With the Suez Canal behind us we had a final full day at sea aboard Marella Discovery and it would be spent recovering from the hangover kneading its tiny hangover claws into our brains and seeing what manner of relaxation a gentle cruise down the Gulf of Suez, around the Sinai Peninsula, and up the Gulf of Aqaba might bring.

It’s traditional for us to emerge from our slumber when one or other receives an urgent message from the bladder department. With cabins on a cruise ship being very dark and with the pair of us being clumsy oafs this typically involves at least one stubbed toe and a clattering into something on the stagger across to the bathroom that will waken the other, and if that doesn’t do it then switching on the light usually does the trick. While the first person is engaged the second will then tend to open the curtains for a moment of blindness before the outside world reveals itself.

Open sea and the occasional oil platform was the order of the day from our balcony.

We’d actually woken early enough that after breakfast we were able to head down to the Broadway Show Lounge for a backstage tour. We’d never done one of these before on any ship so didn’t know what to expect. Upon arriving we saw a group of around two dozen passengers and two members of the entertainments team gathered at the foot of the stage. One of the staff mentioned they’d never had so many people turn up before so after a quick gathering on the stage to explain where the various bits of lighting and moving areas were, where the scenery was stored, that sort of thing, we were split into two groups to explore the backstage areas in sensible numbers.

There were two main areas behind the stage in the lounge: to the left were the audio and video monitors, electrical equipment, and some props storage, including some huge skeletons; to the right there was more prop storage and the dressing area with clothing and wigs for the shows that were put on.

It was small and cramped and our host explained that costume changes were swift, often involved help with one person pulling pieces off while things were being put on by someone else, there was no point being coy about nudity because it happened a lot out of necessity, and that storage was severely limited on a ship like Marella Discovery so there was plenty more equipment and clothing all over the vessel in various locations.

What we could easily tell from the tour was just how much the entertainers liked working on Discovery. Technically, they are contractors hired from an entertainments company so they can move from ship-to-ship and from line-to-line every season. Previously, we were told, they’d worked on P&O and while the P&O ship was bigger and the stage area was larger and the backstage area was nicer and more sensibly-arranged, as contracted entertainers they were considered not quite part of the crew and often mocked for doing less work whereas with Marella they were treated as part of the whole family and the hard work of rehearsing, looking after their own equipment, helping out where they could, etc. was respected. That general feeling of the staff enjoying working for Marella was a common theme during this cruise and speaks volumes about the company.

The tour wasn’t long because there wasn’t a huge amount to see but it was entertaining, there were plenty of anecdotes about mishaps, and all questions were answered. We enjoyed it and would do it again.

In an earlier travelogue covering this cruise to Jordan I’d taken a walk around the ship on arrival to get some first impressions of Marella Discovery with the aid of my camera. It’s what I do. My wife had accompanied me on that exploration of the ship because it made sense to but when I mentioned that I’d be taking advantage of the clear skies on this final sea day to head off for a second photographic tour of the vessel I already knew it was going to be a solo affair. I left her in the Live Lounge with her Kindle and went for a stroll to capture more shots of this vessel we’d very quickly found ourselves liking.

First stop was the atrium and it was a space that we’d come to appreciate a lot because of the light streaming in from the tall windows either side of its floors and from the skylight at the top. The two aspects that we weren’t quite so keen about were those steps at the bottom – very shiny, very reflective, very disconcerting when walking down them; although we never actually tripped or missed a step and didn’t see anyone else do so either – and the general lack of seating, particularly in the evening when events might be taking place in the area.

In front of the bank of elevators around midship on each floor is a perspex model of the ship indicating where things can be found. Marella Discovery isn’t huge so within a couple of days you likely won’t need to refer to this but it’s there in case you are incapable of remembering a few numbers.

Another thing I liked about Discovery was that it’s floors were – or seemed to be – slightly lower in height than those on other cruise ships on which we’d travelled. This was most noticeable (if indeed it’s true at all; I can’t be bothered to find out for certain because there are limits to my fact-finding and this is beyond them) on the stairwells which were generally quite easy to walk up. Compared to a Grand-class ship with Princess or P&O where we tend to be a “Well, we might walk up two floors but any more and we’ll take the lift” couple, we had no real trouble with walking up any number on Discovery. I traipsed right to the top of the ship and to our usual haunt at the end of each night, Bar Eleven.

