Saga cutting corners and going the way of P&O?

[FatBoy20]

38 minutes ago, Glenndale said:

I’m just back from a Saga cruise on Discovery and have to agree. Food quality is declining, even in specialities.

Too much emphasis on included alcohol at the expense of the food.

Who wants or needs sparkling wine at breakfast?

Ordering off menu in QG I can have an individually prepared dish every night if I so desired.

Lead in QG prices are roughly comparable to the cost of a deluxe balcony on Saga.

 

But QG on Cunard does not include the "add ons" Saga provides eg drinks, Taxis etc so it is not comparable!.

[Windsurfboy]

1 hour ago, Glenndale said:

 

1 hour ago, Glenndale said:

Lead in QG prices are roughly comparable to the cost of a deluxe balcony on Saga.

 

 

I've always found QG to be same price as Saga suite not deluxe, assuming you get the 35% or 30% discount by buying early on Saga.

 

For the full no discount price would never go Saga. Competition at that price is Silver sea, Seabourn or Regent. Which do have better food.

 

 

[Glenndale]

43 minutes ago, FatBoy20 said:

But QG on Cunard does not include the "add ons" Saga provides eg drinks, Taxis etc so it is not comparable!.

I suppose it depends on whether or not the add ons give value to you personally.

🙂

 

[Glenndale]

21 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

 

 

I've always found QG to be same price as Saga suite not deluxe, assuming you get the 35% or 30% discount by buying early on Saga.

 

For the full no discount price would never go Saga. Competition at that price is Silver sea, Seabourn or Regent. Which do have better food.

 

 

I refer you back to an earlier post with regards to pricing.

 

e.g.

We have a 14  night Canary Isle cruise booked in QG for Dec. 2024 £4700 each, currently a deluxe cabin on a 14 night Saga cruise in Dec. 2024 is £5225 (35% discount). Our QG grade cabins are all sold out.

Of course it's not all about the money, we still travel with Saga and hope to book a couple of cruises with them when they release their 2025 offerings. 

It's all about personal choice and what works for you.

Obviously it all depends on the itinerary and more importantly whether or not Sagas included amenities have value to you.

Saga gold and Cunard diamond.

[Harry Peterson]

2 minutes ago, Glenndale said:

I suppose it depends on whether or not the add ons give value to you personally.

🙂

 

That’s very much my feeling. If you’re happy without alcohol and the very basic ‘excursions’ included, you’re left with the transport from home to port. And after the recent changes involving Uber drivers (friends of ours sitting terrified in the car with a dangerous driver who spoke no English) I’m not sure that’s a plus!

 

The quality of the restaurants and the food is important to us, and I’m disappointed that that’s going downhill to cut costs.

[Glenndale]

3 hours ago, Harry Peterson said:

That’s very much my feeling. If you’re happy without alcohol and the very basic ‘excursions’ included, you’re left with the transport from home to port. And after the recent changes involving Uber drivers (friends of ours sitting terrified in the car with a dangerous driver who spoke no English) I’m not sure that’s a plus!

 

The quality of the restaurants and the food is important to us, and I’m disappointed that that’s going downhill to cut costs.

As a regular cruiser with Saga the included excursions hold no value as we have visited these ports many times. As to the transfers, we always seem to be tag 30 and sitting kicking our heels to disembark is no fun.

[FatBoy20]

30 minutes ago, Glenndale said:

As a regular cruiser with Saga the included excursions hold no value as we have visited these ports many times. As to the transfers, we always seem to be tag 30 and sitting kicking our heels to disembark is no fun.

 

4 hours ago, Harry Peterson said:

That’s very much my feeling. If you’re happy without alcohol and the very basic ‘excursions’ included, you’re left with the transport from home to port. And after the recent changes involving Uber drivers (friends of ours sitting terrified in the car with a dangerous driver who spoke no English) I’m not sure that’s a plus!

 

The quality of the restaurants and the food is important to us, and I’m disappointed that that’s going downhill to cut costs.

I trust the issue with the "Uber" driver was fed back to Saga so action could be taken & if not reported you reap what you sow!.

[Harry Peterson]

5 minutes ago, FatBoy20 said:

 

I trust the issue with the "Uber" driver was fed back to Saga so action could be taken & if not reported you reap what you sow!.

