arlowood

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

The test can be undertaken anytime on the day before sailing. We did ours at 9:00am the day before sailing.

Many thanks for the confirmation. That gives us an additional option as Randox have a walk-in test facility at East Midlands Airport which is only 20 minutes away. They offer a 60min turnaround time on the lateral flow test so we could book a couple of tests for the morning of the 29th and hopefully have the results before we leave for our overnight stop.

With my belt-and-braces personna I might also order a couple of their unsupervised home test kits and set up the Randox App before we leave just in case there are any delays/glitches with the walk-in result.

Overall cost is minimal when set against a denied boarding scenario due to lack of correct test data

Good to hear the positive responses about Randox.

Jut one further question. How rigorous are P&O about the 24hr pre departure test window. I'm assuming that our sail away will probably be around 5pm on 30th August and they will start boarding around noon to 1pm on that day.

We plan to travel down to Newbury for an overnight stop on 29th and I was planning to do the lateral flow test before we left home on the morning of the 29th. (much prefer to have the security of our home WiFi than have to rely on our overnight hotel having  a reliable connection.)

If I do this are P&O likely to disqualify the test as it is outside the 24hr window of boarding or departure. Would it be better to take the test later, say mid-afternoon, then leave for Newbury.

Just booked a 7 night cruise on Arcadia departing 30th August and have received confirmation from P&O that a negative lateral flow result is required taken within 24hrs of departure.

Just looking for recommendations from others who have gone down this route recently on the best way to proceed. A complicating factor is that the day before we cruise is a bank holiday (29th August) and I'm not sure whether any walk-in or drive through tests centres will be open on that day. Also if we order an at-home self test which is verified by uploading a pic of the test cartridge - are these ratified automatically or does someone have to physically view your result to issue the appropriate certificate.

It might be feasible to do the test on the morning of departure but we are staying overnight at a hotel and would be relying on hotel wifi and a quick result turn round time.

Any advice gratefully accepted.

PS  P&O recommend the Eastleigh FC drive through test centre but I've just checked and it does not seem to be offering any test slots on the 29th or 30th August

3 hours ago, Peppers mum said:

Yes this is a real cruise, I have friends on board although they haven't got WiFi until they go ashore so I'm relying on updates on here and the cruise tracker sites to see where they are! This was the planned itinerary. Due back into Southampton on the 19th.

Will be interested to hear the reason for the schedule change and also how the rest of the cruise is going to pan out. Could be that for whatever reason they are planning to do the itinerary in a partial reverse direction. Maybe they'll do the circumnavigation of Iceland after Orkney then head for Alesund and/or Stavanger.

Having checked various port schedules, it appear that my supposition is correct. Arcadia is now due in Akureyri on 11th, Isofjordur on 12th and Rekjavik on 13th.

Not unusual as we were on a recent Saga cruise where they reversed the schudule of the ports due to the Spirit of Discovery being late and having to dock at Portsmouth rather than Dover. It meant doing Iceland first with Orkney as the final rather than the first stop.

2 hours ago, davecttr said:

I presume Orkney means Kirkwall and is that a tender port?Also on the wrong side of the north sea for Alesund which is about 360 nautical miles away. Maybe the Faroes would be a better choice.

No, if you are lucky and get ahead of the game there is a relatively new docking harbour at Hatston, about 2 miles out of Kirkwall town center. According to the cruise schedule for Hatston, Arcadia is due there tomorrow. Only space for one cruise ship, so if your cruise company misses out then it would be a tender operation.

BTW, Kirkwall Town Council provide a very effective shuttle service between the Hatston harbour and the town centre using bendy buses.

According to Cruise mapper Arcadia is now heading in a northwesterly direction towards Orkney. May just be a course change to mitigate the effects of the gales if that is what is forecast.

Hopefully she will get back on course when the weather improves.

We are contemplating a short Western Med cruise on her at the end of August to use up the FCC we were given following the cancellation of our 1st May Baltic cruise.

Fingers crossed things will settle down.

4 hours ago, escrick said:

 I love crystallised ginger pieces, and sometimes buy them before cruising.

 

We just paid the rest of our cruise fare. Hurrah!  We are using a TA, and so I have more questions.  Will I be able to access a description of shore excursions?  And/or will I have to book anything through the TA.  I am so grateful for any help you can give me.

We've just returned from our 1st Saga cruise on SoD. 

We used a TA to make the booking and as a result, all communication with Saga must be made via your TA. You are not able to set up a MySaga account ahead of your cruise but we did receive advance notification of the various excursions available with detailed descriptions of what was involved.

