SoA Western Med, March 2023

[LandC]

Thanks for posting about your dolphin watching tour. The shore excursion team should advise that it’s not suitable for passengers with mobility issues. 
I’m glad you managed to have a decent meal at the end of the day!

Edited March 20, 2023 by LandC
Omission

[SaraSailing]

1 minute ago, LandC said:

Thanks for posting about your dolphin watching tour.  It sounds very unsafe, and the shore excursion team should advise that it’s not suitable for passengers with mobility issues. 
I’m glad you managed to have a decent meal at the end of the 

I think I'd have felt a lot safer if we'd had those self-inflating ones that people get in zodiacs, and could wear them the whole time? But yes, I think 'light' activity level really doesn't take into account the distances to walk and the steps involved. Hopefully over the next few years newer vehicles and boats will make it much better. After all, the majority of the trip could be done sitting, so I'd like to see it be more accessible - at the same time appreciating I had the luxury of being able to move around easily and get to a nice spot to sit and watch. 

Dinner was definitely worth it, and I hope we can go again. Not least because the soft furnishings absorb background sound, so conversation is much easier than in the bigger spaces. 

And, of course, I woke up this morning to find the dinner menu was in the post by the front door - so the dining room hadn't forgotten me. 

[ballroom-cruisers]

I enjoy following your posts - and looking forward to being on a Saga cruise next year after being loyal to another cruise line for years. Saga cruises sound gorgeous from every aspect of the way they are managed on the two new ships.

[SaraSailing]

2 hours ago, ballroom-cruisers said:

I enjoy following your posts - and looking forward to being on a Saga cruise next year after being loyal to another cruise line for years. Saga cruises sound gorgeous from every aspect of the way they are managed on the two new ships.

I think there's at least one cruise line to suit most people's tastes, it's just a matter of finding it!

Post-covid things seem to be settling down, though I noticed two quarantined cabins when I went down to the laundry today. (Something I'd forgotten about was the routine treks to the laundry, having reached free laundry on my normal cruise line!)

The big bonus is leaving from and returning to the UK, not having to think about flying is great. Of course, that makes for longer cruises with fewer ports of call.

I'm not sure I'm ready to give up on smaller ships yet, and I'm still happy to fly to get to some of the places I like best. But, overall Saga does a lot of things well, it is a good compromise for travelling with my parents, and we're being well looked after. 
 

[ballroom-cruisers]

There is a lot I like about what I have seen and heard about Saga - car from home, departure and return from UK ports, happy and superb crew across the board, nice well designed new ships, great entertainment, and lovely dining. For us having the chance to enjoy ballroom and Latin dancing in the evenings is a key element in the decision to book a particular cruise line, and of course nice itineraries are a bonus, but it is the life on board that makes the holiday special, as well as visiting nice places along the way.  Lots of positive comments from your blog coverage adds to the nice anticipation of enjoying time on the same ship when we get to the time we will be on board too.  Keep up the nice posts.

[SaraSailing]

3 hours ago, ballroom-cruisers said:

There is a lot I like about what I have seen and heard about Saga - car from home, departure and return from UK ports, happy and superb crew across the board, nice well designed new ships, great entertainment, and lovely dining. For us having the chance to enjoy ballroom and Latin dancing in the evenings is a key element in the decision to book a particular cruise line, and of course nice itineraries are a bonus, but it is the life on board that makes the holiday special, as well as visiting nice places along the way.  Lots of positive comments from your blog coverage adds to the nice anticipation of enjoying time on the same ship when we get to the time we will be on board too.  Keep up the nice posts.

I remember you trying to work out who would give you the best dancing. And I have heard people say that Saga make more space for ballroom than most cruise lines. 

Tonight was one of those nights where something was off. Not sure what yet, but the dining room wasn't happy. Our normal junior waiter was disappearing for huge chunks of time, our wine waiter was doing food service and missing drinks orders, our main waiter was distracted (but trying not to show it), and generally the normal "hum" was discordant. I'm sure we'll find out over the next day or two what's caused the upset.

[Denarius]

14 hours ago, SaraSailing said:

I remember you trying to work out who would give you the best dancing. And I have heard people say that Saga make more space for ballroom than most cruise lines. 