Absolutely reported - along with a few other issues. Currently awaiting response.

[JMMKUK]

1 hour ago, Glenndale said:

As a regular cruiser with Saga the included excursions hold no value as we have visited these ports many times. As to the transfers, we always seem to be tag 30 and sitting kicking our heels to disembark is no fun.

Where is your favourite cabin situated? We have noticed that Aft seems to disembark first.

[Glenndale]

18 minutes ago, JMMKUK said:

Where is your favourite cabin situated? We have noticed that Aft seems to disembark first.

Usually midships on D or E.  We’ve noticed decks seem to be cleared top down. Certainly no priority for Gold Britannia members.

Last cruise there were roughly 70 members in each of Bronze, Silver and Gold with around a dozen Sapphire and 1 Diamond members, on an almost full ship.

We are now considering driving ourselves down to Portsmouth, although not so keen on the Dover trip 🙂

[LondonLad60]

2 hours ago, Glenndale said:

As a regular cruiser with Saga the included excursions hold no value as we have visited these ports many times. As to the transfers, we always seem to be tag 30 and sitting kicking our heels to disembark is no fun.

I empathise with you over disembarkation, but at least it is organised, and to me it is preferable to the last time I disembarked from Arcadia, which was just chaotic.

[nosapphire]

Discovery -  Deck E aft, luggage tag 7, time 08:30.

Adventure - Deck B forward, luggage tag 27, time 10:05.

I always assumed that priority would be given to anyone who had trains/coach/ferry/plane to catch, then the others fitted around them.

Worked pretty smoothly both times around, though.

++

2 hours ago, Glenndale said:

As a regular cruiser with Saga the included excursions hold no value as we have visited these ports many times. As to the transfers, we always seem to be tag 30 and sitting kicking our heels to disembark is no fun.

Somebody decided "included excursions" would look really good in the advertising, without worrying too much whether they would offer any added value to the passenger.

They don't.

Far better how they did it in the "old" days, with much more port information given out on the Today programme plus a paper map to take ashore.

++

Food - I don't think the food itself has deteriorated overall; I can recall a few meals that did not hit the mark long before the new ships came along, but to my mind the overall quality and variety is still very good.

Where it may suffer is when people start comparing with the real luxury lines (sorry, Saga - I may still love you but you are not a "Luxury" line) and it sounds as if Cunard offer a more adventurous dining experience.

The overall deal with Saga - for all their faults - still suits me, and many others, this does not mean they are better, or that I think other lines are in any way worse.

[Mollag]

3 hours ago, nosapphire said:

Discovery -  Deck E aft, luggage tag 7, time 08:30.

Adventure - Deck B forward, luggage tag 27, time 10:05.

I always assumed that priority would be given to anyone who had trains/coach/ferry/plane to catch, then the others fitted around them.

Worked pretty smoothly both times around, though.

++

Somebody decided "included excursions" would look really good in the advertising, without worrying too much whether they would offer any added value to the passenger.

They don't.

Far better how they did it in the "old" days, with much more port information given out on the Today programme plus a paper map to take ashore.

++

Food - I don't think the food itself has deteriorated overall; I can recall a few meals that did not hit the mark long before the new ships came along, but to my mind the overall quality and variety is still very good.

Where it may suffer is when people start comparing with the real luxury lines (sorry, Saga - I may still love you but you are not a "Luxury" line) and it sounds as if Cunard offer a more adventurous dining experience.

The overall deal with Saga - for all their faults - still suits me, and many others, this does not mean they are better, or that I think other lines are in any way worse.

D deck aft flying home disembarked 1145 no complaints here

[FatBoy20]

15 hours ago, Glenndale said:

Usually midships on D or E.  We’ve noticed decks seem to be cleared top down. Certainly no priority for Gold Britannia members.

Last cruise there were roughly 70 members in each of Bronze, Silver and Gold with around a dozen Sapphire and 1 Diamond members, on an almost full ship.

We are now considering driving ourselves down to Portsmouth, although not so keen on the Dover trip 🙂

Remember Saga also have to schedule the transport arrangements into the disembarkation timing.

[LondonLad60]

On our last cruise (SoA ,Med in September), instead of cramming everyone into the Britannia Lounge, library and North Cape Bar, use was made of other venues - our tag no.was 14, and our venue was the Khukuri House. The Supper Club was also used.