Adjacent to the stylish nightclub venue and forward with a nice view out over the swimming pool on the ship’s top deck was the Kora La speciality dining restaurant in which we’d dined on our third night aboard.

The night before that we’d dined in the Surf & Turf Steakhouse which was also just off Bar Eleven and to the aft of Discovery.

The next destination for my short tour of Marella Discovery was the aft of the ship. Down a flight of stairs from Bar Eleven and before heading out there was a piece of abstract art that reminded me of the Sibelius Monument in Helsinki. I liked it.

At the aft of Discovery is a climbing wall. Before we’d taken this cruise I’d said to my wife that if I got the chance then I would definitely have a go on the wall. Well, I had the chance and didn’t but in my defence it’s because I always assume that everyone around me is a thieving toerag and there was no way I was going to put down my camera around strangers while I scaled a rough surface that looked like it had been shot at by a blunderbuss loaded with Skittles. That’s right: I’m blaming my wife and her not being around to guard my camera equipment for me not experiencing the thrill of ascending a wall at sea and the humiliating trauma of being lowered gently by a team of staff when my grip inevitably failed or my knee popped out because my legs can’t do that any longer a third of the way up.

I stood and watched one passenger ascend and descend the wall, though, and enjoyed the sun beating down on me in this quite sheltered spot on the ship.

I didn’t really enjoy the sun beating down on me in that quite sheltered spot; it was baking hot and neither of us cope well with hot. Other people seemed to enjoy lounging out near the view of the wake but while I find the wake attractive (who doesn’t?) I don’t like being cooked so a few photos of the area sufficed before I continued on my way.

Directly in front of the climbing wall was the miniature golf course. It was a good size and a good layout for a cruise ship and a few people were making use of it.

The rest of the top deck afforded some pleasing views along the ship’s length and around the swimming pool area which always make for decent photos when promoting cruises unless you don’t like crowds of semi-naked, overweight people on loungers everywhere.

Our biggest disappointment with Marella Discovery was probably the pool space. We like to swim and had expected we’d be doing so most days on this cruise but it wasn’t to be. Remember that thing about me always assuming people are thieving toerags and not wanting to let things out of my sight? Well, it applies to the pair of us and we don’t feel comfortable in pools if we can’t see where our bags and towels are, and when you’ve got a pool area with every single lounger in a fifty metre radius occupied from first light then that pretty much rules us out from using it.

Now, you’re possibly thinking “Well, couldn’t you have used the indoor pool?” and the answer to that is yes, we could, if it hadn’t been for one tiny probem: we forgot it was there. I’m going to blame our familiarity with other ships here and the location of the buffet and gym as being the issue. On other ships we’ve cruised on the buffet has tended to be beyond the indoor pool relative to our cabin so we pass through it on the way while the gym has tended to be right where we couldn’t care less about going. That wasn’t the case on Discovery. Beyond the indoor pool was the gym and the only thing we can say about gyms on cruise ships is that we’re aware they exist. The buffet was in the opposite direction. The result was that we possibly only ventured into the indoor pool area and the Glass House venue sharing the space on two occasions together, both late at night after we’d been drinking. In fact, when I got back from my Discovery trek I did remind my wife that the indoor pool was an actual thing and that it looked reasonably quiet but this late into the cruise we’d both gotten quite used to doing stuff all so decided not to bother.

Outside the inside pool (I think that makes sense) and surrounding the main pool was a bar which I don’t think we used at all and the Snack Shack which we used almost every day. I’ve said it before and I’ll likely say it again but Marella’s battered fish pieces in this location are to die for. Possibly even to kill for.

Back into the ship I next found myself in Gallery 47° overlooking Restaurant 47°. The restaurant provides another place you can grab lunch on a sea day on Marella Discovery if the Snack Shack or the Islands buffet aren’t your thing and there were people doing exactly that when I visited.

As I passed back through the atrium on the way to the lounges at the other end of the ship I discovered that a choir practice was taking place. This seems to be a fairly common activity on cruises with passengers invited to come along, learn a few songs, and belt them out in a performance towards the end of the holiday but you probably won’t be surprised to learn that it’s not the sort of thing that appeals to us. I mimed along to hymns and songs at school or church when I was young and I’m going to assume that’s why my ability to hold a note now is listed in The Big Book of Things That Simply Aren’t. It’s for everyone’s benefit that I don’t join in now.