Tonight was one of those nights where something was off. Not sure what yet, but the dining room wasn't happy. Our normal junior waiter was disappearing for huge chunks of time, our wine waiter was doing food service and missing drinks orders, our main waiter was distracted (but trying not to show it), and generally the normal "hum" was discordant. I'm sure we'll find out over the next day or two what's caused the upset.

Not sure that this is true. Whilst I have only been on 3 Saga cruises, I do not recall ballroom dancing featuring in the programme apart from an early evening slot in the Britannia lounge.

[JoJo1947]

1 hour ago, Denarius said:

Not sure that this is true. Whilst I have only been on 3 Saga cruises, I do not recall ballroom dancing featuring in the programme apart from an early evening slot in the Britannia lounge.

Dance teachers have resumed on the Adventure but no idea about Discovery and ballroom,Latin  dance lessons are back. Up to then there were daily Line dancing lessons with the entertainment team 

[ballroom-cruisers]

I had a discussion a few days ago with a Saga agent and was told that bringing back dance hosts is now being worked on, though there is not a specific date for when that will happen. Also the professional dance teachers are going to be progressively training some of the staff (presume the entertainment staff) to be able to dance ballroom and Latin to a level where they will be able to act as dance hosts too in between other duties. That will take time to achieve, but I guess over the next year or so they will have some staff who will be able to act as dance hosts, as well as experienced dancers who are not permanent staff, who might be on board for one or two voyages at a time. So during the coming year there will hopefully be more opportunities for single passengers to be able to dance in the evenings when there is ballroom and Latin music in Britannia lounge with Saga provided partners who are there to provide that opportunity.

[Windsurfboy]

Do the lessons cover beginners 

[ballroom-cruisers]

In general dance classes on cruises that are open to all tend to be aimed mainly for beginner introduction lessons to get people started in one or other of the ballroom or Latin dances.  On the cruises I have been on (not yet Saga), that was always the case, but the dance teachers, if they were themselves top level such as national champions, were available by private arrangement to do private lessons for every level from beginner to top competition dancing. The dance teachers are different to dance hosts, with the latter generally being available to partner anyone who is on their own, but not tasked with any dance teaching. Perhaps someone familiar with the way it works on Saga voyages will add comments.

[SaraSailing]

5 hours ago, Windsurfboy said:

Do the lessons cover beginners 

Most lessons in everything is beginner: art, dance, ukulele...

[SaraSailing]

DAY ?: AT SEA

 

The med was a mill pond, we had a peaceful day at sea. There were a lot of activities I didn't attend. We saw dolphins tumbling and diving around the ship. 

Then dinner time. You might be one of those people who just chat, eat and leave. But we're those people who somehow feel the energy of the dining room, like a bee hive. There's something in the noise of the cutlery at the waiters' stations. On a good night it tinkles musically. On a bad night it clashes discordantly.

And this was a bad night. One of our waiters seems to be called onto other things repeatedly, so we saw him when he offered bread, and then when we were standing up to leave. Our wine waiter got drafted in handing out dessert menus, but somehow very little wine was served, after dinner drinks were missed. And the senior staff who kept coming to oversee seemed to miss all of it. The only highlights were some nice cheese, and our lovely waiter realising he'd been sent cold espresso and going to warm it up for us. Then the room service waiter arrived with "here's your hot milk... but it's cold".

I did notice when I went to do laundry that there were two cabins in quarantine (balcony table in front of cabin door for food delivery and collection).

[Jammy Bun]

On 3/20/2023 at 8:30 PM, SaraSailing said:

Tonight was one of those nights where something was off. Not sure what yet, but the dining room wasn't happy. Our normal junior waiter was disappearing for huge chunks of time, our wine waiter was doing food service and missing drinks orders, our main waiter was distracted (but trying not to show it), and generally the normal "hum" was discordant. I'm sure we'll find out over the next day or two what's caused the upset.