Edited December 24, 2023 by LondonLad60

[JMMKUK]

16 hours ago, Glenndale said:

Usually midships on D or E.  We’ve noticed decks seem to be cleared top down. Certainly no priority for Gold Britannia members.

Last cruise there were roughly 70 members in each of Bronze, Silver and Gold with around a dozen Sapphire and 1 Diamond members, on an almost full ship.

We are now considering driving ourselves down to Portsmouth, although not so keen on the Dover trip 🙂

We've been aft on deck A & deck C. Best was A tag 2, worst was C tag 6. We are gold but I don't think that is in the mix. Our friends, needing assistance were tag 1 on their Discovery cruise.

[JMMKUK]

Just now, LondonLad60 said:

On our last cruise (SoA ,Med in September), instead of cramming everyone into the Britannia Lounge, library and North Cape Bar, use was made of other venues - our tag no.was 12  (I think), and our venue was the Khukuri House. The Supper Club was also used.

We were in the Supper Club on the inaugral cruise so it has always been used. October cruise was the first time we'd been in the Britannia lounge.

[nosapphire]

On the Rose and the Ruby, stacks of the day's newspapers were brought into the embarkation waiting lounge (I recollect the Mail, Times and Telegraph). Stopped when they got the (larger) Sapphire.

The tea/coffee/fruit juice/pastries are still there, though.

Mid-morning announcement on the last cruise that departure tag calls would ONLY be given in the designated lounge, evidently lots of people had gone straight to the Living Room in the hopes of sneaking off early. Bit pointless if the luggage is not already put out (or, if included transport, your car not there).

Think that when you reach Sapphire level it may get an earlier disembarkation - Gold definitely doesn't. We are Gold, shared with 2 first-time-with-Saga.

They were an extremely nice couple, but not sure how they viewed Saga; they did say the food was better than Fred Olsen, but this came across rather as being "damned with faint praise" - especially as when we said," how was your cruise"? there was a very long pause before they said, "nice".

 

[Tabicat]

On 12/15/2023 at 10:30 AM, Harry Peterson said:

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.

 

[Tabicat]

Just got back from the Scandinavian Christmas trip on Spirit of Discovery. A 14 night cruise over Christmas and New Year. 

Can't fault the food or the dining rooms, but noticed one of the lifts was out of order for the whole trip.  Several cruisers who were on the previous trip said the lift was not working on that one either. 

Are Saga trying to save money on maintenance?   It's difficult enough when disembarking for excursions if all the lifts are working, and the day of disembarkation at Portsmouth was chaotic

[FannyLiz]

 

7 minutes ago, Tabicat said:

…

 

 

but noticed one of the lifts was out of order for the whole trip.  Several cruisers who were on the previous trip said the lift was not working on that one either. 

Are Saga trying to save money on maintenance?   It's difficult enough when disembarking for excursions if all the lifts are working, and the day of disembarkation at Portsmouth was chaotic

Is that the centre aft lift ?  I was waiting for that on the Caribbean cruise when it broke down. We were having very rough seas and, from the noise being made, it sounded like something major had come off its supports inside. I strongly suspect it will need a period in port to sort it and perhaps, with the tight schedule that cruise ships run, this is not yet possible.  Certainly the crew member ( not domestic staff) that I spoke to, said that it was not something they could sort internally or on that cruise.

[Tabicat]

Yes that is the one

[Tabicat]

Just realised I made an error on my reply to FannyLiz about the lift.  

It was the right hand aft lift, not the centre one

[FannyLiz]

1 hour ago, Tabicat said:

Just realised I made an error on my reply to FannyLiz about the lift.  

It was the right hand aft lift, not the centre one

Perhaps the person who said it had been u/s on the previous cruise was thinking of the centre aft one as well - ?  
 

I have great faith in marine engineers but would prefer a lift was dealt with by specialised lift engineers and assume they, and their spares, are only available in port.
 

Edited January 8 by FannyLiz

[JMMKUK]

We got stuck in a lift on Silver Wind back in 2017. Luckily it wasn't between floors. After that we noticed it was OOS a lot.

On SoA last twice lifts were often OOS but not for very long. I always assumed it was because the crew were using them for a something important. I know they do that when they are taking a medical emergency to level 4.