We ended up making our excursion bookings through the TA, although I believe we could have contacted Saga direct for this part of the process.

I think in future if we decide on a Saga cruise, we will probably book directly. On our cruise, we did sign up for the Advanced Notification facility where you can pay a fee to get early access to new seasons itineraries before they are released to the general public.

54 minutes ago, JoJo1947 said:

Would be more than happy to swop  Dover for  Portsmouth 😀

Yes - I was  more than happy with the change of embarkation port having seen the chaos around the Dover ferry terminal over the past few weeks. I know the cruise terminal is separate but I'm sure there will still be some impact on passengers trying to get to the cruise terminal.
We did a couple of Viking cruises last year that used the Portsmouth cruise terminal. It was a breeze to access and boarding was quick and efficient.

Only downside is that we are docking back in Dover on our return on 3rd July.

We're booked on the SoD for the above cruise due to depart Dover tomorrow (19th).

Just had a call from Saga to advise some last minute changes to the cruise schedule. Due to a delay in leaving Cadiz, the SoD is now heading for Portsmouth rather than Dover and our taxi pick up has been put back by 3hrs to 1.30pm. With our projected journey time to Portsmouth from the East Midlands, that will mean boarding will be around 6pm I'm guessing

We were also informed that the itinerary will now be run in reverse. ie from Portsmouth we will head to Heimaey or Reykjavik first rather than Orkney, then do the circumnavigation of Iceland in a clockwise direction ending at Seydisfjordur,  then on to Orkney as the last stop before disembarkation at Dover. Full details of the revised itinerary will be provided when we board apparently.

The Saga rep also indicated that they were planning to start using Portsmouth more regularly in the future. Not sure if that's because they have experienced issues at Dover recently due to the various travel disruption problems at the ferry terminal.

Travelling in these times is always an adventure so we're just rolling with the punches.

32 minutes ago, sleepingcat said:

 

saga newbies with questions.  Back in January2022  @norbert's niece posted a blog (title B2B2B...) with more photos than you could imagine of every aspect of their cabin and SoA.  She even included a picture of the laundry bag and the price list as far as I can recall.  So have a look through that and see if it helps with your queries. In my review of the 20 January departure, I listed all the stuff you get free in the cabin, as I had also had difficulties finding info. 

I did seek out the norbert's niece blog and while I found some the early observations interesting and useful I didn't find much that directly spoke to the actual storage capacity in the cabin. I did note that she had brought a hanging shoe storage device because of the lack of adequate space elsewhere for shoe storage.

The actual blog is 30 pages long and I only got up to page 10, I think. Maybe she covered storage at a later stage but I haven't had time top plough through the rest of it so far.

22 minutes ago, gsmt47471015 said:

What with cancelled cruises, cancelled prepaid ports and now select cabin cancelation/redirection its noticeable that these things always occur AFTER full payment has been made , If I was of the suspicious kind I would suspect that the company are uncaring about their client base , or it could be that they are just useless at organization

At least with our cancelled cruise on Arcadia we were offered a full refund plus a Future Cruise Credit to the value of 15% of total cost of the cancelled cruise. But the short notice given - (abt 4wks before departure) did rankle somewhat.

I am fairly certain that our FCC balance will sit with P&O for a long time and will probably expire before we use it. We're  only really interested in the adults only ships and I fear that they will not be around in the P&O fleet for too much longer.

1 hour ago, twotravellersLondon said:

 

 It is...  in the accompanying Essential Information...

 

EMBARKATION "Should the medical screening indicate a positive test result from you or anybody else in your vehicle, or any other medical concern which would prevent you from sailing, your cruise will be postponed..."

 

Page 1, section 3.

 

As SAGA has suggested... we will take our own books and a laptop.

Any chance of an informal book exchange being permitted?

We were on 2 Viking cruises last year in the middle of the pandemic and they had a section in the Library where you could leave paperbacks you had read for others to pick up and read. Equally we could make use of that facility to expand our reading quota.

3 hours ago, Lady Meer said:

My husband has taken his Swiss army knife on every cruise we've been on - including Saga and P & O. He puts it in his suitcase and has never had a problem. To be honest, I don’t think he’s ever thought it may not be allowed. 

Yes - in the past I had no problems on P&O with packing my Swiss Army knife in my suitcase. However about 4 years ago I was summoned from the check-in area during boarding to explain the object found by a security scan of my suitcase. It was my Swiss Army knife. Thereafter I was advised to always take it in my hand luggage so that it could be examined to ensure that it met the criteria for the length of the largest blade when open. (I believe it must be less than 74mm). I've done that since then but occasionally met some over officious security staff who have made a fuss about it and called a supervisor and/or a member of the P&O on board team.

