Marella Dream

TUI Marella Dream - Ancient Kingdoms Cruise

I've just got back from my first cruise! Currently have 10 things ticked off the never end bucket list which I haven't actually added to in a while.

I went last Wednesday morning leaving at 4:30am for a 4.5 hour drive down to Cardiff airport as it was £500 cheaper for the 3 of us than flying from Manchester. Got back 4am yesterday morning. 

Cardiff airport is one of the worst airports. Was tiny and had 2 shops - duty free and WH Smith and one restaurant. And I thought Liverpool airport was tiny this is way smaller! Also made us check our bags in ourselves which was rubbish as it just didn't work! Surprised our bags made it there.

I went with my mum and dad and we flew to Paphos - Cyprus. I'd say I was one of the youngest on that flight and the average age was 60+. I know cruises are well known as an old person's holiday and I guess due to the dates we we flying kids are still in school. But there was a few babies and the odd young kid who should have been in school. 

The flight was 4.5 hours so that was a total of 9 hours of travelling. We landed in Paphos just before 6pm. Then had a 45 minute drive to the port of Limassol to get on the cruise. When we got to the cruise terminal we got given tags for our cases as they take your case up to your cabin for you and we got given our ship cards that have your name on it, when it expires, what board type (all inclusive), cabin number, muster number and the ship's phone number. You get your photo registered on it as the card gets scanned every time you get on and off the ship so they can register you. At port they took our passport off us and didn't get it back till we were got to Israel.

People who arrive in Paphos airport don't know how to use the toilet?

This was our home for the last week. It looks pretty big but it's actually a pretty small ship. Our cabin was on deck 6. My mum and dad went on a cruise for Christmas last year so they kinda knew what was going on where as I was clueless.

The cabin was actually bigger than I expected it to be with a window. There's 3 single beds but there's also another bunk bed you can pull out above one of the beds so the room sleeps 4 people. The bath was tiny though and the shower is in the worst place and was a nightmare to wash my hair as there just wasn't enough space for it.

Once we put our bags down we went for dinner. The restaurant was closed by the time we went down so had to go to the buffet which was full of people.

  

Just got a load of random bits of food. The food choice wasn't great and the food didn't get any better as you will soon find out..

This was definitely the best thing about the ship - an ice cream machine were you could get your own ice cream! They had a vanilla and chocolate one that was open from lunch through to the night. The only time it wasn't open was at breakfast unfortunately. No ice cream for breakfast.

After we had food we had to go out to our muster point for a safety briefing on what to do in case of an emergency. Usually on other ships they ask you to take your life jacket but for this one we didn't. We just had to go to the muster point then the captain gave out instructions from the tannoy with crew showing you what to do with the life jacket.

After we wandered round the ship just to see what there was to offer - basically nothing. There's a spa you could pay for, 4 random shops, a few different bars, a library, a "casino" basically a roulette table and a card table then a few slot machines, 2 buffet restaurants, 3 other restaurants you can pay for, a gym that was closed (open 8am - 9:30pm) 2 swimming pools - an outdoor with no cover and indoor one and 2 whirlpools, out door seating areas, a roof top sun lounge and a show lounge. I should have took photos of all these things but never and I don't really know why I never as I'm usually good at taking photos of things like that. We went to see the show where they sang Abba, Queen, Elton John. They weren't that good they couldn't sing!

Map of the ship.

Day at sea - Sunday

On Sunday we spent the day at sea so we just had to entertain ourselves on the ship which was a nightmare. I could use my phone at all the places we went to apart from when we were at sea and in Israel. The ship doesn't have free WiFi - it's chargeable and really expensive which I was shocked with and actually really gutted. I guess it did me some good to not be able to use my phone for a day but just made it worse when I could use it the next day.

The day spent at sea just had a lie in then I went to the gym which was dead which I was surprised about but the boat was a bit shaky so not the best workout. The gym was a lot bigger than I expected with a lot of dumbbells.

I didn't use any of the cardio equipment I just used the weight machines and the free weights. There was also a sauna and showers where the gym is.

The rest of the day was just spent wandering round the ship and not doing very much as there was nothing to do on the ship! We went to see the show that was on in the night and had an early night as we were up early the morning after for Israel. 

Dinner

Think it was broccoli soup which was alright

Spaghetti Bolognese

Mum got quail which she was obsessed with. She said it was the nicest meal she had. Also realised I never took photos of everyone's food only my own for a change.

Churros with ice cream

In the restaurant you get a menu where you choose your 3 course meal. So there's 6 different starters to choose from then 8 mains with 2 of them being fish, some sort meat, Cesar salad then the other options change for each meal. 6 desserts to choose from. You can also pay extra for steak but everything that is offered on the menu is available in the buffet restaurant upstairs just not presented nicely on a plate for you.

The churros were cold and gave me a sore throat the day after.

The food was really bad. I only had 1 decent meal all week and that was the captains gala night. Everyone we spoke to even said the food wasn't great but it's what you pay for as this is considered as a cheap cruise so the food isn't going to be the best. But the standard should still be better than this. The food was just bland and not great at all but I'll go more into that.

First stop of the cruise - Alanya, Turkey.

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