Tothesunset

That makes me feel so homesick as an erstwhile New Territories resident. The best place we ever lived. 😢

Was the email issued 2 days ago, perchance? Around the start of the spaghetti harvest?

Whatever time of year you visit...

At what point can Covid still be considered to blame for inadequacies of the current product? Covid and the sellout to mothership occurred, to all intents and purposes, at the same time. I'd posit that current deficiencies owe more to the latter than the former.

Nooo.... Dont go spoiling this thread by stating something verifiable.

So.... As I read it from the conjecture so far: Saga will be taken in hand by an existing cruise operator, a non-cruise operator or someone else. That clears it up, then.

It's the hardest, but kindest, decision you can ever make.

Colourful and smart. 👍

You are very fortunate when a "home" vacation can offer so much geographical variety.

I think the only thing SS is stretching is customers' patience.

I suppose it's not surprising that once SS was sucked into the mothership that changes would come along. I'd expected some sort of alignment with the new company's core values - ie fleece the customer to the last cent - what has surprised me is the slow dribble of nicks and cuts and tweaks that are slowly transforming SS into a very expensive mainstream line. SS is now, seemingly, a branding exercise rather than a unique product. It's so sad.

So it seems, the way things are going, SS is less M&M, more like S&M.

It's weird the way they do that. When we lived in Hong Kong it would be 40 degrees and 100% humidity in summer but if you went downtown to eat you had to carry a sweater. Glad I wasn't paying the energy bill.

Is there ever a time when it isn't?

Another true story: Around the turn of the century I was part of a group that examined candidates for postgraduate qualifications from the Royal College of Surgeons of England. On the final evening the dozen or so of us would go for a group meal and each examainer's individual food allowance would be pooled for one big blow-out. Sadly, alcohol could not be claimed against this allowance but there was no limit (within reason) for food. So at a Chinese restaurant somewhere in London the chief examiner asked for the bill but said to the waiter: "When you make up the bill, instead of itemising the beer and wine can you put it down as food?" "Of course, Sir." When the bill came the final lines were: 6 bottles red food - £xxx 6 bottles white food - £xxx 12 pints draught food - £xxx

They've sent it out early. Its another couple of weeks until 1st of April.

Truly shocked.

By that argument should the cruise line also pay the staff properly so that tips are unnecessary and don't only favour the few at front-of-house?

But it does suck people in. No 1 lesson in dodgy sales academy? Get the punter to make a snap decision.

Today is 10 March 2024. Lets pretend its same date in 2014. Now compare the Silversea experience on the earlier date with the later one. Other than the name most unique features of the line have changed. It's now a mass-market cash cow pretending to be exclusive.

I suppose he couldn't have known that the gun wasn't loaded.

We had an odd experience at Raffles in 2005. We went to have a look round and found they were serving afternoon tea. Well, that's got to be worth an hour or two of our time. Anyway, we asked the person allocating seats if we could have afternoon tea, that we hadn't booked and they seemed only half full. There was no further conversation. The guy called security and we were encouraged to leave the premises. No explanation. Really, really odd.

Well, you scratch my back...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luffa_aegyptiaca Wikipaedia - for all those things you didn't know you needed to know.