Cruising experience

That’s excellent news pants. Delighted for you both. Have a wonderful time. 🛳

Brilliant! Bon voyage

I have loved reading this thread. Have a wonderful time Pantglas2. I am looking forward to your next update.

I have never been on a cruise. It's on my maybe in the future list.

Well thanks to this thread, which set me looking at cruises, we're now booked on a double river cruise: South of France then the Rhineland.
Pantglas - thanks!

Hello Adeline and all on this thread 👋 (and well done those of you who were lead into the brambles of delinquency i.e. booking cruises, by me - 😂 ) wot a norty gurl I am for encouraging you!

Just popping in to let you know I’m having the time of my life - just left Madeira after an overnighter and the Bay of Biscay was kind so no need for the endless supply of Stugeron and ginger concoctions (biscuits, crystallised, ☕️)

Have been crafting for 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿, in the gym most mornings and trotting up and down stairs (while MrPG takes the lift and wonders why one pair of chinos won’t close….🤬). He’s also scoffing his way through the menus thrice daily - they are lavish and lishus, full of exotic things I couldn’t make myself, culinary or financially!

Today I was up with sparrowfart and I had my first cuppa (no chamberpot in this cabin ☹️ ) watching an inspiring sunrise on the balcony, so 🌞 days have arrived and hope it continues for another week so I can take advantage of the pool and sundeck as well as our Canary Islands excursions.

I’ve tried the daily cocktail 🍹 each evening and we’ve eaten in the special restaurants as well as one formal dinner - lovely to make a special effort for that! Mr PGs regimental tie was recognised by another guest which secretly pleased him as he felt a little underdressed as most chaps were in DJs with bow ties!

Will keep an eye on this thread to see who’s next to succumb….😉

That sounds great Pantglas. So glad you're enjoying it all. Sounds like you're really making the most of it.
(We were in Madeira last week. It was lovely)

Lovely update on a wet day in S England. Hoping you will update us again.

Glad you're enjoying your Saga cruise Pantglas! Can't wait till mine in April (my 7th with them!)

Glad you and Mr PG are enjoying your cruise.. Been on 4
, I think. I would like to go on a ‘last hurrah’ but my cruising companions are ‘indisposed’.

So pleased you and Mr.P are having a fabulous time.

Thank you for this thread Pantglas. We are going on our first cruise in June to the Norwegian Fjords, also with Saga.
I have had my reservations but you make it sound wonderful.
Hope you continue to enjoy.

Delighted it’s all going well pantglas. New you’d enjoy it. Have fun.

So pleased you’re having a good time Pants my DH succumbed after our third cruise and bought a lovely lightweight DJ which as much more comfortable for him than a heavier suit. In the days of the suit he once wore a tie to dinner that had a lot of “admiring” glances. It was a tie of books and came from the Bodlian. 🤣

Grr can’t spell, Bodleian.

We only go on Viking these days. No dressing up required.

Aveline

We only go on Viking these days. No dressing up required.

That would be me. I like to wear something fresh and attractive in the evenings but wouldn’t want to dress up too much. When I volunteered in a charity shop we used to get loads of customers asking for cruisewear. We kept a special rail upstairs of all the glittery, sequinned dresses and could usually find people something suitable.

🚢 and she’s home 🤗

Good things first….

Werthers sweets on every excursion - who knew?😋

Chauffeur each way - brilliant and restful for 5hrs each way

Embarkation & Disembarkation - swift and effortless process

Cabin - deluxe upgrade was a delightful freebie but no one could explain how we got it as newbies!

Toiletries - Prija (posh & told to bring ‘em home - I did 😉)

Steward - cheerful and efficient, nothing too much trouble

Food - fine dining (on hot plates, a pernicketyness of mine) was out of this world and plenty of choice. 3 special restaurants as well as Grand Dining Room and more casual The Grill

Drinks - an abundance of high end ones but I chose to have dry days interspersed with cocktails, wine & liqueur treat days.

Entertainment- very professional shows, singers and groups

Interests - bridge, water colours, crafts, jigsaws, board games

Sport - impressive well equipped gym, yoga and fitness classes

Excursions - good choice of included sightseeing ones giving overview of each island, guides knew their stuff.

Ship - very well appointed, spotless and stylish with lots of seating areas on different decks I.e. Library, Living Room, Terrace, Lido Deck, Britannia Lounge, South Cape Bar.

Staff - so pleasant, cheerful, helpful and efficient.

I’ll leave you with all that for now and return with my (very few) less favourable thoughts 🤔 soon!

Pants so glad you had a good time. Hope the negatives aren’t too disappointing. Ah yes, the Werthers. I forgot to mention that. 😊. Sweetie time on every trip.

That sounds terrific Pantglas2. So glad you enjoyed it.

Sounds superb pants. I’m both pleased and relieved you had a good time. Looking forward to the negatives .

Six weeks to go for me till I'm on Adventure.......

…and now for my nitpicking🤨

Battles at breakfast!
I’m a very sociable sort all day but need to be mostly solitary (MrPG excepted 😘) for breakfasting then found staff insisted on placing folks on the next, very close, table when dining room was empty….☹️

Solved it by choosing a table away from windows/views and were usually finished by the time others joined us!

I was perfectly happy to be seated at random tables for lunch and dinner and met lots of interesting people with fascinating tales of cruising experiences - all lovely and kind to us newbies.

Sports Bar
The lack of….☹️. We assumed that there would be somewhere that would show the 🏉! I realised that I’d be the only female there but lots of chaps would’ve liked to watch the 6 nations games (even though 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 lost)

The weather
Barrel scraping here and totally out of Saga’s control of course, the last port El Ferrol in Spain was cancelled due to El Capitan wanting to get ahead of rough seas 🌊in Bay of Biscay - a wise move but some folks had trips/meetings with families arranged (not us though)

That’s it really…we both enjoyed the dressing up for 3 formal evenings and cocktails with the crew etc and the food was very moreish - if I hadn’t used the stairs and gym regularly I’d have been in the same state as MrPG - clothes shrinking in sea air 🤣

We did feel like the youngsters aboard as most cruisers were nearer dad’s age than mine with lots of health issues - an inspiration really that they still feel like trotting around the world in spite of their challenges! Lots were on their second cruise this year with 2-3 still to come 🤗

Another thing we realised is that we don’t really want to do two weeks away from home any longer (6 weeks in Mi Casa in 🇪🇸 don’t count as that’s home-from-home) so another cruise will be 8-9 days to Norway fjords, probably next summer when I’ve done some financial finagling!

I’ve enjoyed this thread so much - thanks to you all for sharing and I hope you’ll continue to do so 😉

Great to hear Pantglas. Thanks btw. After reading this thread got me going and we're now booked for a two week double river cruise in September. Can't wait!

One thing I forgot to mention is Singles…lots of meetings in the Britannia Lounge for morning coffees or pre dinner drinks and I saw lots of large dinner tables (6 or 8 places) set aside for those groups.

There appeared to be double the number of single women to men and they all appeared to be enjoying themselves as a group on the excursions as well

A lady I chatted to one lunchtime preferred to join couples and she’d enjoyed lots of cruises since her husband died with no thought of not carrying on their lifestyle - admirable to my mind!

Well you were right folks…all those who said we’d be booking another one!

Saga’s 2025 brochure landed yesterday and we spotted a sailing to the fjords in August for a week from Dover on Spirit of Discovery!🤗

The only downside is they show a countdown on the site and it’s 499 days to go…🤬!