Marella Med Cruise

[WhatTimeIsItCuckoo]

Hi all

I've booked the above for a week in July for just me and my 13yo son.

For a bit of background, I've recently separated from my husband of 30 years which is proving very difficult. I have two other children of 19 and almost 18 who are both going away with their friends this year, hence it just being the two of us.

I'm feeling all the things atm, quite excited, but also anxious (never cruised before and worried I've made the right choice for us both) and sad, sad about my marriage ending, the older two off doing their own thing (but glad for them too of course) and grieving our past family holidays. It just all feels so strangely wrong somehow 😔

Looking for - hopefully - reassurance from anyone who's done one of these, or knows anyone who has, that I've chosen well and that we'll both enjoy it.

Please be kind, I'm very fragile at the min! TIA

@FestivalFun, ok thanks, I'll have a think about an outside cabin.

Re Rome, I've actually been before myself so wouldn't be too worried about missing that. My son may well be interested though as he loves his history so I'll have a look and a think.

Thanks again to you and everyone for your tips and reassurances, it's made me feel a lot better! 😊

Depending on how much time you have in St Raph, if you want to have a poke around St Trop, you can get a Bateaux Bleu shuttle, it's about an hour each way. The train station is central in the town too and easily accessible from the port if you fancy Nice/Cannes/Monaco. The train runs along the coast and it is picturesque.

There's lots to see in St Raphael itself, but if you just want a beach day, the beaches are located either side of the port and are sandy. You have a choice of St Raphael beach or Fréjus plage.

Worth checking out the upgraded drink options on Marella, if you google the drinks menus you’ll see what the premium covers and if you’d make use of it. Review of whether it’s good value are mixed, but we loved the premium cocktail bar and the little things like being able to have canned soft drinks rather than from taps

Hi OP, we have done that exact cruise, was the first one we ever did about 6 years ago. There are shorter trips available if you want them. I love Marella cruises - we go most years. I haven't noticed a major decline in the service since covid but we have only done one since then.
I think you will enjoy it very much - the food is (I think) excellent and the drink choice good.
I would say that if you can run to it a balcony is particularly nice on a med cruise.

We went on this exact cruise last October, we had balcony on deck 8 and was perfect. Weather wasn’t great so did get choppy at times and we couldn’t visit Saint Raphael which was a shame as we had booked Monaco trip. Walk around Corsica it’s all accessible no need to book any trips, we had half day trip to Pisa which was just right. My husband did Rome and Barcelona full day trips and I stayed on board quite happily relaxing and reading by pool, he was up and out early and back around 5-6pm with plenty of walking. There’s a cinema and fantastic live shows every night, we ate at main dining room with full waiter service for breakfast and evening meal and didn’t upgrade to drinks as everything we liked was included anyway.

Thank you, I really appreciate everyone's comments. Please keep them coming, they've been so helpful 😊

Does anyone happen to know if there are shorter excursions as an option - like half/part day ones?
You don't have to do excursions. They can be very tiring. I didn't like having to set the alarm on holiday because of the early starts. Several places we stopped we just got off the boat and wandered round. Did a bit of research beforehand to find out what the ports were like.
Barcelona for example, we just got one of those hop on hop off buses. They tour around the city and you can make it last as long or as short as you want.

Cabins. We booked an inside one for the DC and an outside / balcony for us. The inside cabin has no natural light and was literally pitch dark, and while the boys didn't mind I would have hated it. It's fun to look out of your own cabin at the ports on arrival and departure.

The only one I’d suggest an organised tour or, at least using organised transport is Rome. This is due to the port location being quite a bit outside rome. Usually cruises will provide transport in and out of the city. I’d do that p, just in case of any delays getting out of the city coming back to ship.

In terms of your ports -

Corsica - dont book a trip, just get off the ship and have a wander - there is a hop on hop off bus there too
Livorno - book a half day trip to the leaning tower its good for that age
Rome - loads of great trips but it is a long hot day so would depend on how up for it your son would be - we did the roman ruins trip with my son when he was about 11 and he loved it but it was tiring
St Raphael - lovely place to get off and wander, nice beaches etc, no need for a trip unless you want to go further afield
Barcelona - its so easy to do yourself, the zoo and aquarium are both great, if he is in to football you can do a stadium tour, or there is a good hop on hop off bus. If he is in to rollercoasters there is a great theme park called Port Aventura around an hour away that ships normally run trips to.

A cruise is ideal for a single parent - loads to entertain children and pretty easy to make friends- and you can be as social as you feel like as there will be meet ups arranged for solo travellers etc on board - its pretty common for single adults to cruise alone so you wont feel out of place. The kids and teen clubs are good - register him on the first day to help him make friends

Inside cabins are fine, but a balcony can be nice to sit and have a coffee or drink and read your book on if you dont want to sit in a bar yourself sometimes

In Livorno we took a taxi ( there were six of us) to Florence and then Pisa. We didn't know the other 4 people but just met them when we got off the ship and asked them if they wanted to share a taxi. The driver was a truly lovely man and gave us a couple of hours in Florence then around 30 mins in Pisa. We gave him a good tip but strangely the others (Americans) did not! I wish I'd kept his details but it was several years ago and he had been to Nepal a few times. So, if you happen to meet some others it might be worth suggesting taking a taxi!

