Saga Cruises, Spirit of Adventure, Eastern Mediterranean Review

Spirit of Adventure, Eastern Mediterranean

This was a 32-night cruise that had originally been scheduled to go to the Black Sea. That wasn't possible, but in a very short time Saga created a superb itinerary that took in Greece, Crete, Cyprus and Turkey. Sadly on the change of itinerary a lot of passengers cancelled, so we had about 525 passengers and 540 crew members. The new Saga ships are extremely spacious anyway, so this low number of passengers did make parts of the ship very quiet at times.
Saga food and service is exceptional - you could pay a lot more with some so-called luxury cruise lines and not do as well. There are three alternative restaurants, available to book without an extra charge. Some drinks are always included, but on this trip all drinks were included, including the sparkling wine served at the classical recitals and at breakfast on special days. We had a standard cabin with balcony (all cabins have a balcony) and that was spacious enough for a month.
Ship entertainment is often not to out taste, but this time there were several acts in the theatre that we enjoys. There were also two classical piano quartets on board, in addition to the resident bands. Much of the music in the theatre is performed live, rather than working with backing tracks.
Saga now includes some excursions, usually a panoramic tour. We did some of those but selected extra charge excursions in a few ports. Most of the tours were good, with good guides, but I could recommend changes to a couple of the paid for trips.
The turnround point for the trip was Canakkale in Turkey, as Istanbul had already been dropped. That gave me the opportunity to visit the Gallipoli peninsula - somewhere that I have want to see for many years. Movingly, as we sailed back through the Dardanelles, heading for the Mediterranean, we sounded our whistle as we passed the British monument at the tip of the peninsula as a mark of respect.
Although a Saga cruise might look expensive on paper, there is an awful lot of extras included that makes it pretty good value.