To complete my self-guided excursion of Marella Discovery’s highlights I passed through the shopping arcade and briefly entered the Squid & Anchor where a close-up magic demonstration was taking place before returning to the Live Lounge where my wife was busy reading.

The afternoon saw us failing miserably in the trivia games with Paul and Carole once again and enjoying some views of the Sinai Peninsula from our balcony as evening approached and we were getting ready for dinner.

Dinner was once again in the gallery part of the main dining room and its Italian menu. We had a central view over the restaurant and even got to look down on our quizzing and drinking and blogging companions who were seated directly below us.

Dinner was as lovely as it had been every other night of the cruise.

The evening of this last sea day for us on Marella Discovery included some activities in the atrium featuring the Captain’s Dance (a Mayfair Quickstep) and the Crew Flag Parade, bits of both of which you can see in the following video (temporarily removed). We were quite pleased to be able to find some seats for this and were joined by Paul and Carole once again for some drinks and entertainment from the crew.

We all decided not to have a late night in Bar Eleven like the night before because the following day – our last full one on Marella Discovery – would find us in the Jordanian port of Aqaba where we all had early excursions to set off for. The next post in this travelogue series will feature the first part of our visit to the ancient city of Petra.

But the day did not start with wine because despite all the things you may have read on the insides of toilet doors across the world we’re not quite that bad just yet. Our upgraded drinks package on Marella Discovery meant we could follow up breakfast in the buffet with a premium coffee (or chocolate for my wife) around the atrium.

It was in this location the day before – you remember that, because you read about it here: Solar System At Sea And Dining In The Kora La Restaurant – that we’d signed up for wine-tasting and that was the sole plan for this day’s events with the expectation for the rest of another sea day on the Mediterranean being one spent in the company of our books and the odd drink or two. The friendly person you see waving in the short tilt video (temporarily removed) in the ship’s atrium below is Siegfried, the member of staff who’d signed us up for the wine-tasting and who’d been in charge of wine when we’d dined at the steakhouse a couple of evenings earlier.

We had lunch in the Snack Shack again because those fish pieces are just divine. I’m not sure that I ever took a photo of them because I was too busy eating them. We also bumped into fellow cruise bloggers Paul and Carole again where we all caught up with what we’d been doing – getting used to all that relaxing for the main part – plus any plans. They’d been taking part in quizzes and had had some success so we agreed that after our wine-tasting we might look out for them and join in.

We spent a short period back in our room enjoying the balcony and the sea air and sounds. This really is why we get balcony cabins. It’s your own space to watch and experience the world passing by, a place to sometimes feel incredibly small on a blue seascape with nothing else visible on the horizon, a place to feel invigorated without the fear that someone with back hair sporting its own ecosystem and their belly hanging over their Speedos will wander into your eyeline and spoil the moment. We will always find time to get out onto our balcony every day without fail, whether that’s to feel insignificant on the ocean’s surface or insignificant under the universe’s twinkling starlight or to let the white noise of the waves and spray and wind do everything to relax you that a spa treatment will but for far less money. But not to stand out there nude and wink suggestively at your partner still in the room because that just doesn’t work.

We headed into the upper level of the dining room where the wine-tasting took place, took our seats, and waited for wine to be poured. Siegfried then proceeded to take us through all the things you expect from a wine-tasting: how to swirl the glass, how to guess the strength of the wine, how to sniff the aromas, how to look puzzled when someone says something tastes like strawberries and leather when it clearly doesn’t, how to annoy the Chardonnay drinker at your table by remarking how all Chardonnay smells like rotting ham, etc. There were some different aspects, though, with some details spent on soil types and labelling, both of which then involved Siegfried mentioning me numerous times to all who were gathered. “Suppose Mr H, here, has set up his vineyards on acidic soil” and “Now, if Mr H had his winery in France then it might read Domaine de Monsieur H along the top” and “The sorts of vintage wine would depend on what sort of business Mr H was running” and so on. That’s what you get for being memorable.

We had a nice surprise waiting for us when we joined up with Paul and Carole for the quiz; their prize from a previous quiz and something that they had already obtained on an earlier cruise but never used: Marella Reusable Metal Straws! Ecological and practical! Well, we couldn’t refuse.

Some joint quizzing took place and we got close… but not close enough. This quizzing was accompanied by plenty of chatting and some more drinking. Paul is a Peroni person. Carole is a Sauvignon Blanc slurper. We like the heavier reds so Cabernet Sauvignon ended up in our glasses.

