has been excellent which is really reassuring for me as the anxious daughter left at home!! Dad says every time he goes on board (even after an absence of a year or so) he is greeted by name by the barman who remembers how he likes his gin and tonic as he hands Ma the cocktail menu....

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

There was a change in management about 2013/14. Until that time Swan and Voyages of Discovery each had their own office/team but everything was consolidated into a new office in Market Harborough and apparently at least some of the veteran staff have been let go or reassigned. And the last two years there have been reported cut backs in food, staffing, quality of shore tours. A few recent reviews of Swan cruises mention that the All Leisure brand may be in financial difficulty.

My husband and I sailed the Voyager shortly after the change and things were a mess: poor communication, shore tours not as described, etc. The staff on the ship worked as hard as they could, but it was the home office that was failing them. I spoke with the future cruise person and cruise director on board they told me about what was happening. It's the first, and only, cruise I had been on where passengers were saying "thank God, I'm off" on disembarkation.

A few recent reviews of Swan cruises mention that the All Leisure brand may be in financial difficulty.

We find this worrying as we have 29 nights on Voyager (booked early) for Feb followed by a land tour in Sri Lanka booked with another company. My husband is asking if we did pay the deposit by credit card!! Found the details and we did so we should be able to get that back if the company goes down, but our balances are due in October.

Searching the net found a number of links regarding the All Leisure Holiday Group who, as I said, are the owners of Swan, VOD and a number of other brands. I was aware that there were problems with the company a couple of years ago and obviously it is the cutbacks and changes made then that you are thinking about. I know it affected VOD and Swan, but I am not sure if their other brands were any more secure, or if they had similar changes.

It does now look as though the whole company has problems, so I will be searching further. This is an interesting link, but I am no business expert so do not understand the full implications of what it says:-

http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/61934/all-leisure-group-to-leave-aim

We did think our flights were a bit late being arranged (it was fairly recent), but we have been booked on Emirates which sounded good to us and the staff in the office have been extremely helpful with us regards our queries. We had no probs on Voyager last Sept, although I did find the tour staff particularly unhelpful and not well mannered - more a personal thing though. In Sept we only did one trip together to Ephesus, which was OK and my husband did a trip to Troy which he says was very good indeed. Reception were helpful with port details, but we got very late notification of shuttle buses in ports were they were needed and it was the tours staff responsible for that. Holiday was good though.

Anyone else know more about the current state of the All Leisure Company?

Another link which came up:-

http://shares.telegraph.co.uk/fundamentals/?epic=ALLG

Looks like things were getting better to October 2015, compared to 2013/4, but I do not know anything about what has happened since then.

I really hope all will be well, as like you I appreciate the concept and some previous experiences on their ships.

I had a couple of fabulous cruises on Swan Hellenic a few years ago before the change in ownership to All Leisure Holidays. I would like to hear from anyone who sailed Minerva in the past but who has also sailed recently. Is there any difference? The reviews on Cruise Critic seem mixed so I'm concerned.

 

I know my husband and I sailed on Voyages of Discovery after the change to All Leisure Holidays and the management was just horrible (mis-described tours, lack of port knowledge, poor communication, etc.) so I'm hoping the same has not happened to Swan.

Sorry to hear you had a disappointing Voyages of Discovery experience. Don't know when the change over took place, but we had a wonderful experience with them a few years ago (White Sea, Solovetsky Archipelago, North Cape - June 2015) - great shore excursions, superb port lectures and always their exemplary enrichment speaker programs.

The ship itself they are using now, the Voyager, was the main disappointment - we actually preferred the creaky old ship Discovery in layout and amenities far better than the one they are using now.

Food was excellent, dining venues more cramped and not as appealing as the former ship. Lounge space very good but lecture/entertainment space sorely lacking and apparently unremediable. Cabins, lower end, remained so-so and basic. Bathroom better, closet space poorly designed. I can see why the balcony cabins sell out so fast, they would offer the best of all worlds.

However we still remain great fans of Voyages of Discovery. Can you put some dates on this new management takeover so I can get better context for the changes you experienced. I know some had problems with their air-connections recently arranged by VOD, whereas those had been great in the past.

However we still remain great fans of Voyages of Discovery. Can you put some dates on this new management takeover so I can get better context for the changes you experienced.past.

There has not been a "management take over", as Swan have definitely been run by All Leisure since 2008 and as far as I know VOD has always been owned by All Leisure, or at least it pre dates Swan. There were a number of changes and cutbacks and they seem to have been about 2014, so would have been before your cruise in 2015.

