Day 15: Saturday 4th March 2023: The North Sea
The North Sea was much calmer the further South that we sailed. We planned for this last sea day to be a rest day. After breakfast, we did however go out for a walk on deck.
We passed HMS Montrose as she sailed North to Montrose. We subsequently learnt that this was her last voyage as a Royal Navy ship.
Packing and preparing to leave a ship is always an anti-climax after a cruise. We did what we could do after our last lunch upstairs.
Captain’s talk in the afternoon
The Captain gave a very interesting talk in the theatre. We watched from the comfort of our cabin on the closed circuit TV.
In his talk, he described his career starting in the Canadian Navy to becoming a Captain for Saga. He talked about the two Saga ships and how impressed he was by their design and attention to detail.
To emphasise the conditions that we had experienced, he recounted conversations with the Norwegian pilots who had been expressing surprise at the ship’s plan to go to the North Cape in February.
In earlier blogs, I have included the CCTV screen grabs that the Captain showed. First was of the cross wave that had hit the side of the ship on North Sea . This wave was over 17 metres and caused the ship to roll 6 or 7°.
The second was of the bow of the ship ploughing through the swell after leaving the sheltered water off Tromso.
The ship had stayed overnight in Flåm, this was a first for any cruise ship. In order to get this concession, he had had to commit to cutting the lights on the ship so as not to disturb anyone onshore. The two forays into the small fjords, as we had left Flåm, were at the encouragement of the local pilot. He had suggested the detours, and had simply said that the ship would have no issues in the small fjords.
Summary of the voyage:
Sea passage distance: 1991.6 nautical miles
Pilotage distance: 664.0 nautical miles
Total distance : 2,655.6 nautical miles
Evening
In the evening, we had booked another meal at the ‘East to West’ speciality restaurant. Or so we had thought. It appears that the restaurant manager hadn’t entered our booking that we had requested as we had left earlier in the week.
This meant that the last dinner was back in the Grand Dining Room. Then it was back to the Britannia lounge for one last late evening, listening (and dancing) to the ship’s house band. Back in our cabin after a final check, our cases were put in the corridor for our departure.
Day 16: Sunday 5th March: Portsmouth
We went upstairs for breakfast in the Grill, taking our carry on bags with us. To our surprise there were a lot of empty tables. It seems that we were much later than everyone else for breakfast.
Our waiting room for disembarkation was the Britannia lounge. This was full with almost all the chairs and tables occupied. Then we realised why ‘everyone’ had had early breakfasts.
When our departure group was called we headed down to leave the ship. This was as easy as when we had come onboard. We climbed into the waiting bus and were taking across the ferry port to collect our cases. The cages with suitcases for later groups were still being taken into the baggage hall as we left the bus.
After picking up our cases, which were very easy to find, we went out to the next part of the ‘tent’. There we were asked for our name. This was announced using a megaphone to the waiting crowd of taxi drivers.
Taxi home
Our driver was surprised and very pleased at our early appearance. He was parked just opposite the entrance in the ferry port taxi rank.
As we left, he was challenged by one of the stewards about why he was parked there, rather than 100+ yards away with the other taxis. He calmly explained that the rank was for Portsmouth taxis and he was one!
This meant that we only had a few yards to walk.
On the way back he explained how the taxi bookings cascaded down from Saga. He had been offered bookings and had chosen ours so that he could do a pick up further down the A30 to take someone back to the ship. He had then cascaded all the other bookings to taxi drivers who worked with him.
Then we were home and our first cruise with Saga was over.