Summer 2025

[Selbourne]

45 minutes ago, wowzz said:

I'm certainly going to stick it out. Two cruises this year,  and two next year,  including the long awaited Saga cruise. 

I have no wish to commit any further ahead than that, especially given some of the bargains that I have seen recently. Even Oceania has looked tempting !

I’m eagerly awaiting your feedback on Saga. Summer 2025 would be the earliest Saga cruise for us. 

[Dermotsgirl]

42 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

I’m eagerly awaiting your feedback on Saga. Summer 2025 would be the earliest Saga cruise for us. 

I'm on Saga this August.

I'm hoping to give feedback along the lines of 'Saga for the P&O cruiser', but also a bit hesitant, as some people seem to get a bit upset when Saga is mentioned, and also I'll be a bit concerned that the thread will get shifted to the Saga board, where no one will see it ! 

 

 

[wowzz]

49 minutes ago, Dermotsgirl said:

I'm on Saga this August.

I'm hoping to give feedback along the lines of 'Saga for the P&O cruiser', but also a bit hesitant, as some people seem to get a bit upset when Saga is mentioned, and also I'll be a bit concerned that the thread will get shifted to the Saga board, where no one will see it ! 

 

 

Well I, for one, will be extremely interested in anything you post, and will read your comments wherever they end up !

[Dermotsgirl]

15 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Well I, for one, will be extremely interested in anything you post, and will read your comments wherever they end up !

Thank you, I promise I'll do something! 

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, Dermotsgirl said:

I'm on Saga this August.

I'm hoping to give feedback along the lines of 'Saga for the P&O cruiser', but also a bit hesitant, as some people seem to get a bit upset when Saga is mentioned, and also I'll be a bit concerned that the thread will get shifted to the Saga board, where no one will see it ! 

 

 

Maybe put P&O first in your title, "P&O cruiser tries Saga".

[Mollag]

2 hours ago, Dermotsgirl said:

I'm on Saga this August.

I'm hoping to give feedback along the lines of 'Saga for the P&O cruiser', but also a bit hesitant, as some people seem to get a bit upset when Saga is mentioned, and also I'll be a bit concerned that the thread will get shifted to the Saga board, where no one will see it ! 

 

 

I’m not hesitant in mentioning SAGA we were on over Xmas/New Year couldn’t fault a thing unlike the last few weeks on Azura which were terrible, got 2 more booked with SAGA already. Unfortunately we have a few more with P&O booked already but won’t be booking anymore after them. 

[tring]

33 minutes ago, Mollag said:

I’m not hesitant in mentioning SAGA we were on over Xmas/New Year couldn’t fault a thing unlike the last few weeks on Azura which were terrible, got 2 more booked with SAGA already. Unfortunately we have a few more with P&O booked already but won’t be booking anymore after them. 

 

It is a case of what is right for each individual though.  Saga is definitely a no go for us as the prices are really high and the "perks" which are included are of no use to us at all.  We are also not impressed by their itineraries, maybe they are not as mundane as P&O (which is still ok for a bit of a break or longer to warmer climes imo), but not really much in the Saga itineraries that is unusual either, just the odd port or two perhaps and we cruise for destinations, not onboard experience.  If we pay more for a cruise it would be for really interesting itineraries coupled with better service on Azamara or Fred, for instance, but each to their own as I said.

 

Actually we do have a really good itinerary booked on Arcadia to Norway and Baltic ports at a very good price in June and another on Aurora to New York and back for September which is not particularly well priced, but has a number of new ports for us.  We found Aurora very good in October, though like a number of other posters here, we will not be travelling on the bigger ships in the fleet as time progresses.

 

Perhaps the place for conversations like this though is the UK cruisers boards, rather than a more divisive conversation on a board designed for an individual cruise line.  A mention could also be made on boards for each cruise line, alerting people to a specific thread comparing cruise lines from a specific point of view and always worth keeping copies of such types of feedback to provide if anyone asks for comparisons on CC or other places in the near future.

 

 

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by tring

[Megabear2]

9 minutes ago, tring said:

Perhaps the place for conversations like this though is the UK cruisers boards, rather than a more divisive conversation on a board designed for an individual cruise line.  A mention could also be made on boards for each cruise line, alerting people to a specific thread comparing cruise lines from a specific point of view and always worth keeping copies of such types of feedback to provide if anyone asks for comparisons on CC or other places in the near future.

What an excellent idea.

