Not quite Live From SoD 12th - 26th September

[Mrs Miggins]

We had a private transfer as we were travelling less than 75 miles.  Our time to depart was said to be 11.40.  As the Britannia lounge was so crowded we were sitting on the Lido deck with a full view of the long lines of taxis and the speed of departure.

It was very very slow.  By 11.30 we realised that the numbering system meant we had to wait at least another half hour.  After speaking to a crew member we were advised to debark.  When we did that there was nobody getting off with us and the luggage area had no clients in there at all.  There were a large number of drivers hopefully holding up names.  Our driver had been waiting an hour and others up to two hours.  

I did get a letter of apology from Saga and the letter said that the matter had been fully addressed with the transport teams and that Saga were working closely with suppliers to ensure that it did not happen again.  I was impressed with the letter but would be interested to know if anything has changed.  

It did seem strange to be trapped onboard whilst drivers were waiting such a long time.  That would not have been necessary if the driver had our phone number.  We do use a similar service on Scenic who use exactly the same taxi company.  They text us before departure from home with the drivers exact arrival time and also to tell us that our driver is waiting for us when we depart.  Admittedly we have been arriving at an airport, but certainly there has to be a better system for Saga.  There were 300 newbies on our cruise and this was not a good way to end our cruise.

Hope things are better organised now.

[kentchris]

We can see Dover Cruise Terminal from the end of our garden - even as first timers we were allowed off Sapphire at about 09.30 so that our driver could do a second run, to Wales, but this time we’re last off so we’ll be able to observe the whole process.

 

News coming over the tannoy that the M20 is blocked due to a major incident so the best laid plans have gone awry already. At least once SoD is operating out of Southampton more of the time there’ll be fewer instances of a single point of failure like the M20 messing things up. 

[cinnamon]

Oh dear, sounds like you’re in for a long wait. Plus those boarding may be sitting even longer in the lounge at the terminal. 😏

[lincslady]

Although Dover  would normally be more convenient for us - down the M11 and M25 and over the Dartford crossing, the M20 can be a nightmare.  If you are going north rather than west, the route via Canterbury is sometimes used by drivers.

 

Even after some 6 or so Saga cruises I still can't quite work out the disembarkation times.  Sometimes we have been off by 9.15, others not until 10.40.  There  is, apparently, an early off given to high up Club members - and if you are a newbie travelling with one, this works in your favour.  If I were fit enough to manage the luggage, and lived within say 50 miles I would probably opt to drive down and park for free.  That is presuming you can then disembark when you want to, which I guess is not a given!

 

Looking forward to maybe a final overall report from Kentchris,  summing up the good, the bad and hopefully not the ugly.  It will be interesting to find out how many of those new to Saga decide to cruise with them again.  We all have different priorities, and for us the good outweighs the bad by quite a long way.  And we have cruised with many lines, including Cunard, Regent, Silversea and Seabourn.

[Ergates The Ant]

Disembarkation does sound like one of my worst nightmares! The thought of leaving the cabin and having to kill time for maybe 3 to 4 hours, before several hours journey in a shared taxi, is really putting me off.

Sounds as if the Saga transfer system would have too many negatives for us after all. 

My preferred option is to leave the ship at City Terminal, Southampton, walk across the road with my keys and climb into the car. However, for some reason ABT at Southampton use a valet parking system for Saga, and I’m not comfortable having someone else driving my car around.

i do hope you don’t have to wait too long. Looks like your Wi-fi is still available, is there anywhere to have coffee or a snack? As can happen, departing passengers are often treated as personae non grata, and an inconvenience while staff are having to prep for the next set of punters. Does it feel like that?

It seems that Saga are fairly confident about the accuracy of their final on board accounts, if they are only operating the desk for half an hour?

[kentchris]

Tea, coffee, and juices are available along with some pastries so it’s not all bad. 

 

Tag numbers are scheduled to be called every 10 minutes, and today go up to 23. After starting 15 minutes late they’re now roughly on schedule so the coast bound closure of the M20 at J11 can’t have had too much effect after all (although breakfast in the grill was extended by 30 minutes in anticipation, although too late to benefit most people). 

[Londoner51]

We’ve opted to park on the quayside, so can we opt to take our luggage ashore ourselves rather than wait on board for hours?  I really don’t fancy sitting around for ages at the end of a holiday.