We experienced this on our SoA cruise last month.  Definitely not a consistently smiley happy crew - and several times we had to go to the bar to ask for service.  They seemed understaffed, and we put it down to such a high percentage of passengers requiring additional help due to mobility issues.  Never once got a wine refill in the 'buffet'.  The waiters in there seemed to be tied up carrying plates for those who could not carry their own. (Fair enough, I appreciate that's a nice thing to do but the large number of extreme elderly and infirm meant it impacted our holiday).  Memo to Saga - you need more crew!

[Wacktle]

2 hours ago, Jammy Bun said:

Never once got a wine refill in the 'buffet'.  

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.

[Tothesunset]

57 minutes ago, Wacktle said:

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.

Maybe. But at breakfast...? 

[nosapphire]

4 hours ago, Jammy Bun said:

We experienced this on our SoA cruise last month.  Definitely not a consistently smiley happy crew - and several times we had to go to the bar to ask for service.  They seemed understaffed, and we put it down to such a high percentage of passengers requiring additional help due to mobility issues.  Never once got a wine refill in the 'buffet'.  The waiters in there seemed to be tied up carrying plates for those who could not carry their own. (Fair enough, I appreciate that's a nice thing to do but the large number of extreme elderly and infirm meant it impacted our holiday).  Memo to Saga - you need more crew!

That could be turned around the other way. The buffet is self-service, the dining room is waiter service,

If there were not so many passengers who need waiter service using the self-service buffet (instead of going to the dining room), the staffing level would be adequate.

(I'll get my coat now, shall I?........)

 

[SaraSailing]

5 hours ago, Jammy Bun said:

We experienced this on our SoA cruise last month.  Definitely not a consistently smiley happy crew - and several times we had to go to the bar to ask for service.  They seemed understaffed, and we put it down to such a high percentage of passengers requiring additional help due to mobility issues.  Never once got a wine refill in the 'buffet'.  The waiters in there seemed to be tied up carrying plates for those who could not carry their own. (Fair enough, I appreciate that's a nice thing to do but the large number of extreme elderly and infirm meant it impacted our holiday).  Memo to Saga - you need more crew!

Yes, the guys in the grill work extra hard trying to get lost people to tables and plates safely to the right place, which all takes time. But mostly we've been lucky up there. Fortunately, dinner last night got better - our wine waiter took some time to arrive, but was attentive after that, and our waiter was much happier. The main course food was better, too. 

[Jammy Bun]

1 hour ago, nosapphire said:

That could be turned around the other way. The buffet is self-service, the dining room is waiter service,

If there were not so many passengers who need waiter service using the self-service buffet (instead of going to the dining room), the staffing level would be adequate.

(I'll get my coat now, shall I?........)

 

Totally agree. 

The Grill/buffet wasn't self-service when we were onboard - everything was put on your plate by staff, meaning queues and rarely getting exactly what you wanted.  Strangely. towards the end of our two weeks we went to the dining room for breakfast, and discovered that you could serve yourself from the buffet in there.  (We didn't realise there was a buffet in there, otherwise would have used it from Day One.)

 

[SaraSailing]

1 hour ago, nosapphire said:

That could be turned around the other way. The buffet is self-service, the dining room is waiter service,

If there were not so many passengers who need waiter service using the self-service buffet (instead of going to the dining room), the staffing level would be adequate.

(I'll get my coat now, shall I?........)

 

You make a fair point. There are people on board who need more help, but they choose to do things that naturally have less help available. The strange thing is that as I often travel with a wheelchair user, we can be treated like we'd be the problem - but so long as coaches are accessible we can pretty much do anything. 

I think it's great that there are cruises from/to the UK that enable people to get lovely holidays that might otherwise be too difficult. But people need to be honest about what help they need, so that the right support is there. Even using the coach example, the wonderfully accessible city buses would be so much better than coaches - you only have to watch a few wobbly walkers trying to haul themselves up three steep steps (or worse, descend safely) to see the problems. My ankle (from an older injury) was pretty puffy today, so we just hopped in a taxi at the port, and got dropped by the door of the Picasso museum. Then we fairly easily hailed another taxi from the main road and got ourselves back to the ship. 

[SaraSailing]

3 minutes ago, Jammy Bun said:

Totally agree. 