My husband has just pulled up the annual report for All Leisure for year ending October 2015, which was published earlier this year (I think May). It was lengthy but he mentioned some points:-

Shares at that time were owned mainly by one person, Allard who owned 60%, Lord Sterling 6%, and two others who had 5% each, so looks like the main owners had 76% of the shares.

Report says their cruise section remained non profitable and their ships have been running at an average of 77%capacity. They have no plans to invest in other cruise vessels. Another comment accepted that over supply in the cruise industry leads to reduced prices for consumers so the competition remains fierce. They are aiming at a niche market and the 55's and over market - nothing new there then!

We were a little surprised that they outsource the running of the hotel departments and the deck and engine maintenance (but we do not know what is normal for this). Perhaps that was one of the cutbacks/changes and could explain why there has been talk about a 'different management' for those things, but that outsourcing seemed to have been in place for the duration of the year in question (Oct 14/Oct 15).

I did pick up a few bad reviews of Minerva from late last year and one person had mentioned a take over by All Leisure (which I have explained is wrong and that was also corrected by someone who made a comment after the review), so that may be where this false rumour has originated.

I have not picked up any reviews from this year saying anything about the company being in a difficult situation, but perhaps the OP saw something on another site. The company seem to be operating normally from what we see, so I am not sure that things are particularly ominous at present as things look as though they could have been worse previously (although as I said we are not management buffs).

If the OP has more recent evidence of any problems, perhaps he/she will come back with the details, though it would not be possible to post any reference to a competitor's site here or the post will be pulled of course.

As an aside, people are still talking about the take-over of Holland America by Carnival Cruise lines and all the changes that brought about. Except the take-over was like 30 years ago!

Sadly I don't think the "new" ship Voyager (former Alexander Humboldt) did anything for VOD, except obviously the old one was probably well beyond any serviceability. But the old Discovery just worked better for the passengers, where as this one does not but is probably a far better sea craft. Bouncing across the Madagascar Straights on the old Discovery is not a transit one would never wish to be repeated. Ever, yet this area itself was a highlight of the VOD offerings

Wonder how the Minerva itself compares for layouts and cabins. Cabins we learned are the least concern for us, but the public spaces and dining options do make a difference. Loved the old "glass dome" open space Lido on the old Discovery. New ship open pool space is too exposed, noisy and windy. Plus the forward upper deck viewing area needs to be restricted during certain hours due to cabins below.

But the show lounge on the new ship truly has to be "what were they thinking" because the biggest selling point of VOD that made it easy to ignore any of their other prior ship deficiencies are their enrichment lecture series - now 3/4 of the passengers can't even see them due to the flat floor seating and the low ceilings. I also heard this low ceiling won't allow raised stadium type seating to be installed, which is an absolute must for VOD's excellent speaker series. The old Discovery had a nicely ramped show lounge with good sight lines available.

It would be interesting to learn more about why this ship was chosen to replace the old Discovery (former Love Boat sister ship - Ocean Princess). What did they take into consideration? And how much did they match their unique programming with the new ship's ability to provide it.

When we were on Voyager we watched some of the talks on the cabin TV. I see what you mean, it is nice to see them first hand, but we learned on Minerva II that we would prefer to spend days in the sun and catch up later - often as we got ready for dinner. From memory I think the show (talks) lounge in Minerva is much the same as Voyager, but talks were on both TV and in the cinema, though the cinema has since been removed in a refurb methinks.

Great shame about Minerva II which was a Renaisance (R class) ship, That was the original Swan though, that had become linked to P&O and which had been taken over by the Carnival Corporation not long before our cruises in 2006. Carnival had made it known they do not 'do small' from the outset, so Swan with one small ship was destined to go. We experienced a 'crossing the line ceremony' as we sailed away from The Amazon and it was presided over by King Carnival and there were lots of jokes accordingly. The demise of Swan was already planned for the following April, so the staff had nothing to loose.

The ship's Captain, officers and service staff were employed by Carnival and the ship initially continued as Royal Princess and subsequently, Adonia. The Swan staff (cruise director, shore tours staff etc.) lost their jobs, but many were re employed by Swan when it was re incarnated by All Leisure in 2008. As the OP has said, it seems that many of those staff left the ship during the changes a couple of years back, but I am not clear if they were actually made redundant or if they left because of the changes to the operation and they chose to do so.

The obvious point made in the annual report about over supply in the cruise industry bringing prices down is the crux of the matter though from our perspective. It is true, and if prices are to come down, so will quality. Hence, cruise lines have to cut back, or go to the wall, unless perhaps they can produce a product that people will pay more for - perhaps by really unusual itineraries in the case of the All Leisure brands. I just feel that our retirement a few years ago was just a little too late, both because of this and the instability in many parts of the world which is making them become no go areas.