Just hoping to avoid any major hassle if possible. - I know - the simple answer is to leave it at home - but I am loathe to do so as it has come in very handy on my travels in the past.

Have cruised for many years with P&O but their laissez faire attitude to customer service of late has driven me to look at other options

Booked on SoD departing 19th June for the Icelandic Adventure cruise. I have a couple of questions that hopefully some of you regular Saga cruisers might be able to answer.

We have a standard balcony cabin on B deck and I've been trying to assess how much storage there is in the cabin for clothes. With having to bringing along formal wear as well as normal smart casual, I'm not sure about how much hanging and drawer space is available. I've looked at a couple of YouTube video reviews and have picked up on the 6 drawers in the dressing table/desk unit and also the 2 small drawers in the bedside cabinets. Are there other drawers built into the wardrobe unit under the room safe? I thought I caught a glimpse of some in one video but not enough to be sure either way.

Also are the beds high enough to allow you to store an open suitcase underneath to act as extra storage?

I have red somewhere that the library is not currently stocked with books. Do Saga allow an informal book exchange system between passengers? We've experienced this on P&O and more recently on a couple of Viking cruises last year during the pandemic.

Finally, a more trivial but still important (to me) question. Are you permitted to take penknives on board in your carry on or checked suitcases. I have a Swiss Army knife that I always take on holiday and have found it very useful on many occasions. The large blade when open is less than 70mm long. It has been accepted on P&O as long as it was carried in your hand luggage to allow the blade to be checked. Will Saga allow it on board or not?

53 minutes ago, JoJo1947 said:

If you look at the  Saga Web site at the top it refers to Covid... There's a new update and this rolls monthly. For peace of mind I suggest you check when your cruise month appears. No good speculating and worrying. 

Just checked and the update to 19th June confirms that each household will be allocated a private car so I'm expecting that they are keeping to that procedure for our upcoming departure.

I've checked back to our original documentation (March 2021) and we were listed as having a "Shared Car". Our recent letter states Private Car so I don't think I am speculating hopefully.

Just an update that should hopefully clarify the situation.

Received a letter from Saga today with our luggage labels and details of the documentation we need to bring with us (Passport, NHS Covid Pass , Insurance Policy information).

This letter also included the Car Service information and there it is clearly stated that we will be travelling in a "Private Car"

I interpret this to mean that we will not be sharing transport to the ship with other passengers. BTW, the return journey is also specified as a Private Car.

Fingers crossed we will arrive safely and Covid free. Pick up time is 10.20 - 10.50am,  so no scrabbling with early alarm calls. Suggests also that the sail away is likely to be late afternoon/early evening as our journey time from our home to Dover could be around 4hrs +

We're due to join the SoD in 2 weeks time for our "virgin" ocean cruise with Saga.

Just looking for recent comments from folks who have experienced the taxi transfer service over the past few weeks.

The latest advice from Saga dated 5th May 2022 still seems to indicate "Each household will receive a private car up to 250 miles each way and cars will be thoroughly cleaned prior to your collection"

I seem to recall seeing some discussion about Saga reverting to shared mini-buses/SUV's for those travelling from outside the radius that qualifies for a private car (120 miles?). Don't know if this was just speculation or based on actual experience.

We are planning to go into a mini self-imposed lockdown to try and minimise the risk of being bumped off the ship at embarkation if we test positive. Would be worrying if we found that we had to share our transport to the ship with one or more couples in close contact for over 3 hours.

Yes - just keep your fingers crossed that you don't get "bumped" from the Manhattan Terminal.

A few years ago on Aurora, we were supposed to dock there but we got bumped and ended up docking at the Cunard Terminal over on the Brooklyn side of the East River. No shuttles provided and we were a ferry ride away from downtown Manhattan at Pier 11.

Not very convenient for independent exploring as you were restricted by the ferry schedules (not all ferries called at the Cunard Terminal dock.)

Changed days then I fear.

Our first cruise with P&O was on the Artemis back in 2007. (21 nights round the Med with a stop in Libya of all places). We did a follow-up repositioning cruise on her in 2009 I recall.

P&O announced that they were selling Artemis and advertised a farewell cruise in 2011. I believe that sold out within 3 or 4 hours.

We were lucky enough to bag a cabin on that cruise and had a great time. Some of the new owners (Phoenix Riesen) joined that cruise towards the end. Essentially planning how they were going to refit the ship.