As you probably know already, drinks are included on Marella so bottles and glasses were never empty for long before being topped up by a friendly steward passing by. We kept on drinking and chatting. And drinking and chatting. There was another quiz in there somewhere but the drinking and chatting took place a lot. Lots of drinking and chatting. Oh, and Carole spinning around in her chair (video temporarily removed).

There came a point in the evening where we realised around six hours of drinking and chatting and occasional spinning had occurred on the back of not very much food at all. Our fellow bloggers wanted to watch a show; we wanted to get something to soak up the alcohol; we went our separate ways.

We didn’t make it to any food-dispensing location because we foolishly got some fresh air first which was enough to more-or-less finish my wife off. Fresh air is a dangerous thing when you’ve been drinking inside for a long time. I just about got her back to the room without demolishing half the corridor walls on the way and we collapsed into oblivion. You can see whether Paul and Carole had more post-drinking success than us by watching their recollection of the day’s events on the ship on their video channel.

In the next part of this Marella Discovery travelogue series we’ll be transitting the Suez Canal. Expect fog. Expect flies.

There’s a horrible rumour that we only ever drink alcohol (and lots of it) when we’re on ships on account of the number of pictures of cocktails and beers that decorate these descriptions of sea days and port days on cruises. Let me be clear: that’s only mostly true. We generally don’t have something alcoholic until the afternoon and even reject those offers of free glasses of fizz or light cocktails that are sometimes used to entice passengers into seminars and shops for promotions. As supporting evidence here are the first two drinks we had in the morning aboard Discovery: something hot and a mocktail. These were taken after breakfast in a couple of locations on the ship so that we could give our room steward time to clean our cabin.

We actually don’t usually drink coffee on ships either but our drinks package upgrade to premium included speciality teas and coffees in the dedicated café area off the atrium and it seemed sensible to take advantage of it. While we were sitting there – me with my filter coffee, my wife with her hot chocolate – there was a sudden presence at our table. It was the waiter from the previous night’s dining in the Surf & Turf restaurant.

Mr H, Mrs H! Good morning! You like wine, I’m hosting a wine-tasting, do you want to sign up?

Siegfried, we’d love to.

That’s a very abbreviated version of the discussion. There was friendly small talk there, there were several demonstrations that he’d remembered our names, but it was ultimately a sales pitch for the wine-tasting coming up the following day on the cruise and he correctly suspected we’d be up for it. Sure, we’ve never really had what we’d call an excellent wine-tasting experience on any ship before but you live in hope and this was our first time cruising with Marella; we were always going to say yes.

The morning was spent doing very little other than relaxing in the company of our books and those few soft drinks but we had more of a plan for the afternoon. The sun had burnt off most of the cloud as midday approached so it was nice to take advantage of our balcony once the distractions of late morning entertainment became too much in the public spaces aboard Discovery.

That plan for the afternoon involved two activities: attending a guest lecture and giving the afternoon tea a try. Before we set off to the lecture I decided to snap a few photos of the room and bathroom much to my wife’s confusion.

Didn’t you say you weren’t going to take photos of the cabin?

I might have said something like that. Shift over there or you’ll be in the reflection.

Didn’t you say that if people wanted to see photos of the cabins aboard Marella Discovery that there were loads of examples on the web and you didn’t want to clutter up the site with more?

That sounds like the sort of thing I’d say but I can neither confirm nor deny that those were my words. Do you want to stand behind me?

Didn’t you say that taking photos of the bathroom was the sort of thing a serial killer with a fixation on moulded plastic would do?

I’m pretty sure you’re making that up and it’s not going to work; I’m still taking the shot. Ooh! Look at the moulded plastic!

The Squid & Anchor was the venue hosting the lecture we were interested in. We initially sat off to one side and at the back of the room until we realised there was no clear view to the screen showing images accompanying the talk. A relocation to a spot – gasp! – near other people solved that. The talk was by a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, John Maclean, and was titled A Journey Through The Solar System. We’ve always had an interest in science and while we’re not avid attendees of lectures on cruise ships, those that we have made an effort to watch have tended towards the scientific.