Cheers,

Barbara

..........Great shame about Minerva II which was a Renaisance (R class) ship, That was the original Swan though, that had become linked to P&O and which had been taken over by the Carnival Corporation not long before our cruises in 2006. Carnival had made it known they do not 'do small' from the outset, so Swan with one small ship was destined to go. We experienced a 'crossing the line ceremony' as we sailed away from The Amazon and it was presided over by King Carnival and there were lots of jokes accordingly. The demise of Swan was already planned for the following April, so the staff had nothing to loose.

 

...........

Hi Barbara

I was also on this cruise. The crossing the line was the best I've ever done. At the time I thought that the officers probably wouldn't work for Carnival again :D

I've always wanted to return to Swan but when they restarted with Minerva, the prices for a solo were so high (never able to book one of the few single cabins) compared to Minerva II - spoilt with her. However, I've managed to get a good late booking for November and their Winter17/18 pre-release had an interesting "relocation" cruise with lots of sea days so have taken advantage of that. Both cruises with a zero single supplement :):):)

It will be interesting to see how they come up to my memories and it will be nice to be back on a small ship. One of the things that attracted me to Swan were their interesting destinations and visiting smaller ports. Glad to see that the November cruise is still calling in to Turkey and spending two nights in Istanbul. Main issue now is working out which of the excursions to book.

Got a flyer with newly released VOD cruises for winter 2017/18 and they are also on their website.

We have booked a 31 night cruise from Colombo (Sri Lanka), to Piraeus for February 2018 in a very well placed, deck four cabin on Voyager for a really good price. The cruise has lots of interesting ports in India and the Middle East with a number of overnights, including 3 nights in Dubai as it is a change over port for some cruises.

The head office seem as efficient as ever with the booking, and I should think the itineraries they have produced will sell well compared to the mundane itineraries on other cruise lines. So hopefully any problems for All Leisure will be a thing of the past, but we paid the deposit by credit card as we usually do, for extra security.

Hi Barbara,

Both my wife and I will be joining you in Dubai for the cruise back to Piraeus. I booked it yesterday as a birthday present for my dear lady. We will be in Cabin 7200 on the Bridge Deck.

Although you may notice that my joining date to “Cruise Critic” appears as the 3rd June this year, I have actually been a member for many years but had to change my ID, because my identity was somehow compromised.

As a retired travel writer I am now free and able to do my own thing, so we can indulge our pleasure in cruising on the smaller ships. Over the years all of my cruise travel commissions have involved major cruise companies and the larger cruise ships. This will be our first time with VOD, having been recommended by friends who are frequent returners.

Although the above posts make interesting reading, with several posts sharing some reservations about VOD, it has always been my experience that if it is someone’s intention to find fault, then they will find fault, even in the most luxurious situation. Far better to dwell and expound on the positives and let the crew and hotel staff resolve the problems. No matter where on Earth you are, being courteous and polite will normally always result in good staff relations. Unfortunately, there are many Brits and Americans whose interpretation as to what politeness and courtesy involves leaves a lot to be desired.

My first encounter with the booking staff at ALH was very positive. My only concern is that they were not able to quote me for flight upgrades. I do understand that airlines do not release their flight timetables and prices until between ten or eleven months before departure dates, so I will just have to wait.

We will be living in quite a different world to you in an inside down on Deck 4 (4403), but that cabin is central and well worth having on a ship that is not too stable in rough seas and it is not too far back so should not suffer from the noise and vibration which is very real. We tend to buy our holidays cheap, but have a lot of them. With so many sea days your cabin will be great as you will have the time to enjoy it. We may well treat ourselves one day to a special one.

I think the comments above are all valid and mainly refer to the ship rather than the staff, who I think you will find it hard to criticise - though we did have some issues with the shore excursion staff last September. I saw a number of criticisms after the cutbacks a few years ago, so presume they were well founded. Swan and VOD had been extremely well organised until then and the experienced staff were replaced by staff from head office with no experience as I understood it. Perhaps that was because the head office staff had permanent contracts.

We found the ship fine last September though and head office staff have been very helpful with our bookings for next Feb/March from Hong Kong to Colombo, as well as for 2018. You will find many comments by OlsSalt, who has posted above, praising the ethos of the ship and the way it is run. If you can find my review of our September 2015 cruise, it was a very detailed one and got recognition by CC as one of the best reviews that week. The reviews will give a good idea of what the ship is all about and the experience of the cruise style is the advantage, rather than luxury, with opinion varying with what people are wanting. The style of cruising would not suit all, so people do need to make sure it is the right ship for them - someone wanting endless 'entertainments' and modern facilities will not be happy, but if they had looked at information about the ship would have known what to expect.

