Saga Rose's final voyage

On Thursday morning, a very upsetting piece of junk mail flopped through my letter box. The brochure was entitled "Announcing Saga Rose's Final Voyages".

I was a Guest Lecturer on Saga Rose on a Christmas/New Year cruise down to Madeira in 2006. Despite me being at least 14 years younger than the minimum age for a Saga cruise, I thought the ship and the people on board were amazing.

The food was the highest quality I have had on a cruise ship, the service impeccable. The rooms were of the 'old school' - filled with wood and panelling. They were gorgeous. Captain Rentell had a totally wicked sense of humour, including playing the baddie in the Christmas Pantomime, and the Cruise Director, Jane Edwards, worked tirelessly to make sure we all enjoyed ourselves. Even the weather over the Bay of Biscay was good - miracles really do happen! In fact, my favourite story was sitting down to lunch one day. I looked out the window to see the sea washing it. We were at least 3 decks clear of sea level! But old transatlantic liners are so well designed, that they can glide along the sea like this and not even a wine glass will move or the level on a glass of water will alter. 

Saga Rose was built in France in 1965. She was one of two sisters - her sister being the last passenger liner built in the UK, Vistafjord. Both became part of the Norwegian America Line, which ran transatlantic voyages. This line was later acquired by Cunard, although these two ships still retained their Norwegian style names. When Sagafjord was sold to Saga Cruises, Vistafjord's name was changed to Caronia. This name is more in keeping with Cunard's style of naming ships. Later, Vistafjord was sold to Saga and became Saga Ruby.

When I travelled on board Saga Rose, she had just had a major refit. Her navy blue and gold branding throughout the ship made her look elegant and dignified. Although Saga Ruby is lovely too, her green and gold branding just doesn't do it for me.

Unfortunately due to tight maritime regulations in the US, Saga Rose wasn't able to enter American ports. Saga Ruby could because her transatlantic voyages to New York with Cunard meant that she had to be kept up to the standards the US wanted. But in the end, it was the International Maritime Organisation's new rules in 2010 which finally brought about her demise. Its the same with other old liners, such as QE2. This is such a shame because they have more style and dignity than a lot of the newer ships.

I have this challenge now... I have a list of ships that I must travel on before they go out of service. Unfortunately, they are going out of service faster than I can travel on them! The ships I still have left include: The Scholar Ship (ex-Sea Princess, Victoria), Discovery (ex-Island Princess), Saga Ruby (ex-Caronia), QE2, Aurora, Oriana and Pacific Princess.