The talk would perhaps have worked a little better on a ship that wasn’t adults only, with elements that might have been more of interest to children, and there was a strange HAL-from-2001 gimmick that played a part early on in the talk then vanished to never make an appearance again. Thankfully. We didn’t learn anything we hadn’t known before BUT there’s a very good reason to recommend this talk if you’re on a ship and John is the guest lecturer. At the conclusion we were told that if we wanted we could gather around the stage area where there were a few extraterrestrial objects we could see and touch. We’ve touched meteorites before but never held them and felt the weight; you could really sense the density of the mass of metals and wonder how John managed to get them through security at the airport. But most interesting was the fragment of rock brought back from the Moon and a piece of Mars recovered from a meteorite that had found its way to Earth after being ejected following an impact on our neighbouring planet. Have you held bits of the Moon and Mars? Are you jealous that we have? Excellent stuff.

After the talk and the excitement of having bits of the solar system in the palms of our hands we made our way to the buffet area where Marella had set up for afternoon tea. We typically try to make one afternoon tea on a cruise and to date would say that P&O do this better than Princess (it’s that British versus American thing). Marella’s idea of afternoon tea is more in keeping with their philosophy of “Yeah, it’s included, but it’ll be pretty basic and don’t expect us to make a big deal of it” and that’s absolutely fine. You’d have to be a special kind of crazy to expect gloved waiters and silver tongs delivering sandwiches, small bites, biscuits, and cakes at your table for the low price of a Marella cruise. Grab your plate, pick what you want, find a table and eat. The staff circling the tables pour as much tea as you want. It was all perfectly pleasant.

Listening in on quizzes without participating (a good thing as we would have done abysmally), reading our books, and making sure we were hydrated filled up the rest of the afternoon and early evening of this second sea day. It’s very important to stay hydrated.

From drinking to eating. There’s no reason at all to eat the same food every single night on a cruise. We’d dined in the Italian area of the main dining room on the first night, mostly enjoyed the steakhouse experience on the second, and for this third day on Discovery we had picked a speciality package for the second night in a row with a visit to Kora La. As with the Surf & Turf, this was located adjacent to Bar Eleven and as you might be able to determine from its name Kora La specialised in food with Asian influences. There was no one specific country or region represented with the meals fusing elements of China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and India.

It’s worth mentioning that my wife and I aren’t fans of hot, spicy food. We enjoy the smells of Asian cooking and suspect that there’s a lot of interesting flavours hiding in the sauces but we’ve long suspected that this region of the world’s cooking has evolved along these lines:

This is quite nice. Although, I wonder…

What? You’ve got that look. You’re thinking of a way to make this food better, aren’t you?

Well… Okay, so what if while you’re eating you sweat profusely from every pore on your face?

Ooh! Ooh, I like that! That’s probably healthy in some way I’m not understanding. Anything else?

I’ve sometimes become aware of my lips when I’m eating and it can be a distraction so if we could also render it impossible to feel your lips during the meal and for some time afterwards…

Of course! Food appreciation will be so much higher when you shut off your brain’s capacity to process information from unnecessary body parts! Genius!

I was wondering about shooting pains in the tip of your tongue. Like someone holding exposed wires sending electric shocks to the tastebuds at the end making them unable to appreciate any taste.

That makes sense when you think about it. Because not everyone likes every food but if you can remove the ability to taste any of it you can enjoy the vitamins and other goodness without flavours becoming an obstacle.

And I don’t know whether you actually taste food as it passes through your oesophagus but if we tweak the recipe so that whatever you eat makes it feel like someone is ramming a white hot, rusty, metal skewer down your throat and scraping the lining we eliminate any chance of that.

You are on fire! Just like anyone else eating this food will feel. That’s some good chef work there. And can I make an observation?

Please do! I’m open to any suggestions on how we can develop food the whole world will enjoy.

I’ve always liked the colour brown.

Man, you are reading my mind! Everything brown. Every shade of brown. I mean, who doesn’t like brown!?

We won’t, however, let preconceptions about something stop us from experiencing it – it’s that scientific slant to our thinking again – and since we knew that if the food was terrible we could still go and eat somewhere else on the ship we sat down at our table with its views out over the pool deck at night with as near open minds as we could dredge up.

We made sure to order the K2 Cooler cocktails because they had sake in them and we both looked at each other and sighed “Ahh, sake” at the same time, remembering our cruise of almost exactly a year before on Diamond Princess and the sea day with sake (and, coincidentally, another lecture with a science twist; spooky!) Bread and dipping sauces for an amuse-bouche prawn-based appetiser was delivered. We quickly surmised that only one of the sauces didn’t hurt us.