Voyager is an old ship and no one would consider the design ideal and I assume that it is all a matter of what can be afforded by the company as the small new builds come up as extremely expensive for all cabins. That would likely make their cruises too expensive to sell. The itineraries are excellent though and is what has sold their cruises to us. You will also find the atmosphere on board to be a very polite one, as the passengers are mostly well educated and well travelled people, mainly of an older grouping. I think you will find your comment about different people and their understanding of politeness to be quite unfounded with passengers on Voyager, and certainly Swan.

We got our flight details mid summer for next February, so it was later than we had hoped. We are flying Emirates from Manchester and they do not offer premium economy, so they quoted something very high for an upgrade, (that did reflect the difference in flight costs on the net though which may be a guide for you), so we are going economy. Returning from Piraeus in 2018 means we will not need an overnight long haul return though, and we hope we can again secure a varied Colombo flight, so we can have an extra week in Sri Lanka (next March we have organised a nine night independent tour in Sri Lanka post cruise). We have asked for an outbound flight which will give us about 12 hours in Dubai for 2018, allowing us to use the airport hotel, but we will have to see if that can happen, though booking our own flight to those timings may be worthwhile if VOD cannot arrange that.

2018 seems a long time away, but we can use a roll call nearer to the time and would be nice to meet you on board,

Barbara

Thank you Barbara for your input.

I read your cruise review with interest. It appears to me that this ship will be what both Maureen and I prefer for our personal cruising. No photographers pestering you. Plenty of seating areas to relax in. No overpowering entertainment. No 24 hour feeding frenzies! I have been a fan of classic cruise ships for a long time, so older ships actually appeal to us. To date all my travel commissions have been on glitzy big resort ships. This will hopefully be the start of a great relationship.

For others looking at this post who may like to read your review, this is the direct link to it: http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=516142

In addition, this is another good review, written by Jean and Ken Rush: http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/reviews/review.cfm?ShipID=684

As regards the flights, I have found guideline flight upgrade costs in the 2017/2018 brochure. Also VOD has sent me a 2 day pre-cruise stay offer. However, not the Dubai hotel I would select from choice. So we will in all probability want to fly to Dubai a few days earlier, as we have friends who live there and will probably stay in our preferred hotel, The Palace Downtown Dubai.

I look forward to hearing more of your experiences aboard Voyager.

The pre and post cruise stays tend work out very pricey even though they will include transfers. They have been happy to vary flight dates though, which we did that for our return flight next March and then arranged our own post cruise tour/stay for 9 nights rather than the 4 night whirlwind tour they offer and for less than 1.5 times their price. We booked that through Kuoni and have better hotels, our own private driver for 7 days and a much more leisurely pace. We will need to pay for entrance charges, lunches and a couple of dinners, but it will in no way make up the price differences.

We have asked to be contacted regards changing our flight out in Jan 2018 and they have changed our return flight from Sri Lanka next March for an admin charge of £56 each. The charge could be more though - particularly for someone who may be booked on a charter from London (we had paid the Man suppl and would have been sent Emirates anyway). We were able to get that flight change arranged at the end of April (we did need to ring to prompt then though). Our block booked flights out to Hong Kong on 1st Feb 2017 were not booked until early July this year.

We did take their overnight trip to the Mekong from HCMC though, which was offered just after we booked. We thought that was good value at £199 and we will be sure of getting back to the ship before it sails.

For someone who has been intrigued by Swan Hellenic for a while now, but never acted on it, yet, I have enjoyed this thread. One question, if anyone wants to venture and opinion: If the cruise industry (presumably referring to the UK market) is over built, why is P&O proposing to build a 4000 passenger ship devoted almost exclusively to the UK market?

I feel this thread has got off topic. I keep reading it to see if the original question is being answered. We have travelled on Minerva twice,

( Coincidently about the same time as Comcox) and loved it. The second time there were problems with noise at the rear of ship, but otherwise no change and excellent. Fantastic itineraries and well organized, excellent, shore excursions with choices of tours.

For someone who has been intrigued by Swan Hellenic for a while now, but never acted on it, yet, I have enjoyed this thread. One question, if anyone wants to venture and opinion: If the cruise industry (presumably referring to the UK market) is over built, why is P&O proposing to build a 4000 passenger ship devoted almost exclusively to the UK market?

Is it over built? P&O are building another ship (one of I think four Carnival are building) because they are confident of filling it. Also will enable them to get rid of some older ships.

Is this a boom heading for bust. Possibly.

David.