[lincslady]

The luggage is all ashore very early on, so if you can let Reception know (several days in advance, or even as you board) that you have your own transport you should be given a tag number which will enable you to get off whenever and find your luggage in that tag area.  Manhandling the heavy luggage ashore yourselves would be quite  a task, even for the fittest.  The gangway is quite long, and up and down hill, to attach the land side to the door on the ship side.

[Londoner51]

3 minutes ago, lincslady said:

The luggage is all ashore very early on, so if you can let Reception know (several days in advance, or even as you board) that you have your own transport you should be given a tag number which will enable you to get off whenever and find your luggage in that tag area.  Manhandling the heavy luggage ashore yourselves would be quite  a task, even for the fittest.  The gangway is quite long, and up and down hill, to attach the land side to the door on the ship side.

 

Thank you for this information, greatly appreciated.  I must admit we didn’t fancy self disembarkation but as we live close to Dover and volunteer for the National Trust at the lighthouse at Dover, it would be odd to be so close to home yet so far!

[lincslady]

Do check with Saga by phone before embarkation - I have obviously not done this myself, living 200 miles away, but it should work.  Certainly your luggage will be ashore from probably 8 onwards or soon after; first disembark is usually 8.50.

[sweep]

3 hours ago, Londoner51 said:

We’ve opted to park on the quayside, so can we opt to take our luggage ashore ourselves rather than wait on board for hours?  I really don’t fancy sitting around for ages at the end of a holiday.

We parked on the quayside and indicated this on the disembarkation form.  We were in the first group to leave, our luggage was there waiting for us and we were in our car and on our way home shortly after 8.30. Very straightforward 

[IbizaLover]

We were off early as well. The people we travelled with were Britannia club members so we were lucky to be travelling with them as we are not.

[lincslady]

3 hours ago, sweep said:

We parked on the quayside and indicated this on the disembarkation form.  We were in the first group to leave, our luggage was there waiting for us and we were in our car and on our way home shortly after 8.30. Very straightforward 

 

 

 I do think seriously that this is the best way to get both on board - at a reasonable time, like arriving  at 12.30, and getting off the ship, assuming you can manage your luggage yourself and obviously do not live faraway.  Particularly at Dover, where there is too little space for drivers at any one time.  The porters there are great, and will almost certainly come up to your  car as you arrive, to get your luggage to the ship.  The included door to door is great for those who live farther away, but does have the disadvantage that you are dependent on what times you are given for embark and disembark, and whether you will go a bit far out of your way to pick up others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hermioneb]

Kentchris, thank you very much for taking the time to write all this.  I did enjoy following along with your cruise, and it brought back happy memories of our fourteen night cruise in August.  I suppose the question now is ....will you be booking another trip on the Spirit of Discovery?

[lincslady]

31 minutes ago, hermioneb said:

Kentchris, thank you very much for taking the time to write all this.  I did enjoy following along with your cruise, and it brought back happy memories of our fourteen night cruise in August.  I suppose the question now is ....will you be booking another trip on the Spirit of Discovery?

 

+ 1

 

Sorry about the gap above.

[kentchris]

10 hours ago, hermioneb said:

I suppose the question now is ....will you be booking another trip on the Spirit of Discovery?

Not just yet as we’ve got a fair number of foreign trips planned up to the end of next year, including a fortnight on Queen Victoria next summer, but Saga’s offer works well for us so it’ll be high on the list when we next think about an ocean cruise. 
 

I’m taking a few days out to catch up with the reality of having to do my own cooking etc, but once everything’s gelled I’ll come back with a summary. 

[janecambridge]

Thank you for all the comments.Most helpful.

We have booked another  SOD cruise for next November,2 weeks.It is touring the Canary Islands,something we want to do.I looked at other cruise lines, just to make sure we were happy with Saga again and to be quite honest, I cant be bothered with all the drinks packages.To buy one so my husband can have a nice coffee seems petty to me. Also buying a package of 4 wines or 5 bottles beer etc is not relaxing.We do like a few drinks a day when cruising and Saga having all inclusive is simpler and  better  choices. Also the pick up is very helpful and organised for us.

 

 

Edited September 30, 2019 by janecambridge

[Bell Boy]

On 9/14/2019 at 8:19 AM, cinnamon said:

Hope you have a good day Chris. 