I correctly guessed that my wife would go for the Crispy Pork Belly as her starter course in Kora La. The fear of the accompanying Korean BBQ sauce didn’t put her off and she liked the flavours and texture. The Vegetable Samosas I chose were very nice too, and suitably cool thanks to the cucumber and mint sauce. Both dishes were presented very prettily on banana leaves.

We decided we’d both take a risk and pick a curry for the main course. There was a modicum of method in our madness in that we’ve been talking about trying the Indian speciality dining on P&O cruises for a long time (and if we can ever book a table we still intend to) so we want to give ourselves the best chance of coming to terms with plates of brown agony. Moreover, the curries could be cooked to order and the level of spiciness requested which meant we were able to say “How mild can your chef make this? Excellent. I’d like it milder than that then please.”

Side dishes of rice and vegetables appeared along with Chicken Kashmiri for my wife and Lamb Madras for me. We both agreed that my choice was tastier as my wife discovered she doesn’t like the taste of coriander and her dish was overpowered by the flavour. We reached the ends of our curry dishes with tingling lips but overall a good job from the chef at Kora La.

Those tingling lips from the meal needed soothing so we asked for another cocktail each while we perused the dessert menu. In a surprise to literally nobody who’s read any of these dining diaries on this site before my wife went straight for the restaurant’s take on crème brûlée, the Pandam Cream. The lure of chocolate and matcha flavours sent me scurrying towards the Green Tea Fondant. They were both lovely.

We’d had some slight trepidation in the lead-up to the meal at Kora La on Discovery but it was a very enjoyable speciality dining experience with the big plus points being the location with its views, the presentation of the courses, and the very different courses from what we’d usually pick. The service was perfectly acceptable though not a patch on the night before, but we thought that for the cover charge Kora La was arguably better value than Surf & Turf overall. We’d have no qualms with booking into Kora La on a subsequent Marella cruise.

As we were next to Bar Eleven it would have been rude not to grab a drink or two to finish off the evening.

Upon returning to our room we found that our steward had prepared a towel animal for our amusement. I think this is the first towel animal we’ve ever had on a cruise. We argued over whether it was supposed to be a dog or a superhero pig that delivered chocolates to those in need.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series aboard Marella Discovery I’ll cover the final day on the Mediterranean Sea before we hit the Suez Canal. It turns out to be a day of wine-drinking. Lots and lots of wine. So very much wine. Ridiculous amounts of wine. It wasn’t our fault. We were corrupted by other cruise bloggers.

The sea view from our balcony upon waking was lovely because it was a view of the sea and that’s one of the big draws of travelling by cruise ship. With us being on the port side of the vessel and with it heading roughly south this meant we had the sun in the morning. An unbroken view of the Mediterranean wasn’t possible, though, as we were hugging the coastline of Italy and were in the process of beginning the cruise through the Strait of Messina. This is the narrow stretch of water separating Italy from Sicily and has been the subject of proposed plans to build a bridge over it on several occasions in the past.

Breakfast was taken out by the pool area after we’d selected what we wanted in the buffet. For my wife this was a chance to do a little happy dance because she’d found hash browns. She likes hash browns. I like hash browns too but not to her level. I don’t think anyone likes them to her level.

The availability of hash browns has been a bone of contention on previous Princess cruises because, unlike Marella where the food we were able to select for breakfast barely changed at all throughout the trip (which was a good thing if you like hash browns like a certain someone I’ve just mentioned), Princess tend to vary dishes from day-to-day while keeping some staple items; those staple items typically have not included hash browns which could be overlooked if other food items such as curried fishy rice then are.

“Who the hell is eating curried fishy rice in the morning, every morning? What deviants are this cruise line catering for? Nobody eats curried fishy rice in the morning. They shouldn’t even be eating them at any other time either. They had hash browns yesterday. I bet we don’t even see them again on this cruise. Did they only load one packet of hash browns at the dock? I knew I should have taken the whole tray and just brought them back today to be reheated. We should write to the general manager and complain.”

We’ve never complained and with Marella we didn’t have to.

While my wife was smiling serenely and savouring her hash browns I spotted a couple of familiar faces from the internet emerging from the buffet.

I’ve just seen Paul and Carole over there.

Mmm.

I think I’ll pop over and introduce myself.

Mmm.

You want to stay here and enjoy your hash browns?

Mmm.

I could literally be saying anything right now.

Mmm.

What word repeated four times comprises the chorus and makes up the title for a 1993 hit by Canadian group Crash Test Dummies?