[gsmt47471015]

7 hours ago, majortom10 said:

Phone call received from my cruise TA at 0850hrs, which is used by many on here, that my pre registration request for cruise on Arvia in 2025 has been booked. Also confirmed 1st choice of cabin of the 8 I gave them. Well pleased.

Same for us  though on Aurora, however it appears that this morning the early bookings for upper tiers was not initiated and every cruise was available to anybody ,this caused serious issues as our TA had scheduled staffing to cope with the general sale tomorrow and was swamped with people booking once they realized they could , after speaking to P and O they admitted that they had made the error

[terrierjohn]

2 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

What an excellent idea.

Do many posters on here look at the UK Cruisers board, certainly it would never occur to me to post there.

[Megabear2]

19 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Do many posters on here look at the UK Cruisers board, certainly it would never occur to me to post there.

I look there for tips on all cruise lines. It's where I first used to go when I first joined as I was looking for advice on several cruise lines.  I like Barbara's idea of a link from each cruise line.  We're always hearing about Saga, Princess, Cunard etc as crossovers and nine times out of ten the thread goes way off.

[Vampiress88]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

Do many posters on here look at the UK Cruisers board, certainly it would never occur to me to post there.

Would never even look on there

[majortom10]

6 hours ago, Selbourne said:

 

 

Sit tight. It seems as though the days of launch prices being the cheapest have long gone. I anticipate that Fjords cruises  in 2025, as with this year, will be heavily discounted to get bums on seats. School holidays more challenging though. 

You may well be right with regards to Iona doing repeated 7nt cruises to Norway. Not everyone wants to go to Norway and also not everyone wants to do 7nt cruises. So there may well be cheap prices for Iona as they struggle to fill her because of her summer itinerary. I booked Arvia in highest grade balcony cabin in June with free parking for £120 per night. I think to guarantee your cabin and not rely on what might be left and including free parking that is a very reasonable price to pay.

[tring]

1 hour ago, gsmt47471015 said:

Same for us  though on Aurora, however it appears that this morning the early bookings for upper tiers was not initiated and every cruise was available to anybody ,this caused serious issues as our TA had scheduled staffing to cope with the general sale tomorrow and was swamped with people booking once they realized they could , after speaking to P and O they admitted that they had made the error

 

Yep, that is P&O, so reliable in their unreliability.  Not as good as when we got a loyalty club discount when exchanging currency a few years back though.

 

[Selbourne]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

Do many posters on here look at the UK Cruisers board, certainly it would never occur to me to post there.

Me neither. I’d very much prefer the comparisons with P&O to be on the P&O board.

[Dermotsgirl]

2 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

Do many posters on here look at the UK Cruisers board, certainly it would never occur to me to post there.

Same with me. The people that I want to talk to are here on this board 

[Megabear2]

Could be an interesting day for the booking staff today.  General sale going live at 8.30am and the Cunard Coronation special at 1.00pm.  Judging by the sale problems yesterday and the fact the Cunard sale isn't showing in their websites the booking team might be needing tin hats and ear defenders. Fingers crossed for a smooth one.

[paulatsea]

14 hours ago, Mollag said:

I’m not hesitant in mentioning SAGA we were on over Xmas/New Year couldn’t fault a thing unlike the last few weeks on Azura which were terrible, got 2 more booked with SAGA already. Unfortunately we have a few more with P&O booked already but won’t be booking anymore after them. 

I agree with Mollag - we went on Saga for the first time last summer and got an upgrade to a deluxe balcony out of the blue !

It was excellent.

Cabin , service , quality and excursions were all top class. 
Private transfer to the ship and back.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

[Selbourne]

1 hour ago, paulatsea said:

I agree with Mollag - we went on Saga for the first time last summer and got an upgrade to a deluxe balcony out of the blue !

It was excellent.

Cabin , service , quality and excursions were all top class. 
Private transfer to the ship and back.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Your feedback seems to be consistent with every review I have read about Saga and is the reason why we are keen to try them. We are in their pre launch registration system. As you have done both Saga and P&O can I pick your brains (and any others who have cruised with both)?

 

Whilst we have a number of concerns about the direction of travel with P&O and the gradual erosion in the quality of the ‘included’ experience, their prices seem to be reflecting that. We have four P&O cruises over the next 11 months and all 3 that have been booked recently are costing under £100 per person per night for a balcony cabin booked under a Select fare with free parking etc included. Admittedly these are on Britannia and Ventura, rather than the more comparable Aurora and Arcadia, but whilst we love Aurora we don’t like Arcadia and we like the additional and more modern facilities of the newer ships.
 

