LandC

Fred. Olsen has special offers at various times of year. They may have a Black Friday sale next month. Suggest you read the thread Cruise Prices on this page for more information.

That’s a huge price reduction twotravellerslondon. I would have been absolutely gutted if I’d booked at the original price. We were caught out earlier this year by booking early (see my posts #58 #68 and #70), and didn’t get any refund or increased OBS when we requested it. I think Fred needs to rethink it’s pricing policy or customers won’t return.

I understand that Saga are offering a transfer to Contrasts of Scandinavia on May 21st, price matched with an extra 5% discount, for those who want a similar itinerary.

Ivycottage, we have experienced this in previous years where cruises were cancelled due to COVID, or countries became unsafe to visit eg Black Sea. Usually Saga will offer you an incentive to book an alternative cruise, eg an extra discount. I suspect they are finalising/pricing the replacement cruise before they contact affected customers. Which cruise were you booked on?

This is so confusing, even Customer Services staff haven’t been told that 2024 itineraries will be released in two phases. Saga should clarify when they intend to contact people who have pre-registered and post it on the website, then everyone will know where they are.

Thanks for the information about live chat nosapphire. Saga need to Improve internal communications if they want customers to use this facility.

My understanding is that if you live within 75 miles of the port you get a free private car. If you live between 76 to 250 miles it’s a free shared car. Over 250 miles there is usually a charge for excess miles.

That’s interesting. When we pre-registered we got a letter stating April - 2024. Does your letter give a date? I hope you enjoy your cruise. Do post here if you find out any more information whilst on board.

It sounds like the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, which doesn’t surprise me. The fact that people can pre-register separately for Jan - March and April - December 2024 indicates that Saga intend to release the Jan- March cruises first, but this could change of course.

We’ve also pre-registered for April - December 2024 cruises. Saga phone people who have pre-registered before they publish the brochure, so it may not be made available to the general public until next year.

I asked the Saga World Rep. about this when I was on board Adventure earlier this month. He said they hoped to release January to March 2024 cruises this October, followed by April to December 2024 cruises later this year.

Oh no Eglesbrech! I read a post on another social media site from a passenger on Balmoral a couple of days ago, saying that the ship was having to go slow and miss ports due to technical issues, so Fred. Olsen have known about this problem for a while. I agree that the compensation offered is poor. There are cruises on Saga’s ships departing in the next few days, but they start at Southampton and Dover, so may not be of interest. I hope you manage to find a replacement holiday which suits.

Sorry to hear that safarigal. It looks like Bolette’s cruises from 26th October to 20th December have been removed from the website. This is the first time that I have seen this happen.

We like a gin and tonic on our balcony before dinner, and order a 1 litre bottle of gin and cans of tonic from our cabin stewardess. You will find an order form for alcoholic drinks in your cabin. I hope you enjoy your cruise!

Thank you for the information twotravellersLondon. Fred’s current pricing strategy does not encourage people to book early. Saga, on the other hand, offer their best prices on launch of new itineraries, and prices increase as cabins are sold. We have sailed with Fred several times, but can now see no advantage in booking early in order to use our Oceans discount, as prices reduce considerably near to the departure date. Fred had an advantage (as far as we are concerned), in that he sold fly cruises which Saga does not currently offer. We hope that will happen again; we will have to wait and see.

We sent an email requesting increased OBS for our recent cruise. We eventually got a very polite reply refusing our request. You may have more luck with your request for a complimentary cabin upgrade - after all it doesn’t cost Fred anything! We’ve now decided to wait until 2-3 months prior to departure before booking our next cruise, as the 5% Oceans discount just isn’t enough of an incentive to book early. However, we have 3 cruises booked with Saga (we booked as soon as cruises were advertised and got 35% discount), so we won’t be considering Fred again for at least a couple of years.