Spirit of Discovery, Saga’s New Luxury Small Ship
It’s just over 12 months since work started on building Saga’s new luxury small ship Spirit of Discovery at the Meyer Werft yard in Germany, and in this time the partnership between Saga and the shipyard has produced a ship to meet the demands of Saga’s loyal customers.
Because Saga commissioned the ship they have been able to influence every aspect of her design after spending hundreds of hours consulting with Saga members; everything from the size of the cabins, the layout of the bathrooms, soft furnishings, artwork, and the way the menus have been designed. The outcome has been to raise the bar for British cruising and deliver a luxury and memorable cruise experience.
A Balcony For Every Guest
Each cabin on Spirit of Discovery, has a balcony, this gives each guest their own private space, inside and out. And with an average floor plan of 215 square feet as standard, there’s quite a lot of space to enjoy.
So what sets apart Spirit of Discovery apart? By setting out to create a classic British cruise ship, Saga have listened to feedback and based their design around some of Europe’s leading boutique hotels. More importantly they have retained the designers and art consultants to create a consistent look and feel throughout all of the ships places, married together and influenced by British artists.
World Class Dining
Spirit of Discovery has been a blank canvas when it comes to menu planning, allowing the head chefs the freedom to design the menu based on local produce based on the destinations they visit. So for instance, they are able to visit somewhere such as Barcelona market and bring back ingredients to create a menu for that evening; this is both liberating for the kitchen crew, and is exciting and brings another dimension to the cruise’s dining experience for guests.
As well as the main dining restaurant, Spirit of Discovery also retains East to West, Coast to Coast (seafood), Verands and The Steak House Supper Club in conjunction with Jools Holland. Each restaurant is different with waiting staff who are knowledgeable and well briefed about each evening’s menu, in order to deliver the best and individual dining experience possible.
Spirit of Discovery Itinerary Planning
Saga Cruise are proud to state that they do not repeat the same cruise more than once. This may present challenges for some cruise lines, but for Saga they thrive on planning something different. By taking inspiration from various themes, cruise itineraries are planned accordingly; this may be based on some connection between the ports visited, or may be based on a literary, musical art or food inspired theme.
Because of the smaller size of Spirit of Discovery, visiting smaller ports become an option for the cruise to visit, allowing Saga to plan cruises that larger cruise lines cannot easily contemplate.
Spirit of Discovery Float Out
The culmination of this process came when Spirit of Discovery left it’s home en route to being delivered to Saga.