With only 2 boutique ships will Saga change

[Windsurfboy]

Never sailed Saga before just booked for 2022 black sea. 

 

Been reading reviews,  ships are certainly boutique luxury ships, with space ratio of 58, this is much closer to Seabornes typical 65 , Regent 70, than Cunard 35, P&O 33 and Saga old ship say Sapphire 37.

 

From an outsiders point of view Saga has evolved from a mid market cruise line, to a mid market  cruise line offering all inclusive,  to now a boutique all inclusive cruise line, with a different market and competition.

 

Reading the discussions on this forum,  Saga's spirit of discovery food is good but not as wide a choice as it's new competition,  neither are it's all inclusive drinks.  Drinks wise I  theorize Saga was offering the same selection on discovery as old ships. Now it has only two new ships will things change

[nosapphire]

Not sure why you say "with only 2 ships" - they have never had more than 2, apart from a short period when they also had a separate arm called Spirit of Adventure with 2 small fly-cruise ships, Quest for Adventure and the original Spirit of Adventure.

"Boutique" is just a buzz-word, and currently very annoying (It always means to me something pretentious, expensive and impractical) and there is no evolution in this, just a marketing ploy.

It is not really ALL-inclusive. Selected drinks are included, others are at cost. Sight-seeing tours will be included in selected ports, others are at cost. Transfers to and from the ship are if you live within 250 miles.

Having said this, their included wines are still very, very good.

Space wise, the new ships should feel more spacious than the old ones - but the Discovery actually felt more cramped in the general passenger areas.

Unlike all of their old ships, there is no one lounge big enough to take all passengers for one-off events. This in turn means that a lot of the ambience on the old ships has been lost, and Saga seem to have abandoned the spontaneity of "lets have a ....." that they used to do so well. Same applies to the breakfast, lunch and dinner - at popular times there will be queues at both the main dining and the buffet waiting for tables to come available (and with social distancing in operation, that is going to get worse).

Like most ships and lines, there are a lot of things to like, and also some things to dislike.

Saga will have to change, they have bigger ships to fill, big mortgages to repay on both ships, and a lot more competition.

They were trying to run the new ships in the same way as they ran their old ships, and it all still feels slightly disorganised.

A good example, with three (extremely good) speciality restaurants, the assumption would be that passengers can make bookings from one point. Instead, each restaurant has to be visited or telephoned separately during Maitre'D hours to book - and it was quite irritating to queue to book, then discover that the available slots clashed with a booking for one of the others, so had to go back to the other to try and rebook... the food was worth it, though.

The "handbook" did state (for both our cruises on the Discovery) that you could book at reception, so they may have sorted this out by now - along with all the other things the handbook said you could do that you can't when on board.

And the brochures still keep saying "library with cafe" which really bugs me, as it is self-service coffee machine with 3 jars of biscuits. That is not a cafe!.

 

[Windsurfboy]

My question is   , Saga's marketing and pricing is competing with premium lines.  The have now two new ships, which they describe as boutique. Yes a bit pretentious but clearly a change in market positioning. Answer will be speculation 

 

Will Saga change other aspects of it's offering now.

 

Nice to hear that it's wines are very very good, more effort and good knowledge!! ,and you think the speciality restaurants are extremely good.

 

But on this forum heard it's spirits were pretty down market. Brandy described as rough. I'm not a brand name person, you can, like they do with their wines find very nice for example brandy, without going down the famous French brand route.

[nosapphire]

Think that somebody also said they thought the brandy was OK, so it maybe that Saga have several different brands used as house-brand. Or it could be that, as I have found with wine, one person's "rough" is another person's "full bodied".

 

[Windsurfboy]

Thanks, maybe the brandy gets smoother the more you drink, that's one route to go.

[lincslady]

It is 3 a.m. and I can't get back to sleep - I bet I am not the only one these days.