Mmm.

And so I walked over. After introducing myself and receiving a look in their eyes that indicated they were clearly wondering if I’d appeared beside the juice machine just in order to mug them and trying to calculate the shortest route for help I added Marie’s name to the mix and broke the spell of fear.

We spoke for about ten minutes before parting as Paul was quite keen to get a seat to watch the rugby world cup final. It was rugby union or the slower and duller type of rugby if you’re not sure which one that is so we decided to give it a pass. I also had to play rugby union at school and that’s the sort of thing that leaves a mark on you. We had the strangest feeling we’d probably bump into Paul and Carole again. You’ll have to stay tuned to this cruise travelogue series to see if we do.

Or I could just tell you now. We do.

We went for another wander around the ship and stumbled upon one venue we’d missed the day before in Naples, the Broadway Show Lounge, Marella Discovery’s theatre. It was obviously a lot smaller than theatres we’ve seen on other ships but understandably so. We rarely watch shows on cruises anyway.

Out onto the promenade deck we then saw the pilot boat approaching from the mainland to pick up the pilot at the conclusion of Discovery’s transit through the strait.

The afternoon was spent trying to get into the swing of relaxing. We’d chosen this Marella Discovery cruise for a number of reasons, with the chances to sail through the Suez Canal and visit Petra in Jordan being the main ones along with experiencing a new cruise line and ship, but we’d also been drawn by the consecutive number of days aboard without disembarking. It’s true that we prefer a mix of port days and sea days on a cruise with more port days giving the opportunity to see and learn new things but in 2021 we’re taking a cruise from Japan to Alaska which will mean an entire week crossing the Pacific – over twice the length of the most sea days in a row we’d had to this point – so we looked at this Marella cruise as giving us a dry run (wet run?) for that. You’ve got to ease yourself into these things.

Getting into the swing of relaxing for us means me grabbing a book, my wife grabbing her Kindle, the pair of us grabbing seats and attracting the eye of a bar steward, and if there is a quiz going on somewhere then grabbing the chance to test our brains against our fellow cruisers. We’re also occasionally sensible so we often have a light bite to eat at lunchtime and that’s how we discovered that the Snack Shack on the pool deck serves chips with the most succulent, lightly battered pieces of fish. The brightly-decorated Live Room, another venue we’d overlooked on the first day’s exploration of Discovery, had some signature cocktails served in mason jars. To be brutally honest we didn’t find one we truly liked as the volume of liquid made the drinks taste quite watery but it was nice to see some innovation there.

We watched a little bit more of the Italian landscape across the sea from our balcony in the afternoon and realised we could also see one of the colourful alpaca sculptures that Marella are famous for if we leaned out a little.

Our balcony was a pretty reasonable size although the chairs were disappointingly basic. Sitting upright is the only option. We’re also not fans of obscured glass partitions between balconies, much preferring a solid sheet of metal that prevents you from being distracted by movement or the presence of neighbours adjacent to you when you’re reading or relaxing. And not because it reduces opportunities to stand out in the nude on the balcony. What sort of pervert do you think I am? I’m just saying that if the wind is in the wrong direction then it could cause your robe to come undone and accidental windmilling might occur. I’m not saying that has happened or that that’s a ready excuse to cover such an eventuality. This is just basic risk assessment here.

Marella have a far more relaxed attitude to dress codes than other cruise lines with whom we’ve sailed. Their formal night isn’t even called a formal night – dress to impress! – and the guidelines encourage a little more effort but probably only to the level of smart casual with other ships. What you’ll find, however, is that some people will treat it like a proper formal night anyway and the good thing on Marella is that casual and formal intermix and nobody cares one way or the other.

This first night at sea was one of these dress-up-if-you-want nights so after hanging around the atrium area long enough in the late afternoon/early evening to spot a couple of tuxedo-wearing men wandering around with their swish dress-sporting partners we decided we’d go the full formal route too, showered, flooded the bathroom again, then got into the fanciest gear we’d brought with us on the cruise. As I stepped out of our room another couple were emerging from theirs down the corridor, the gentleman also decorated in this season’s sleekest penguin look. “Oh, thank God!” he said loudly. “I thought I’d be the only one.”

In fact, we were quite impressed with just how many really did make an effort to get dressed up. We made our way to the atrium initially to do a little bit of people-watching, enjoy the background music, and have a little bit of fizz to start the evening.

