Marella Discovery Review
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We flew from London Gatwick in the premium section of our Thomson flight. Both outbound and inbound flights were on time. When we landed in Barbados, cruise passengers were the first to leave the plane and we were put into coaches and transported to the ship. We did not have to collected our luggage, it went straight to the ship. As we were the first flight to arrive, embarkation was very quickly carried out. When we got on the ship we were shown to the lifts, told our cabin was on deck 7 and up we went. There was a steward in the lift area and he pointed us in the right direction. That was the 1st difference we noted, no steward to show you to your cabin and show you where the safe etc. was.
The cabin was bigger than I expected and had a free safe ( the 2nd difference), a fridge, walk in shower, 3 seater settee, desk and chair. The balcony had a small table and 2 chairs. The cabin was light and airy. So after a quick shower and a change of clothes (from our hand luggage) we went off to explore. Our first impression of the atrium and glass lifts was 'wow'.
There are loads of places to eat on board that are included in the cruise price. There is the main dining room 47 degrees. We only ate dinner here 3 times as we found the service to be extremely slow and the food lukewarm. But we always had breakfast here as we are not fans of buffets. Most of our evening meals were taken in the Gallery 47. Here, the food is mainly Italian but the only have 2 menus which they rotate each day. There is also the chefs choice from the main dining room, which I often had. The food and service here was much better. You can also go to the glass house for dinner and have either 3 tapas or a piizza as well as a basket of bread and a cheese or meat or mixed sharing platter. The first time we had tapas but the 2nd time we had tapas for one and pizza for one and said we would share both. You can also pay £9.95 and cook your own steak on a hot stone. Then of course, there is always Islands, the buffet restaurant or the snack shack. We liked the snack shack for a quick light lunch. It is really a grab and go servery but they do small trays of chicken or fish and chps, hot dogs, burgers etc. You can pick up premade sandwiches, wraps, rolls and salads here.