Exploring the Marella Explorer

Last week I was lucky enough to be invited on board the Marella Explorer for a tour around. I have been selling Marella (formally Thomson) cruise ships for nearly 20 years but theyare largely based overseas, which isn’t easy on a day trip so it was great to  have a ship in Southampton and be one of the chosen ones to go on board.

Marella are viewed as a ‘great first cruise’ option and are sold as great value, they are a solid kind of cruise line, we don’t receive complaints but quite a few people turn won’t consider them, in a Waitrose versus Asda, or John Lewis against M&S kind of way.
The ship is older than several on the market and to be honest I wasn’t expecting great things.

My preconceptions were totally wrong!

The Marella Explorer is not a ‘first timers only’ cruise, I will confidently sell her to several of my regular customers and she has a lot to offer.  She is perfect for anyone that would normally sail P&O, Cruise and Maritime, Fred Olsena and many more. Holding just under 2000 passengers she is a mid sized ship and joined the Marella fleet in 2018 following a multi million pound refit. She is very spacious and full of light.

She has a lot of big facilities on board which outshine her competitors, including a huge entertainments / nightclub area, Indigo which hosts  a whole program of day and night time activities including Line dancing and ballroom lessons, soul nights and silent disco’s. I personally liked this area because it has a ‘wrap around’ bar / lounge area which meant you could sit an enjoy a drink close to the venue without being in it. 

The Champney’s Spa was amazing and I would say much better than the spa’s on board P&O, and close (and cheaper) than Celebrities Spa areas, which are currently my favourite. She has several different thermal zones in her spa including the largest sauna at sea – it was massive, with huge windows looking out over the ocean.

The below photo only shows half of the sauna, I was stood in the middle with the area behind me. I really wanted to stay sitting in here to watch the sunset.

For dining, there is a choice of included main dining restaurants. Seating is all open giving you the flexibility to dine as and when you would like to and you can choose between Latitude 56 the main restaurant or Vista which is  smaller Italian restaurant with a different menu.  Not many cruise lines give you a choice of restaurant / menu without a cover charge. Plus there is always the buffet. I was particularly impressed with the number of tables for 2 in Latitude 56 and the layout split across two levels.

As  well as your included dining you can also choose to dine  in one of several specialty dining venues including a Surf and Turf Steakhouse and a Sushi restaurant.

Unfortunately our time on board the ship was limited and we didn’t get to see many cabins and our host chose to focus on the higher grade ones. It was great to see the junior suite and also a family suite which accommodates 5 passengers and comes with a fab hammock on the balcony. My family and I would love this room. The suites were not quite as large or glamorous as on some ships but then Marella are not marketing themselves as luxury, so shouldn’t really be compared.

The ship had a lovely feel about her, one of the great touches I liked was that the carpet was colour coded dependent upon where on the ship you are. People are always getting lost on cruise ships and the carpets are blue at the front, red in the middle and green at the aft of the ship. I thought this was a fab touch. I also liked the interactive screens on each deck. You can wait for the lift whilst perusing the menu choices for dinner that night.

All in all I was more than pleasantly surprised with the Marella Explorer. I already knew that she offered great value, her pricing is all inclusive and gratuities are included and after my day on board I can confidently say that you will get more than you paid for.