They are fun, you'll have a great time. They have lots of different entertainment on board including plenty that's appealing to teens. There's teen programming in holidays too. I took my dd after my marriage ended! I was not the only person in those circumstances, lots of single parent with teen.

For the ports many are easy to navigate by public transport and there's a few websites that talk you through what's at each port. The trainline app works (well did at least) in Italy, I did Pisa and also Rome by normal train saving £££ but do prebook the coliseum via the Italian cultural website

Liverno is a short hop on the train to Pisa, we headed back for a late lunch on the ship

Civitavcchia for Rome is 45 mins or so on the train, i booked 11.30am at the coliseum and got off as soon as allowed after docking, about 8am giving plenty of time to get to Rome and see some of the excavations etc. we then looped past the trevi fountain, nipped into Vatican City by literally a few steps and then jumped back on the train to the port about 3pm, was the busiest day of the trip.

Top tip - they put sandwiches etc in fridges near the pool, we grabbed some the day before Rome and put them in our mini fridge overnight.

I had an inside cabin that time too, was fine

This series of vlogs is worth a watch -

On the inside cabin vs upgrade from what I have seen it depends how well you sleep. Gary Bainbridge is really picky about the cabin he pics, he wants to have other cabins above, below and on both sides to keep the noise down.

He once had a room above the nightclub and was awake until 4am. Middle of the ship is better for stability but on the med that should not be a problem.

Emma cruises just picks the cheapest.

Automatic upgrades can be not as good, so you might be upgraded to a 'sea view' but the view is actually of the lifeboats. And you can't open the window

On the cruise insurance, it is different to normal in that it can pay you compensation if you miss a port (bad weather means they sometimes miss a port or go to a different one). It also covers you if you have to be medivaced off the ship and flown home.

Many thanks @Pigeonqueen for the blog link, have watched them all and they were really helpful - all looks very nice 😊

After some consideration I have upgraded us to a balcony cabin - my reasoning was that my boy often does like to chill out in our room, particularly before and after dinner, and I didn't want to always be leaving him but, equally, I didn't want to just be cooped up in an inside cabin either. If we were two adults travelling and just returning to the cabin to sleep - much like the couple on the blogs - I'm sure it would be fine, but if he's having some downtime (gaming etc) it'll be nice to be able to chill on the balcony myself with a nice glass of something! Also perhaps nice for breakfast/dinner in our room occasionally if that suits.

Excursions aren't open yet as checked Cruise Control, however, once available, I'll perhaps look at ports 2 & 4 to pre-book something for just part of the day, so not too tiring. I'll get my son involved in this too and I understand I can book things whilst on board if that suits.

Many thanks again to everyone who responded to my post, I'm now really looking forward to it and feel much more reassured 👍😊

I am so pleased you upgraded to a balcony, having one really is fab. I didn’t want to say this earlier as you’d already booked an inside. Enjoy your coffee in the morning and watching the departures with your DS.

Thanks @FestivalFun, I will do! 😊

So glad you’re now looking forward to the trip. I think you will find it so easy. And have a great time

If you go to the cruise critic website and register, you can the. They have something called roll call under their ‘boards’ section. You can then search under Marella and the date of your particular cruise to find others who are on the same cruise. You can usually get lots of really helpful info including those looking for people to join their small tours for certain ports, those with children etc so that you don’t feel so ‘alone’ when you actually start the cruise. Here is a link to the roll call for Marella https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/forum/660-marella-cruises-roll-calls-formerly-thomson/.

Thanks @Plastichanger, that's helpful and @lateSeptember1964 😊

Another question - what is the WiFi situation on the ship? I've seen you can buy packages but have also seen that there are designated WiFi areas around the ship. Does that mean that you can only use these areas even when you've bought a package, or can you use it anywhere - in your room for example? How effective does it tend to be too? Have seen mixed reports on this!

You still have to buy a wi-fi package to make use of the designated wi-fi zones. It just means it will work better in these areas - but will still be slow and patchy at best! It's unlikely to work at all in your stateroom, hence the designated wi-fi zones.

Also as an aside, agree with pp's to be careful booking too many excursions, it can be completely exhausting. Getting up early to get ready, have breakfast then off the ship by 9am, a full day excursion then getting back to the ship in time to get ready for dinner takes its toll if done every day! On our first cruise we booked excursions at every stop and frankly needed another holiday to recover at the end of it.

I found the wifi to be pretty reliable on Discovery 2 in October, it worked well in my cabin. Some of the wifi packages are for a certain amount of data so you need to remember to log out of the system each time, otherwise you burn through the data quickly.