The cheapest Saga cruises, even with maximum discount, seem to be coming in at around £225 per person per night. Most are more. I appreciate that a lot more is included as standard with Saga, but we aren’t particularly bothered about free transfers (as we’d have to share) or wifi (never pay, use it free in ports) and we don’t really like doing excursions, so the main additional benefit is the free drinks. Even drinking more than we do on P&O, this would probably only ‘save’ us around £60 a day. So, netting all of that off, Saga will still cost us around double what we can now get P&O cruises for. We are happy to pay more for a better experience than P&O now offer, but based on your experience would you say that the overall quality difference (included food, cabins, general cruise experience) warrants double the price?

 

EDIT - Just after posting I remembered that speciality dining is also included on Saga. Due to the drop off in MDR standards on P&O we do use them more on P&O nowadays, which obviously erodes some of the cost saving versus Saga. However, the price difference is still substantial (albeit not double) so my question still stands. Thanks. 

Edited April 27, 2023 by Selbourne

[zap99]

14 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

Do many posters on here look at the UK Cruisers board, certainly it would never occur to me to post there.

Things get moved there.

[Megabear2]

What exactly is on general sale today, is it everything?  I just revisited the June 2025 cruise I was interested in and it still says "General sale starts at 8.30am on 27 April 2023" as do quite a few more.

[jeanlyon]

1 hour ago, paulatsea said:

I agree with Mollag - we went on Saga for the first time last summer and got an upgrade to a deluxe balcony out of the blue !

It was excellent.

Cabin , service , quality and excursions were all top class. 
Private transfer to the ship and back.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

The prices on Saga are absolutely eye-watering!  22 nights to the Med - £6K - 15 nights £4K   Even if you add the extras, it's nowhere near anything that P&O offers.

[Selbourne]

3 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

The prices on Saga are absolutely eye-watering!  22 nights to the Med - £6K - 15 nights £4K   Even if you add the extras, it's nowhere near anything that P&O offers.

It’s true that the prices aren’t comparable Jean but, by all accounts, neither is the overall experience. Hence my question in my earlier post, as I don’t believe it’s a case of comparing like with like. 

[terrierjohn]

58 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Your feedback seems to be consistent with every review I have read about Saga and is the reason why we are keen to try them. We are in their pre launch registration system. As you have done both Saga and P&O can I pick your brains (and any others who have cruised with both)?

 

Whilst we have a number of concerns about the direction of travel with P&O and the gradual erosion in the quality of the ‘included’ experience, their prices seem to be reflecting that. We have four P&O cruises over the next 11 months and all 3 that have been booked recently are costing under £100 per person per night for a balcony cabin booked under a Select fare with free parking etc included. Admittedly these are on Britannia and Ventura, rather than the more comparable Aurora and Arcadia, but whilst we love Aurora we don’t like Arcadia and we like the additional and more modern facilities of the newer ships.
 

The cheapest Saga cruises, even with maximum discount, seem to be coming in at around £225 per person per night. Most are more. I appreciate that a lot more is included as standard with Saga, but we aren’t particularly bothered about free transfers (as we’d have to share) or wifi (never pay, use it free in ports) and we don’t really like doing excursions, so the main additional benefit is the free drinks. Even drinking more than we do on P&O, this would probably only ‘save’ us around £60 a day. So, netting all of that off, Saga will still cost us around double what we can now get P&O cruises for. We are happy to pay more for a better experience than P&O now offer, but based on your experience would you say that the overall quality difference (included food, cabins, general cruise experience) warrants double the price?

 

EDIT - Just after posting I remembered that speciality dining is also included on Saga. Due to the drop off in MDR standards on P&O we do use them more on P&O nowadays, which obviously erodes some of the cost saving versus Saga. However, the price difference is still substantial (albeit not double) so my question still stands. Thanks. 

As a point of interest I wonder how Saga do handle the shared transport for wheelchair passengers who cannot climb minibus steps. My wife can transfer to a passenger side seat in a standard car but could not board any MPV type vehicle with stepped entry.

[jeanlyon]

28 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

It’s true that the prices aren’t comparable Jean but, by all accounts, neither is the overall experience. Hence my question in my earlier post, as I don’t believe it’s a case of comparing like with like. 

Yes agree.  there is no way we would pay that for a cruise, but then, we dont pay for a suite on P&O for the same reason.   I looked at Cunard for 2025.  They have a nice Med cruise, but again, quite expensive, although nowhere near Saga, but the prices on board for drinks etc - mind blowing.  Guess we will stick with P&O and Fred.