Marella Dream Review

4.0 / 5.0
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The captain that can't dock with a bit of wind

Review for the Panama Canal & Central America Cruise on Marella Dream
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shazzy123
6-10 Cruises • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Dec 2014
Traveled with children

so i book a New Year Cruise simply to Celebrate it in style, boarded the Thomson Dream with my husband and son Ajay on the 30th of december 2014 from Manchester as there were no flights from glasgow, also booked the hotel stay and car parking at Manchester Airport inn at nearly £100, we arrived at the hotel and were immediately asked if we would like to purchase transfers to the airport, eh sorry i thought this would be included, Rylie the thomson sales rep who i booked it through obviously forgot to mention these weren't included. so we wen't to the airport the next morning only to be delayed an hour after hearing that our plane was on the runway but there was a problem, a first choice plane was finally brought around and i'm thinking, hold on, aren't we supposed to be getting the Dream liner, well that's what i was told when i booked it and it's clearly on the page in the brochure. quite a few people had thought the same thing but apparently after speaking to a crew member, he said the dream liner has never been scheduled for that particular destination, it's always been First Choice planes.

Arrives in montego bay after the 10 and a half hour flight, ( if your planning on watching a movie i wouldn't bother as the Headphones are rubbish) The flight in general was fine but the landing was very rough, the plane was swaying from side to side till we landed. Gets to the ship and there's a photographer to take your photo, who really wants their photo taken after all that travelling especially when my son went with a white t shirt and it certainly wasn't that colour when we got there so i kindly refused to have them done. Got to our cabin and our wee room attendant was there to greet us, very nice guy but not the best of cleaners, had to ask him to clean the toilet as soon as we arrived as it didn't look as if it had been touched from the previous family. We then had to go to the Medusa for the drill, would have just liked to have went to my bed but this is a very important procedure so wen't without complaint.

New years eve was Captains cocktail night, we were so looking forward to see the bells in on the ship, excitedly got our best outfits on and headed upstairs to meet the captain, waited in a very long queue for the photo and were then sent in to the Broadway show lounge to wait for him to come and do his talk, we waited ages for that then it was time to go for dinner, i couldn't believe that people were running to the tables to get a seat, there was very limited space but we managed to get one in the end, i thought we should have been taken to our seat as this is what they usually do, the service was extremely slow and we were still sitting waiting on our dinner after 10pm, my son had fell asleep on the chair and we were all feeling very tired by this point as it had been one very long night of waiting. Eventually the dinner was brought out and i told the waiter not to bother with the dessert as i had to take my son to bed so after all that we ended up missing the bells, i was really upset that i had booked this cruise for our 25th wedding anniversary in february but decided to do it earlier especially for the New year and missed all the celebrations. It wasn't the staffs fault as they were running around like headless chickens and were very apologetic for the wait. They could have been doing with a lot more staff on that night.

Cabin Review

Cabin deck 6

cabin not much different since the refurbishment except the carpet has changed, beds were comfortable although we only had one pillow but our own fault for not asking for another, if your needing clean sheets don't take the old ones off yourself because you might not like what you find. Just saying!

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