My First Cruise: Marella Mediterranean Medley (TUI)

Going on a cruise was a completely new experience for me. It has never been super high on my to-do list. However, when my mum was keen to go, I obviously had to volunteer and go along with her to keep her company.

Why Marella Cruises?

Marella Cruises were recommended to us by a family friend who loves cruising. He gave us some great tips (which I’ll be adding to another blog post alongside my top tips shortly!) and spoke very highly of the destinations on this cruise. One of the biggest draws of this cruise specifically was that it was a whole package, so it included flights both ways, transport between the airport and the cruise ship and of course the cruise itself.

The Destinations:

We chose the Mediterranean trip, which was meant to dock in Italy, Spain and France (more on this later). I had already visited Florence/ Pisa but hadn’t managed to do all of the things I’d wanted to there (it was a work trip) and the rest of the places (Barcelona, Valencia, Portofino and St Tropez) were on my list to go to anyway so I was super excited.

Organised Excursions:

Before you go on a cruise you can book the organised excursions online before you go. Frustratingly for us, there was some kind of weird tech issue going on with the Tui website so not all of the tours came up properly on the iPad (which my mum was using to organise the trip) so we didn’t end up booking anything for Barcelona as it had already sold out when it finally came up. To be fair, this ended up being a blessing in disguise and it was super easy to get around in Barcelona on our own anyway.

We did book excursions for the rest of the destinations, which was a bit of a mixed bag, but generally speaking, we had a good experience 90% of the time. You can also book excursions on the ship, but like I said the popular excursions do sell out quickly so it’s best to book as soon as you can.

The Ship:

I believe that the Marella ships are quite small as cruise ships go, which has its advantages and disadvantages. As I had never been on a cruise ship before, I did find it quite impressive, there were all the facilities you could need on board, including a coffee shop, pool area, restaurants and a theatre. The only area that ever got unbelievably packed was the pool (which we didn’t end up spending much time at anyway).

The ship also seemed to be VERY family-friendly. It looked like a lot of the people on board were people with kids and their parents, or were quite elderly. This was fine for a break with my mum, but if I chose to go on my own or with friends, I would have felt very out of place!

The room itself was great. It had everything we needed and it was lovely to wake up and look out of the window and see where we were that day! It was consistently being cleaned (probably something to do with the hangover from Covid), and the shower/ loo was fine for everyday use. I also really enjoyed the towel animals that appeared on my bed every day. It doesn’t take much to make me happy!

Value for Money:

I think this is probably one of the cheaper cruises you can do, although with the add-ons such as the excursions it can get a little more expensive.

We didn’t book the drinks package or wifi, which was generally fine as my data package allowed me to connect when docked and most of the drinks we wanted were free anyway. The only thing I will say is that they do catch you out with certain things.

For example, if you get tea in the coffee shop you’ll get charged but if you get tea from any of the restaurants or buffet bars it’s free - and it’s the same tea bags! Same with the cocktails, all of the classics are free in the pool bar, but in the other bars you get charged. Thankfully Prosecco everywhere is free, although you do have to ask in the restaurants (they’ll offer you red or white wine) and at breakfast, if you just ask for tea they’ll give it to you out of the big tea jug, but if you ask for breakfast tea you’ll get it in a proper teapot made fresh. It’s the little things that you only realise once you're on the ship!

My overall impressions:

I had a lot of fun on this cruise, and am so grateful that I was able to spend a week travelling around the Mediterranean, I mean what a luxury!

The ship was fine. For me, the best thing about this cruise was visiting the places along the way and I think we had that in our minds when we booked. If we wanted to spend more time on the boat, I think perhaps we’d book something with a little more to do, and maybe an adult-only cruise ship instead so we could enjoy things like the pool without being splashed or hit with a ball etc.

The restaurants were great, and we ended up visiting the Italian place multiple times throughout the trip. I wasn’t a huge fan of the buffet (I’m veggie and quite fussy, so it wasn’t that it wasn’t good, but it just wasn’t for me), and getting breakfast in the restaurants vs in the buffet felt like such a treat on the days we had enough time to do this.

The places we visited were excellent, although we had a little hiccup and didn’t get to go to St Tropez which was incredibly disappointing! We ended up going through a storm force 10 ‘weather event’ which caused a lot of sicknesses onboard - including my poor mum who didn’t get any sleep.

Although I understand it was for safety reasons, the fact that we still had to go through the storm and missed a port destination kind of made no sense (although it may have to do with the docking). Overall, spending 2 days at sea wasn’t the vibe when you’re on a child-friendly cruise where everyone’s getting sick, although it may have been easier to deal with if it was a bigger ship with a little more to do.

We were really lucky with a lot of the guides and tours too, although the man that took us around in Valencia was a strange one! We had barely any free time to explore which was such a shame considering all he was showing us were gates to the city. It was interesting, but I’d have preferred time to grab lunch properly and take a breath. Considering there were a lot of elderly people who were complaining about the speed we were walking around as well and asked for breaks, it did seem a little strange! I know they have to keep to a time, but we got back to the boat well before final boarding so it just seemed odd.

Overall though, I did have a fantastic time. It was something that i’ve never done before and feel so incredibly lucky that I was able to experience it.