Marella Discovery 2 Review

4.0 / 5.0
326 reviews

Worst Cruise Ever

Review for Cuba Cruise on Marella Discovery 2
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Disappoinbted
10+ Cruises • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Dec 2017

Thomson Holidays seems to be going through a period of flux. Companies in trouble often change their name to improve their fortunes, but needing to change it three times could be an indicator of a real problems. This was certainly the case for our recent cruise on Discovery 2, sailing under Thomson’s newest name, “Marella Cruise Line”, where the Thomson Gold Standard for customer care and support fell by the wayside and resulted in a very unsatisfactory holiday for us. We knew about Thomson cruises prior to our booking to sail on Discovery 2 on the 5th December 2017. We had sailed with Thomson many times before and were looking forward to an excellent holiday. Unfortunately, as things turned out, it was more of a holiday nightmare with poor service from incompetent ill trained waiters who couldn’t pour a glass of wine without staining the tablecloth, then being charged for items that should have been included in the all-inclusive package and then to cap it all, we had items stolen from our cases on the way home. The majority of the crew sounded like they came from Eastern Europe and, while everyone was very pleasant and eager to help, the lack of training showed.

The holiday started well enough and the flight from Gatwick was uneventful. The 787 Dreamliner looked new, was very comfortable and, as we flew premium, the food and drinks were plentiful. The seats were very comfortable, but it was disappointing that we were unable to be seated together. We logged-on to the Thomson site to select our seats the minute we were advised that we were able to do so, but all seats apart from four were already taken and there were no two seats together. Apparently you can only get this sort of seat choice by paying an extra fee at booking time. We would later find out just how much was not included in the so-called All-Inclusive package.

The problems all started when we arrived in Jamaica. There was nobody from Thomson, TUI or Marella there to meet us. We were met instead by some Jamaican airport workers who corralled everyone from the flight into a hot corridor with no adequate ventilation for nearly an hour while they worked out what to do with us. Nobody in-charge seemed sure what to do next. We were issued security forms and, depending where you were standing in the queue and who you spoke to, you were given different instructions as to how to complete the form. After the fourth change of instructions resulting in form re-writes, we gave up and waited until we got to the front of the line to see what that person wanted on the form. After what seemed like an eternity we were then shepherded onto an old bus with a very loud Jamaican driver who insisted on singing the song “Shame and Scandal in the Family”. He had a terrible singing voice and took great pleasure in telling everyone that he knew his voice was bad, but he said he just had to sing it. When he had finished he told us that he accepted tips in any currency except Jamaican. Not a good start to the holiday.

Cabin Review

Cabin Junior Suite

Cabin Small smaller than some standard balcony cabins on P&O. The shower over the bath unusable for tall people - you had to bend over to get wet under the water stream. Balcony sliding door kept coming off the rails. Hair dryer plug kept falling out of the socked when you try to use it. Balcony had rusty patches on the metalwork.

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