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Oh Dear! They must be expecting very challenging weather. The other restaurants will be very busy if the Grill is closed. Is SOD heading straight back to Portsmouth?

I received an email from Saga this evening stating Winter 2025 cruises are about to go on sale (for those of us who didn’t pre-register).

It’s important to book early with Saga to get the best deal. Our last Saga cruise in April in a standard balcony cabin worked out at £223 pppn with a 35% discount. Saga will collect the day before and transfer you to a hotel near the port (hotel at your own expense) if you wish. We also like Azamara, and are prepared to travel to London and stay overnight in an airport hotel for the right itinerary.

Thanks for your blog NorbertsNeice. Antarctica with HAL on Oosterdam should be interesting, and very different to the Adriatic!

Thanks for posting Norbertsneice. The Officers talk is so informative. Steve was the Chief Engineer on our last cruise on SofA. Such an interesting military career, and as you say, he is very modest.

I pre-registered and received Summer 2024 itineraries on 28th February 2023. So if Saga are 2 months ahead this time, perhaps Summer 2025 itineraries will be released before Christmas. We do like to book early, and are interested in a couple of 2025 itineraries with other cruise lines, but we want to see what Saga offers first.

They haven’t appeared on the website yet - I keep checking! We have pre-registered for Summer 2025, so I hope Saga will send out details of those itineraries soon.

Thanks for posting, that is very encouraging. We await our email with baited breath!

Have you received the January to March 2025 itineraries? If so, are there any other than the usual Caribbean and Canaries itineraries?

That’s useful to know FatBoy20. Now we’re just waiting for the 2025 itineraries!

Embarkation usually starts at 1pm.

We also take our own coffee bags for the cabin. I can’t function properly until I’ve had my first cup of decent coffee in the morning!

We enjoyed our cruise on Azamara Journey, and would be happy to cruise with them again if we were looking for a fly cruise. The food in the speciality restaurants on Saga ships is on a par with the speciality restaurants on Azamara. The food in the Main Dining Room on Saga ships is better than Azamara. The service is good on both cruise lines. Entertainment is varied and generally good on Saga ships. We particularly like the Classical quartet, not so keen on comedians and magicians, but there is something to suit everyone!

We’re hoping that Saga will introduce some more interesting itineraries for 2025, and even a few fly cruises - fingers crossed!

The cruises advertised are: 7 November SD120. £6512 5 January SU105. £3418, 20 January. SU106. £2764 3 February SU107. £7999 17 February SD129. £4056 4 March. SU108 £3573. Only guarantee cabin prices are shown.

I’ve just seen Saga’s full page advert in today’s Telegraph, advertising 6 winter cruises. The prices for guarantee cabins are lower than those on Saga’s website. One would hope that any saving is passed on to clients who booked previously or haven’t seen the advert.

Thanks for posting twotravellersLondon, this makes interesting reading. We had a very enjoyable Baltic cruise on the Balmoral a few years ago, with a daytime transit of the Kiel canal. It is the only ship in Fred’s fleet which can sail through the canal, so it would be a shame if it was “impaired”. We have taken several cruises with Fred in the past but have nothing booked at present. We were stung last year by booking early to get the Oceans discount, only to find that prices reduced nearer the sailing date. We tend to book no-fly cruises with Saga nowadays. We love their new ships and all inclusive prices, and by pre-registering we know we will get a good discount when the cruises are launched. There is so much competition now, and Fred’s ships are getting on a bit. With debt increasing I guess Bonheur will have to make a decision on the future of the cruise line soon.

Did Saga say when they will start phoning people who have pre-registered for the Summer 2025 season?

We weren’t asked for anything else, but I took the cruise documents with our booking reference number and the receipt for the balance payment, just in case. Have a great cruise.

That’s good. We’ll be sailing from Portsmouth for the Canarian Christmas cruise.

I’ve also seen this advert for Winter Sun in the Canaries, departing on SoD on 7th December. It will be interesting to hear from anyone who has already booked this cruise if the price promise is applied.

Yes, umbrellas are provided in the cabins. They are rather large though, so we tend to take our own.

We received an Oceans email from Fred today offering second guest travels free discounts on cruises departing 18th September (Adriatic 26 nights), 26th September (America and Canada 34 nights) and 3rd October (Canada19 nights). Also twin cabins available for solos with no single supplement. It just goes to show that it doesn’t pay to book too far in advance.

The cheapest cabin I could find today was £1099 with the discount, based on two people sharing.

I’m so sorry to hear this Eglesbrech. I hope you recover soon.