Spirit Of Discovery Review
Nice ship but norovirus meant many activities cancelled
Rating by category
Additional details
We wanted to try a smaller ship, and in that regard things were good: it's much easier to get around. We'd never been with Saga before and we weren't expecting such a high average age: a senior member of the crew told me the average age in this cruise was 76.
The public areas are nice but the ceilings seem a little low. Great outside verandas at the stern of each deck. The theatre seats are rather cramped. The lounge seating is mostly too deep if you're under 6'.
The ship had had norovirus on the three previous cruises and despite another "deep clean" it was still prevalent. Around 8% of passengers caught it. The resulting infection control measures, which applied throughout the cruise, were tiresome and resulted in many on-board activities, including the bridge sessions, craft sessions, all pools, the shops, the library and the self-service laundry, being cancelled/closed (the shop did open right at the end). They say that repeatedly doing the same thing (quick deep cleaning) and expecting a different result (eradication) is a sign of madness. I'll let you be the judge of that, but in my opinion Saga took a gamble with the health and well-being of passengers and crew by operating this cruise, a gamble which didn't pay off. At least now they have plenty of time to clean properly.
Cabin Review
This is a deluxe accessible cabin, which isn't really big enough if you're a full time wheelchair user. The wet-room bathroom is fine, but the area around the bed is restricted by the ramp to the balcony. We had the bed turned by 90 degrees to make more space, but you lose access to one side of the bed then. They claim the cabin can also be arranged as a twin, but I can't see how there could be enough space for that. There's no rail on the back of the bathroom door to help you pull it closed from a wheelchair. There's not enough room for a proper table for in-cabin dining.