Harry Peterson

Really? All the news reports suggest they’re desperately trying to save the company from collapsing under its huge debt burden - not taking on yet more! That’s the reason for the cuts being discussed.

Not East Street Market, off Walworth Road? Well remember that.

Good stuff too - we bought their seconds at the factory shop.

Goodness, that’s going back a bit! I do remember the one in Holborn. This might jog some memories:

We had Romany at one point too. Our son and his wife have it now and she’s thrilled with it. Our daughter however also grew up with it - and hates it with a passion! Back in the 70s all newly wed couples seemed to hanker after a set of Denby. Now they just want to be able to afford to buy, or even rent, somewhere. We were an extremely fortunate generation.

All great places, Jane (not sure about the BHS, but they did at the time do an excellent Pick and Mix, at least in Plymouth and Ipswich!) but understandably for you, all north of the river! No mention of Brixton Market or Borough Market - before they went posh! I was living in one of the best and most expensive roads in Clapham, just off the Common - before that went posh too. £4.50 a week for a bedsit, complete with built in mice. £5m now, that house - maybe £50,000 in 1970, scruffy and split into at least a dozen bedsits. Branches of John Lewis in nearby Streatham and Brixton (Pratts and Bon Marché) were the places we used to dream about one day owning furniture. I bet we both ended up on King’s Road Chelsea from time to time though. 😉

Up to a point, I agree with you. Ships are a little like hotels in that, like hotels, the asset remains, regardless of ownership. It’s not the hotel that goes into receivership or liquidation - it’s the company owning and running it. The hotel carries on under new ownership. Likewise ships. Carnival have been able to sell off ships to save the company, but that’s a little tricky when you only have two! They’ve sold off various other parts of the business to reduce debt but that’s not been enough. For me the warning alarms started sounding when they unilaterally broke all the life membership contracts, despite loud protests from those who paid Saga a lot of money for them many years ago. It’s highly unusual for a company to break contracts with its own members and customers so blatantly, and it must be really desperate to cut costs to survive. Then I started to read about the cutbacks on cruises, which confirmed it. A lot of the people who bought those life memberships spent a great deal of money with Saga on travel, insurance and financial products, but they now no longer trust Saga to honour its contracts. That’s not good business, and suggests desperation. Travel companies do go under fairly often, and if that happened to Saga it would leave quite a mess to sort out.

The problem, though, is the huge debt pile. Its market value, according to the Telegraph article above is ‘a little over £160m’, with debts of £657m. The commentary takes the view that because the large debt dwarves the small value of the company its long term viability remains a question. Little wonder that they’re having to cut costs.

There was a beautiful put down from a fellow diner on Azura a few years ago. It was a big table, and the guy immediately to the right of me had been bragging about this that and the other to the whole table. The lady two to my left was looking increasingly bored with all this, but she said nothing, apart from a quite word with my wife. Just before the end of the meal, though, the conversation had turned to the journeys home we all had. He asked her how far she had to travel. Very quick response: "We live in Surrey but it doesn't matter because my son's arranged for the chauffeur to collect me." Deflated gentleman to my right. But then a whisper to my wife: "It's a Mondeo, and he's got my grandson to collect me."

The reference to Uber explains quite a lot. Two particular examples recently have concerned me, both involving journeys home. The first related to a shared journey home in an Octavia which wasn’t capable of taking all the luggage in the boot. One of the passengers had to be squeezed into the back with the excess - hardly very safe in the event of an accident. The second, even worse, involved friends of ours who were actually terrified because of what they saw as nothing short of dangerous driving. The driver spoke no English, didn’t know the route, and was using a handheld phone en route both to translate and find his way. Communications were near impossible, which didn’t help, hence the reliance on Google Translate. These changes will have arisen because of Saga’s precarious financial position, but there’s absolutely no excuse for putting passengers’ lives at risk.