We were told on the quiet that everything was being scrapped by the new owners, so any P&O branded merchandise was almost being given away near the end of the cruise. I think we picked up 2 dressing gowns for £5 IIRC.

If P&O are considering selling Arcadia or Aurora then they could turn it into an advantage by running cruises with a final "Farewell" cruise like they did with Artemis. I'm sure some would pay a premium to be on that final cruise.

Can't you request the vaccine status to be emailed to you as a pdf document. That option is certainly available on the "English" version of the NHS App.

I always request an email copy so that I can print it off and carry it with me as a belt and braces exercise. You never know when technology will let you down - phone glitch, no signal, dropped and damaged phone, battery death.

I also think that security/immigration staff prefer to see paper copies rather than squinting at small screens on phones. Just my opinion BTW so don't shoot the messenger

We did this cruise with Saga way back in 2012. As far as I can see the itinerary is more or less identical to the one we did. We sailed in November but a January sailing should also be fine.

We had a wonderful time and can thoroughly recommend it if you are into your Egyptian history. It could be described as fairly demanding at some stages as we often had quite early starts in order to get through the various tours before the worst of the days heat. We actually skipped the Abu Simbel trip because it meant a very early start (3am or 4am I think) and by that time we were pretty tired from our previous travels. We did do the post trip extension in Luxor and that was great because it gave us time to relax and wind down a bit but also allowed us to do the hot air balloon trip over the Valley of the Kings.

The Pyramisa Isis is also a great hotel (or it certainly was back then) set on an island in the Nile not far from the cataracts.

16 hours ago, Dorisshitty said:

The travel agent  spoke to p&o an explained the situation no change an then I called them an against  explained  everything, the woman was sympathetic but said nothing  could be done an said I know it's not any consolation but it's happened  to loads of people, I've emailed  Paul ludlow an nothing. I am going  to contact watchdog now I know that we are not the only ones

Also -Have a go at "Rip Off Britain". They seem to champion a lot of customer complaints when the offending companies don't play ball.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wck32/contact

Yes I note a pattern here. These cabin change emails appear to emanate within a few weeks of the departure date for the cruise. By that time everyone will have paid their final balance and will have few if any options to cancel and be refunded.

We had a similar situation with our Arcadia cruise where they indicated that we would be moved in order to create a quarantine area. Our TA went to bat on our behalf and discovered that they were moving us from A Deck aft to B Deck forward - which we would have been extremely unhappy about. At the same time she established that there were several cabins on the aft section of A Deck still being offered for sale. One of those was only 2 cabins away from our original booking. After some discussion our TA managed to get P&O to allocate the cabin closest to where we had originally booked. Why no-one thought it would have been a good idea to offer that change in the first place I struggle to understand.

Anyway all that shenanigans was a waste of time in the end as P&O cancelled our cruise about a week later.

5 hours ago, Jazzytelly said:

We haven’t got ours yet either even though the TA , a well known one beginning with B, said last week they had been told we should get by the end of the month ( which we didn’t) Also when I spoke to P & O about a completely different matter the chap there told me the week after cancellation that it had been sent. 

Our refund finally appeared in my bank account yesterday, having been transferred from out TA's account on Monday. That makes it approximately 4 weeks since the initial cancellation email from P&O. Just now waiting on our deposit refund that was paid separately to the TA back in July last year.

Not too fussed about the delay as we have no immediate plans to commit those funds onto another P&O cruise any time soon.

We have our first Saga ocean cruise booked for June on SoD and will wait until we have had time to assess that experience before we decide on any future cruising plans.

Arcadia and Aurora are doomed IMHO. P&O (Carnival) have made it abundantly clear that they are moving their business model to attract the younger/family demographic. I'm afraid the "grey pound" has lost out to the Disneyfication mantra.

You only need to look at the disdain with which they treated their adult-only customers with the short term cancellation of the Arcadia cruises in May and June in favour of providing staff and crew for their larger ships. Aurora is also having cruises cancelled to accommodate some maintenance work that was not completed during its dry dock sojourn earlier in the year.

Our 1st May Baltic cruise on Arcadia was cancelled at 3 weeks notice. Still awaiting the refund from P&O. We will also have close to £900 in FCC in our account as a consequence but I am pretty sure that I will be waving goodbye to this for several reasons.

Firstly I have no enthusiasm to book a cruise on one of the larger ships and with the uncertainty over the future of Arcadia and Aurora (despite assurances to the contrary), I have no intention to book a cruise on either ship for any potential 2023/24 sailings.

If I do choose to use my FCC it will be a short term decision in the hope that cancellation is less likely.