Marella Dream Review

4.0 / 5.0
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Thomson Dream July 2013

Review for the Western Mediterranean Cruise on Marella Dream
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Paperchase161949
6-10 Cruises • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Jul 2013

Our second Thomson cruise this year, (we were on the Celebration in May), and 7th in total. We chose this cruise purely for the itinerary and not the ship, as we had been on the Dream before, and much prefer the Spirit or Celebration. This was our 7th Thomson Cruise, as my wife prefers a weeks cruise, which are difficult to find among the other cruise lines as they are generally 10 to 14 days long. We are in our early 60's, so are in the predominant group that you normally find on these cruises, though I have noticed more and more 40 and 50 somethings cruising now then a few years ago. The Dream is smaller than the Spirit and celebration, does not have a cinema and the entertainment is generally confined to one deck, though there is sometimes something going on outside on another of the decks. The Dream like the Celebration has had the much publicised upgrade to platinum status, though just exactly what this entailed, apart from a few cosmetic changes (flat screen TV's in cabins, Tea and coffee making facilities, and new tiling around the shower) I have no idea, as the ship looks exactly like it did the last time we sailed in her. We flew into Palma from Newcastle without any hassle, and fairly quickly collected our luggage and boarded the transfer coach. It was a mid afternoon flight so by the time we got to the ship it was gone 6 in the evening. We got a quick bite to eat in the self service restaurant, before having to take part in the new arrivals lifeboat drill. One thing that did strike us was how the food seems to have declined in quality, things that used to be out on previous cruises we rarely saw. Fruit juice machines are only dispensing fruit juice during meal times (breakfast only I think,) then the rest of the day its only water, I could be wrong but I thought you could get fruit juice all day before. The entertainment has become a bit stale as well, we have been to every single West End type show on our previous cruises and all were very good. But when my wife (an avid lover of these shows) starts telling me how rubbish one of the shows in particular was, then you know things have gone down hill.

It wasn't all doom and gloom though, the itinerary was one of the best we have been on, Gibraltar the first port of call was an eye opener, I didn't expect there to be a Morrisons supermarket or Marks and Spencers there, but there was! We booked an excursion from the ship to go up the rock plus a few other places of interest, Europa point being one of them. I thought you would be taken right to the top of the rock, but you are not, you go I'd say, to just over half way up. There is a surprise in store though! Part of the tour up the rock takes you into a large cave system which was pretty amazing when you see the stalactites etc. You do of course see the Barbary apes, though there didn't seem to be many about when we saw them (probably heard I was coming). Unfortunately the day we were there it was pretty hazy so we couldn't see across to North Africa which you normally can.

Second Port we visited was Cadiz (it should have been Portimao, but we knew about the change when we received our booking tickets). Cadiz was we thought quite a nice place and instead of going on an excursion, opted instead to catch the open topped hop on hop off tourist bus that does the rounds. There was a very large cruise liner in Cadiz at the same time as us, but luckily berthed down from us. I say luckily because we were near the first stop and managed to get seats on the top deck of the tour bus, whereas the other liner was next to the second stop and by the time we reached it the bus was full. There was a very long queue waiting, and it was a very hot day to boot, so I didn't envy them! Cadiz was a fairly nice looking and clean place, it has what looks to (the tourist bus passes it) be a fantastic beach as well. We got off near the towns other side on our second circuit (waited until we knew what's what), there were still massive queue's back at the second stop when we went around that second time. We liked Cadiz (I'm sure the fine weather helped a lot as well), and had a nice stroll back to the ship from the other side of town (it wasn't all that far).

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