The Grill/buffet wasn't self-service when we were onboard - everything was put on your plate by staff, meaning queues and rarely getting exactly what you wanted.  Strangely. towards the end of our two weeks we went to the dining room for breakfast, and discovered that you could serve yourself from the buffet in there.  (We didn't realise there was a buffet in there, otherwise would have used it from Day One.)

 

Ooh, that is interesting. Yes, the "buffet" is still a lip reading challenge round posts and barriers, with the staff doing all the actual food on plates. There haven't been too many queues, despite ship being 90% capacity. 

[Denarius]

24 minutes ago, SaraSailing said:

Yes, the guys in the grill work extra hard trying to get lost people to tables and plates safely to the right place, which all takes time. But mostly we've been lucky up there. Fortunately, dinner last night got better - our wine waiter took some time to arrive, but was attentive after that, and our waiter was much happier. The main course food was better, too. 

There could have been a problem in the kitchen on the previous night(s). On my recent cruise the service on the first night was painfully slow. We later found out that an important piece of kitchen equipment had failed and that the staff had had to work around it.  On subsequent nights the service was fine.

[SaraSailing]

DAY SEVEN - PALMA 

In summary, I walked too much in Palma, and I'm paying for it today with a rather swollen ankle (old stress fracture that I REALLY don't want to damage). But it was a lovely day out. We'd booked a wine tasting tour which was cancelled due to lack of interest, which was a shame. But a friend from my village happened to be here, so we met up with her and got a different view of the city. 

The port is couple of miles from the Cathedral, which is where the shuttle buses go. My usual gripe that the coaches aren't wheelchair friendly, and one shuttle every 30 minutes isn't really enough. Being grumpy, I walked, and probably went too far given the injuries I'm rehabbing. There is A LOT of work being done in the marina area, and I think eventually the nice paseo will reach the ships. 

We met my friend at the rather glamourous Hotel Cappuccino, and sat watching the world go by. The croissants were huge and fluffy, and the coffee was good. I missed breakfast, so I had lovely light crepes with cheese and ham.

 

Then we strolled around, somehow finding all the bits and bobs I was looking for, including coffee beans and a very specific USB adapter for the laptop. The centre is a mixture of breezy squares and tiny lanes - I could have spent much longer there. Then down the the front for ice cream (I'm told the best on the island) - the hazelnut sorbet was so creamy it was amazing. 

My friend took us to see their apartment here, which had a wonderful view of the rooftops all the way across to the cruise ships. And then a long walk back. By the time we got to the ship we were tired, hungry (room service burger was good) and a bit sore. 

The dining room was much more tinkly, and our waiter was going out of his way to be extra nice (or so it seemed). After a LONG 20 minutes, our wine waiter arrived, and from there on was super attentive. It does surprise me that the senior staff can stand and survey the room, but not notice four tables sitting with no wine, or notice and not do anything. I'm kind of used to seeing the seniors leap in and do things (and speak to missing staff later). 

We left late, and one of the port staff brough his dog to help. 


  

 

[SaraSailing]

37 minutes ago, Denarius said:

There could have been a problem in the kitchen on the previous night(s). On my recent cruise the service on the first night was painfully slow. We later found out that an important piece of kitchen equipment had failed and that the staff had had to work around it.  On subsequent nights the service was fine.

Agree - it's usually something in the kitchen. But when that happens, I'd expect senior staff to be doing more to help customer service, not less. I saw them standing, surveying, not speaking, and not appearing to notice all kinds of things they could be stepping in to move along. They could have circled the tables, poured some wine, and made things much better for everyone.

One extra example: I ate less than half my main course, then moved the plate away from me (which is rare for me). I've never been on a cruise where someone senior hasn't noticed something like this, and come to ask if it's okay, within seconds. On one memorable occasion, the restaurant manager on a ship chucked a chef off the grill and cooked my steak himself - and it was the best steak I've had cooked for me on a ship, if not ever. 

[Windsurfboy]

I agree the senior staff in dining room,  seemed to be a bit superfluous. They don't spend much time talking to passengers, more time talking to each other.  I never in our 4 weeks saw one chipping in , carrying a plate to help out or getting some wine. Lovely people but you wondered what their purpose was when everyone else was so busy. 

 

It doesn't detract from the generally god and friendly service on Saga. One place were Saga could up it's game