Funny you should say that Zap. We did get exactly that on one cruise, sharing a table with 4 extremely loud and boasty East London property ‘speculators’. Very flash, very loud, very London, very boastful, very loaded. It was an interesting meal, all very polite. We left immediately after the dessert course, with excuses about meeting some friends. ”I bet you’re going to tell your friends all about us.” How right they were! I don’t recall ever meeting anyone drinking soup straight from the bowls before. Or since. 😶

Just for clarification, the changes and cutbacks I referred to in the original post are quite recent - within the last month or so. I'd particularly welcome comments from anyone cruising with Saga from, say, November on. What really made me think was the juxtaposition of two things (coupled with the breaking of all the life membership contracts by Saga) - the recent reports of cutbacks and this article in the Telegraph (probably paywalled I'm afraid) on 30 November: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/30/inside-scramble-save-saga-debt-mountain-euan-sutherland/ (The scramble to save Saga from sinking under a mountain of debt) Is this scramble to save Saga being reflected in current cruises I wonder?

Sounds an excellent compromise! 😀

Always wondered about signing up to that to end the Christmas card saga, but never had the courage to stop the cards. Their stuff is excellent, but somehow won’t replace a card with a message. Those Christmas letters are a joy - we get one each year from relations in a smart bit of London, telling everyone what exciting, expensive and wonderful lives they all lead! If they only knew the entertainment we all get………😇

Genuine question from someone thinking of defecting from P&O to Saga. I’ve seen a lot of reports lately of cutbacks on Saga leading to poor or indifferent dining experiences, less than pleasant travel arrangements to and from ports and other general dissatisfaction. This is the way it went with P&O and Saga seemed an alternative - albeit at considerably higher prices. What has really put me off Saga though, apart from but linked to the above, is their treatment earlier this year of their Saga Magazine life members. We paid a pretty hefty sum to Saga for the privilege of receiving Saga magazine for life. Earlier this year, though, Saga wrote to all the life members telling them that it was too expensive for them to carry on sending the magazine - to receive it in future we’d have to pay for it all over again every year. Given that they were quite happy to break their contract on this, I no longer feel I can trust them on insurance or cruises, and the cutbacks I read about all seem linked to their considerable financial difficulties. Looking for feedback really - what’s actually happening on the cruise front, what’s the impact of the cutbacks, and how are Saga reacting to issues raised? They wouldn’t budge on the broken life membership contract issue, and it concerns me that finance is now dictating outcomes.

Oh the joy of having breakfast or dinner (ideally both, though not at the same time) on a train as the scenery rushes past! I used to travel between London and various places as part of my job, and the breakfast out, dinner back was an absolute pleasure. Especially when someone else was paying for it! Really good food on LNER too, and fine service.

You’ll find a number here who have settled with P&O on a NDA basis. Obviously, nobody will be able to disclose that fact though one individual is happy to do so because, P&O being P&O, they’re not very good at getting the wording right!

A very good point, John!

In our experience it’s not really the ship that makes the difference - it’s where it’s going. And it’s a lot more than the age profile that changes. The difference between, for example, our Iceland cruises and the sunshine cruises was enormous. Very, very different dynamics.

You could of course challenge them contractually, given the difference between the accepted meaning of the word overnight and the P&O interpretation. And you might well succeed, depending on how far you’re prepared to push it - though I doubt it’s worth the bother for the relatively small amount at stake. On past form, P&O would refuse absolutely to budge until it’s clear you’re prepared to take it as far as a court hearing, and then offer to settle with a non-disclosure agreement.

I’ll seek it out - both excellent. Used to love Americast too when Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel were doing it.

It always was a canny marketing ploy to make the ordinary somehow appear to be extraordinary at no cost to P&O. There comes a point though when that just won’t work any more because all the niceties have been removed, and that point has now been reached.

Funnily enough, that’s exactly the life expectancy of the canapés served in the suites - though I see that’s been cut back to just embarkation and celebration nights. Cut back by popular request this time though.

That’s very interesting, Dave - I hadn’t spotted that change. The wording’s a little ambiguous but if it means I can ditch the suit for smart casual, with decent trousers, shirt, jacket and tie, I’m all in favour. It had to come eventually, and I think the fast-changing P&O demographic has made it inevitable. Won’t please a lot of people, but I’m delighted!

Have you tried the weekly Today podcast by Nick Robinson and Amol Rajan? It’s extremely good, very incisive and pretty informal! https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0gg4k6r