 

Re drinks on Saga:  this might no longer apply, but on our last cruise, on Sapphire,  we certainly found the brandy really rough, perhaps OK in a cocktail, but  were surprised to find that drinks which we personally like included some good brands - Tio Pepe  for  dry sherry, Crofts and Bristol Cream for sweet (not my choice!) and my favourite,  Campari which is a fairly pricy drink, and they were happy to make me a Negroni with the Martini Rosso,  and  the  house gin.  A couple of those before dinner and I was a happy bunny.  And although the wines are not expensive ones, they are well chosen for flavour,   and you soon find a favourite  to ask for by name.

 

Off  back to bed now, have a little read and hopefully another sleep.

[Glenndale]

On our last cruise with Saga we were visiting the Northern Lights.

The brandy, rough or not, certainly perked up a coffee 🙂

[Fletcher]

The word 'boutique' when applied to ships with 1000 passengers is absolutely ridiculous.  

[Windsurfboy]

Boutique was Saga's wording not mine. To apply it to  anything but a French shop is pretentious, but quite common nowadays. The question was will Saga live up to it's new aspirations and advertising positioning. But Boutique is as much about style as size, the new Saga ships look very stylish, and I hope service matches

 

I think 999 passengers and 60000tons is an ideal goldilocks size , big enough to be stable in rough weather, and have amenities,   but not too big. 

 

Clearly  you think small is good. Everyone to their own.

 

[Fletcher]

9 hours ago, Windsurfboy said:

Boutique was Saga's wording not mine. To apply it to  anything but a French shop is pretentious, but quite common nowadays. The question was will Saga live up to it's new aspirations and advertising positioning. But Boutique is as much about style as size, the new Saga ships look very stylish, and I hope service matches

 

I think 999 passengers and 60000tons is an ideal goldilocks size , big enough to be stable in rough weather, and have amenities,   but not too big. 

 

Clearly  you think small is good. Everyone to their own.

 

I used to think expedition ships with 100 passengers - such as Noble Caledonia's Island Sky - was the ideal size and I did many cruises with them, visiting some of the remotest places on the planet.  Then I stepped up several gears in luxury and went on Seabourn Quest which has 400 passengers and I now think that's the ideal compromise between exploration and luxury.  The biggest ships I have been on are Saga Sapphire and Seabourn Ovation, each with around 700 passengers and fairly limited to where they can go, such as the Caribbean and Baltic which is where I went on those bigger ships.  I could just about see myself taking another Saga cruise but definitely not on a bigger ship like their new ones, even if they do look rather nicely designed.  It's the limited itineraries that just don't interest me at all.

[Windsurfboy]

Their new ships have a much bigger  space to passenger ratio than the old smaller ships. I think space to passenger ratio is more important than size of ship.

 

However on or last cruise, Nov 2019 , when we decided to sail to South Africa, it was 45 knot plus and 9 meter waves all the way to Canaries, glad we were on one of the Queens, not a small ship

 

As for limited itineraries,  it depends on whether you  like to sail out of UK, which by definition limits where you go.

 

We (in normal times) spend the winter in S Africa windsurfing,   and see the grandchildren in Australia, in Autumn,  so it's nice NOT to get on a plane .

[nosapphire]

Just bear in mind that space-to-passenger does not necessarily mean that the public rooms are well designed enough to find a space when you want to.

And unfortunately, on the Discovery, much of the public room seating was evidently selected for what it would photograph like in the brochures, rather than what it would feel like to sit on.

Never before seen an almost-come-to-blows over cushions.....

Edited January 18, 2021 by nosapphire

[Windsurfboy]

2 hours ago, nosapphire said:

Just bear in mind that space-to-passenger does not necessarily mean that the public rooms are well designed enough to find a space when you want to.

And unfortunately, on the Discovery, much of the public room seating was evidently selected for what it would photograph like in the brochures, rather than what it would feel like to sit on.

Never before seen an almost-come-to-blows over cushions.....

 

 Yes , a lot of modern seating seems to look good but is too low in the back and too long in the seat to be comfortable,  and I'm not short .