I still don’t believe you should have a forced wake up. You’re on holiday. If you wanted to choose to sleep in and miss the early finishing breakfast, that would be your own decision. 

Those wake up announcements are still continuing . I've just disembarked Discovery ( 4th Nov after 18 days) Every morning on Port days bridge announcements  at 8.am ( sea days at 9am) followed by another announcement from the Entertainment  Manager, repeating word for word  as every other day. 

This was one of the biggest niggles of my first Sage cruise. . Not acceptable ! 

[Bell Boy]

On 9/14/2019 at 9:38 AM, Bell Boy said:

I'm going to have to discuss this nonsense with Captain Burgess  ( in October) as he is formerly from Cunard Line where no cabin announcements are ever made direct into the cabin, unless in emergency.

I'm taking this trip to completely chill out after a busy year and I don't want to be hearing unecessary announcements direct into the cabin from the bridge or the Cruise director first thing in the morning.

 

Hopefully, if that Customer Services representative from Saga who posted on this board the other day is reading this , will you please  forward these comments to head office shore side.   You have new discerning  customers who have chosen to experience the Saga brand for the first time. ( some who are young professionals , not quite in our retirement yet)  We have a wealth of cruising experience on other premium lines, we won't accept being disturbed from our rest early mornings .    

Well, I did manage to discuss this niggle with the Customer Services Manager. ( early morning announcements direct into the cabin every morning at 8am ( 9am port days) 

However, to No Avail, their reply, "Saga guests like to be reassured  that all is safe on the ship and that all is going well" 🤔. 

 

Ok, so let them be reassured by hearing all this in the various public venues around the ship. 

[Glenndale]

I agree wholeheartedly Bell Boy.

I raised this with reception on my cruise but to no avail.

Announcements in public spaces are fine but especially on sea days, in cabin announcements are a very unwelcome intrusion.

Too much nannying I'm afraid.

Would this put you off sailing with them again?

 

 

[lincslady]

As an old 'Saganaut' I definitely agree with both of you.   We are always awake by 8.a.m., in fact normally by 7, but even so we have found the announcement straight into the cabin with no possibility of turning it off is annoying.  Especially as some Captains like to drone on for ages.  

 

On port days, anyone who needs to know for going ashore purposes should be able to turn these announcements on in their cabin ,  otherwise they should only be broadcast in the public areas.

 

I feel sure Saga read these posts - PLEASE act on them, or you are likely to lose some of your new customers.

[white_bear]

The key thing here is that we (passengers) need to be able to choose whether or not to have these announcements in the cabin.  Some other cruise lines give you the choice of having the TV on a specified channel which picks up all the public announcements.  Perhaps this is one of the teething issues which still need to be sorted out with the TV system (along with things like being able to view your account).

[Glenndale]

The more people comment/complain the more likely Saga are to re-evaluate their stance.

[kentchris]

5 hours ago, Bell Boy said:

Those wake up announcements are still continuing . I've just disembarked Discovery ( 4th Nov after 18 days) Every morning on Port days bridge announcements  at 8.am ( sea days at 9am) followed by another announcement from the Entertainment  Manager, repeating word for word  as every other day. 

This was one of the biggest niggles of my first Sage cruise. . Not acceptable ! 

They are a pain, although we were always up by the time we were shouted at in our cabin the mornings so it wasn't a deal breaker (I can't remember whether it happened on our first ever cruise, on Saga Sapphire just over four years ago).

 

The port departure announcements from the bridge were really annoying. At Gothenburg my wife was in the middle of a long involved call to EE customer services after receiving an almost plausible "click on this link otherwise your account will be frozen" text when the Captain launched into a lengthy description of what was going to happen over the next 24 hours, with the result that after a couple of minutes of keeping the EE person on hold my wife did her best to hide in the wardrobe to continue the call.

 

According to the ship's information booklet non-critical announcements are meant to be made over the ship's map TV channel but never happened in our experience: everything from the Captain and Ents Director (none of which I'd have classified as safety critical) came over the PA direct into the cabin. We made it clear on both questionnaires that we weren't impressed.

[Bell Boy]

Thank Goodness some agrees with me. When I casually mentioned this in conversation around the ship, I was often taken to task by several elderly folk  " if you went to bed early, you wouldn't be needing  a lay in" 😅