We have now been back for a few days so thought it was time I got down to writing my final and overall review of our two week, first ever, cruise.

First thing I want to say is that I would definitely recommend a cruise on the TUI Marella Discovery 2 as an amazing experience on a fabulous ship (just in case you are wondering, it is a ship and not a boat, Captain Chris told us so). The ship is incredibly comfortable and I must say unbelievably clean and tidy, this being due in no uncertain terms to the tireless cleaning, polishing, hoovering, clearing, bed making and cabin tidying of the members of the crew who seem to be on the go 24 hours a day. Everywhere you go on board you see someone with a cloth in their hand or a vacuum cleaner running it over another bit of carpet just because.

The waiting staff, in the same way, are on the go from way before sun up to well after sun down. Breakfast starts at around 6am when there is an early start to the excursions which I would guess means someone is starting preparation by at least 4am, then as soon as breakfast is over they are then getting ready for snacks, then lunch, then afternoon tea (with proper Cornish Clotted Cream for the scones I must add, yummy, and there was enough for a gurt great dollop). Sorry got a bit carried away with that memory. They are then getting set up for dinner which starts at around 6pm and with 1800 very hungry passengers, many of whom who have been away from the ship on exhausting and hunger inducing excursions, so you can imagine the chaos with this and that is not the end of it for the catering staff as once they have finished with the dinner service they are then preparing food for the midnight snack bar which goes on till... actually I have no idea what time that finishes as the latest we went to this one was around 11.30pm and there were still plenty of people coming in after us. Then just a few short hours later it starts all over again for them. Read more