Wacktle

I'll be up from the table and fetching my own! I think I've done that before, and it causes staff to spring into action.

Enjoying your blogs. From your photo, the Captain could do an "Elvis"?

We had a private car back from our last cruise. We were surprised. The driver said that Saga and Titan do not have enough large vehicles to take passengers to the ports AND transport those who've just disembarked home. I don't know if that's true, as it seems at odds with Vivalidi's theory?

Oh, I've never noticed this !

If I felt that we need to pay an extra £2.50 per mile to upgrade the "chauffeur" transfer (the advertising still makes me laugh!), we might as well book a cheaper cruise and use the taxi company that we always use for non-Saga holidays. We have had a couple of "iffy" transfers, but nothing terrible. If we do experience something intolerable, we will certainly report it to Saga. Fingers crossed!

On a cruise in 2019 that included Bordeaux, a (very) top wine expert was onboard. At a wine tasting, he said he was astounded at the low prices of some very good wines, and even pointed out a couple that were on offer. Sadly, it was our last day. We always use The Grill and have never been offered, or seen, a wine list. I suppose you have to ask for it.

Oh well, I can but wait. Hopefully the 2 short cruises we're interested in aren't popular and will still be a 35% discount. We are already registered for April-Dec 2025, so we won't get caught out again.

We've been on 3 Azamara cruises, but several years ago. Quest in 2013 from Seville (city centre, not Cadiz) to Barcelona, Quest in 2014 from Barcelona to Nice, and Journey in 2016 from/to Dubai. To compare, we've done 3 Thomson/Marella cruises, twice on Dream - Canaries and Caribbean, and last month on Explorer 2 in the Caribbean. The big differences for us are the flight and disembarcation arrangements. Marella's dedicated flights and the ability to remain onboard, all-inclusive, until your included transport takes you to the airport are big pluses. No matter what time your homeward flight is, Azamara will disembark you at 8.30. When looking at cruises, I find there's limited flight options and, from people's reviews, their flights can be indirect and inconvenient. Our experiences on the 3 cruises we did turned out ok. I think the 2013 cruise was well-packaged and our transfer to Barcelona airport worked well with the flight. Our flight back from Nice in 2014 was in the evening. We transferred to the airport in the morning and (after a lot of faff), left our luggage in the left-luggage area, and got a local bus back to Nice, did an open-top bus tour, had lunch, etc, before going back for our flight. In Dubai, we didn't mind a bit of a wait at the airport because we'd upgraded to Emirates Business Class and their lounge was wonderful! Other differences are the nationalities onboard; lots of Americans on our Azamara cruises, plus umpteen other nationalities. Not a problem. Just different. That's also reflected in the food. Senior officers, including the Captain, are very hands-on, visible and approachable on Azamara. Now Azamara are no longer owned by Royal Caribbean, I believe there's been some changes and, from what I read, Onward is run a little differently to the other 3 ships. I think it's all still bedding in. Sorry to waffle, but I hope it helps.

Thanks. What date did you move it? When I did ours, the consultant didn't know whether we'd be in the queue from the original pre-reg date, or the new one, i.e. September.

No, I don't think we did. However, as one cruise was in the Caribbean and the other from Venice to Croatia and Montenegro, the sea conditions would have been different. We did have some stormy weather on the Venice sailing. I do remember the cabin steward putting up the safety bar on the bed one evening, but can't remember where we were. Neither of us suffer from sea sickness.

Oh, a long wait for us then. Ours was Sept last year when we found out that our original pre-reg applied only to Jan-March 2024.

We've done 2 cruises on Royal Clipper. Our first was from Venice and we had Cabin 112 (pic 2184). The second was from Barbados in Cabin 128 (pic 6527). No issue with either. On balance, the 2nd cabin was better because it didn't have a 3rd berth above the bed. It's folded up, but you need to watch your head. It was our choice on the 2nd cruise to have the bed split into 2 singles because it gave access to the underbed drawer.

Are the bedside lights plugged in to sockets that can be used for other electrical devices?

JammyBun, If you think you may like to cruise with Saga in the future, I do advise early booking to get the best discount. Ideally, pay £90pp to register to get these prices before a tranche of cruises is released to the general public. The £90pp is refundable if you don't book, or can be carried forward to the next season/year. We do this and book about 18 months in advance, and have seen prices increase drastically as the cruise date nears. We only book short cruises and, for example, our next one is now about £700pp more than we are paying, for a standard balcony. So, well worth doing if you can commut well in advance.

Are these one-way fares?

The OP has asked for beach recommendations, not restaurants.

OK. Ta. The Marella Explorer 2 ones mainly show exclusiions for under 2s.

When you say "their insurance" do you mean TUI's insurance that you've taken out and paid for, or insurance that the shore excursion provider has? Do you have your own travel insurance? We're not doing your itinerary but as an over-65, I'm curious. I haven't noticed any exclusions, except for children, for our Ex2 cruise (crazy as it's an adult-only ship!!). I have seen over-65 exclusions mentioned by another cruise line (Azamara) though, and wonder if it's a shore-ex provider rule.

Tortola is a lovely island. I hope you enjoy it.

Hi, I wanted the same information and asked Marella via Messenger. They told me that I wouldn't know the departure times until the tickets arrive in our cabin. We've done numerous cruises with other companies and have never experienced this ludicrous policy before. As a result, we've not booked the (very expensive) excursions we were hoping to do.

Pennib ... I hope you mean 72 hours before boarding the plane, and not the ship? I have to go to my TA 72 hours before boarding the plane so she can print off all our documents. If it's before boarding the ship, I'm stuck.

Was a Tardis involved?

I contacted Saga again yesterday via Webchat. I didn't get very far in getting a definitive answer to the question about whether 2024 would be released in 2 phases and, if so, whether we need to pay 2 registration fees. Briefly I was told that releasing cruises in 2 batches was ALWAYS the case. Was it? I then rang and got through very quickly. (Thank you Saga.) I explained the query to the lovely lady and after discussing several scenarios. This included paying one advance registration, which we had, but not making a booking for the first release and where would we be in the pecking order for the second release, given that some had already registered for both releases. Initially she said that calls for both releases would be in the order of our original, single, registration. However, on further pushing, she messaged a manager with the query. She read out the query text to me to ensure it adequately reflected the question. Half an hour later, she called back. (Again, thank you Saga.) The answer was that, to ensure that we were higher up the queue for the May-Dec release, we should also register for that release. Therefore we paid an additional registration fee. Apologies for the long post, but I hope it helps.

Our letter is the same ....so I assumed it's for the whole of 2024. I'll be so annoyed if we're at the back of the queue for April onwards.

Having heard this a while ago, I contacted Saga Ocean Cruises via the webchat facility and was told they'd heard nothing about splitting 2024 into 2 releases. How can I verify this?