WHAT A SUPER SAGA!
No f lights, no lugging of cases, this cruise is plain sailing all the way . . .
They said the car would pick us up at 11am, and the dining-room clock had just begun to chime when the doorbell rang. Moments later we were heading for Southampton docks in chauffeured comfort, enveloped by an emotion rarely felt on the opening journey of any holiday — tranquillity. No timetable panic, no airport drudgery, no lugging of our enormous suitcases or endless airport security checks. Two hours later we were being welcomed aboard the Saga Pearl II and directed to our cabin where, later, we would be reunited with our luggage. The ship wouldn’t be leaving for another three hours. In the meantime, tea — a sumptuous spread — was being served in the main lounge. We fell easily into the warm babble of conversation. Derek and Sally had been chauffeured to the ship from Wales (picking up another couple on the way), Ted and Brenda were driven from Knowsley, Liverpool. And there was Alice and John from Canterbury. ‘Oh,’ said Alice in an excited voice, ‘it’s just like a weekend country house party.’ A house party, though, without children. Indeed, most on board were retired. This was a Saga cruise and we were heading for the Canaries. There was an Agatha Christie moment as my wife and I wondered just who, or what, the others (470 in total) were, or had been. In fact, these people had lived, most of them quite a lot. Alan, a quiet chap from Surrey aged about 70, casually mentioned he’d been in electronics. It emerged he’d worked at Nasa on Apollo 13 and subsequent space missions. Michael had been a local authority director of finance in one of our cities. Chuckling over his pan-fried Mediterranean sole with lobster sauce, he recounted how he’d refused to allow his council to use PFI (private finance initiative) to build a hospital because ‘the huge interest on the loan would have bled us dry’. They, like nearly all the other passengers, were Saga regulars. One spirited lady in her 70s, travelling alone, was on her 56th cruise with the company. ‘So much better than being in an old folks’ home,’ she said. Cruises are never easy for women — this one had no fewer than four ‘formal’ evenings with the men in black or white tie — but no one seemed to notice, or to care, if a lady wore the same outfit more than once.
My OWN horrifying, last-minute discovery when dressing for the first formal dinner was that I had no bow tie. Rushing down to the dining room I sought advice from Pablito, the head waiter. Calmly he undid his shirt collar, removed his own bow tie and handed it to me, saying I could keep it for the entire cruise. One lunchtime, having spent the morning reading in the timeless armchair comfort of the well-stocked ship’s library, we realised it was Sunday. And then we saw it — the biggest joint of beef we have ever seen, not merely ‘on the bone’ but still attached to the leg that towered almost 3ft high. It weighed 32kg when it went into the oven to slow roast for eight hours. The end result was tender and delicious. In Madeira, we took a run ashore to the marbled splendour of Belmond Reid’s Palace, its most famous hotel, for coffee on the terrace, and then on around the winding coastal road to Camara de Lobos, the fishing village where Winston Churchill used to set up his easel. In Tenerife, we stepped aboard a No 910 bus which took us along the coast to the beach resort of San Andres. The young woman driver threw her articulated public vehicle round the bends with a song in her heart, not exactly a comfortable ride. At Lanzarote we joined a trip to Fire Mountain, in the volcanic island’s Timanfaya national park where the magma bubbles just below the surface. Chicken portions and steaks were being cooked on a grill above a magma well (you could see it frothing and bubbling 50ft below) and water poured into holes burst back up as steam. In Lisbon, we drove out to the huge statue of Christ on a hill overlooking the beautiful Portuguese capital. And finally, we were back at Southampton. The car, we were told, would be there at 3.30pm. And there it was. Two hours later we were home. All we had to do was unpack. GE0FFREY LEVY