Saga Rose will be saying a very long goodbye as she prepares to leave the Saga fleet in October. Like QE2, the ship falls foul of new SOLAS regulations that come in on October 1 next year. Saga had the choice of spending shed-loads of money to make it compliant (assuming it was even possible) or getting rid of it.
Saga decided it had to go.
The first farewell is to Dover, from where the ship will sail today for the last time, cruising to Guernsey, the Isles of Scilly, Ireland and Scotland, and ending up in Liverpool, where it will spend the summer, sailing to Norway, Iceland and Greenland.
After saying more goodbyes in Liverpool, the ship will move to Southampton, from where it will be saying its final farewells.
The very last voyage, after 44 years in service, departs October 30 and will be visiting Spain, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Cyprus, Israel, Egypt, Malta, France, Morocco.
What happens then has not been decided. At one point it appeared Dubai would snap it up, as happened with QE2, and turn Rose in to a floating hotel as well, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside now the recession has hit and the emirate has discovered cash is in short supply and it has rather too many hotels anyway.
I guess the other options are to find a buyer in a part of the world where no one bothers too much about SOLAS (as Fred Olsen did with Black Prince) or selling it for scrap.
All Saga says at the moment it that it is discussing plans for a fitting retirement.
Jane Archer