Then we headed up to Bar Eleven because we had speciality dining booked in one of the spots just off it. There was still some time before our sitting so we ordered some pre-dinner drinks. With this being a sort-of-formal night and with us dressed up and with this being something of a tradition for us on cruises, I ordered a vodka martini. I was not expecting this to present a problem but it turned out that vodka martinis were not on the menu. There then followed a discussion between the steward and barman as to how to overcome this and eventually both of them came across with the drinks we’d ordered.

Okay, we have worked out a way to put it onto the system. Please don’t tell anyone you’ve had this drink, though.

Mum’s the word. I’ll only write about it on my website. That’s very nearly the same thing as not telling anyone at all.

Oh! I’ve just realised why you want a vodka martini! James Bond!

She wasn’t wrong.

And so to the first of our Marella Discovery speciality dining nights: the Surf & Turf Steakhouse.

We were seated and attended to throughout the night by Siegfried. We obviously made an impression because we were singled out for special attention throughout the rest of the cruise by him, our name being used in the wine-tasting he ran later in the week, him making sure to go out of his way and say hello whenever he spotted us around the ship, that sort of thing; that sort of service is something we’ve come to expect on Princess, something we’ve never had on any other ship, and something we weren’t anticipating with Marella. It was great.

The reason we made an impression might have been because we appeared to be practically the only people in the restaurant who bought a bottle of wine to go with their meal rather than simply take advantage of the inclusive drinks packages and individual glasses. The bottle price was ridiculously good, easily under half what you’d pay on Princess or Celebrity. I also had a small chat with Siegfried about the wine – “Yes, we’re after something heavy, lots of fruit flavours. Oh dear God, no, not French! Don’t start me on telling you all the things that are wrong with French wine. This one please.” – and that might have stuck in his memory too.

We were happy to see flavoured salts making an appearance with the arrival of bread and our bottle. It’s surprising just what a difference those salts make. We keep saying we should order some flavoured salts to keep at home but we keep saying a lot of things we’re probably never going to get around to.

No surprises with our selection of starters; my wife likes seafood and I most certainly do not so she went for the Crayfish and Prawn Cocktail while my choice was the Beef Carpaccio. We both had no complaints at all about these.

Side dishes of creamed spinach (for me), mushrooms (for my wife), and steak fries (for both us) accompanied our main course. We both went for the 8oz Angus Fillet Steak. Unfortunately, this wasn’t quite as rare as we like; not enough to send them back because we’re not those sorts of diners but they were definitely lacking the sort of juice we want to see when we cut into a steak. The meat was a little drier than we expected and had an odd, almost papery texture to it. I can’t fault the taste and with the sauce and side dishes it was all still quite delicious but a disappointment nonetheless.

Dessert was lovely, though, and light enough to not leave us feeling bloated. We also had to have some after dinner drinks and I’m a sucker for a Cardenal Mendoza when I hit fancy restaurants at home so it was nice to see its availability on board the ship too.

Our summing-up review of the Surf & Turf restaurant on Marella Discovery would be that the location was good, the decor was very attractive (just the right amount of dark for some fine dining), and the service was superb. When comparing it to other similar speciality dining offerings on other cruise lines we’d have to say that the additional cost was a little higher than normal, more noticeable in light of the not-quite-right steaks we had, but the wine bottle prices – and we always buy a bottle of wine when we’re having a fancy meal – more than offset that cost. We would definitely dine at the Surf & Turf again because every time is slightly different and we might have an absolute perfect meal.

Following our meal we caught a little bit of Jayson Keeler belting out some operatic tunes in the atrium.

The rest of the night included a little bit more drinking, sitting in on but not competing in a quiz, and a short visit to Bar Eleven to listen to the music and watch people strut their stuff on the dance floor.

In the next post in this Marella Discovery cruise travelogue series there’s another sea day to survive and another speciality dining experience in the evening at the Asian-style restaurant on the ship. We also get to touch a piece of another world! I know!

Deluxe Balcony Cabin 7072

First stop was to our cabin. We’d booked a Deluxe Balcony grade of cabin but hadn’t selected a specific room as there was an additional charge to do so and with this being our first cruise with Marella we didn’t have anything against which to decide where the best room might be.

I’m going to interrupt my own account of our first day aboard Discovery now with a quick aside to mention some of the booking differences between what we’re more used to with Princess and P&O, and what the TUI/Marella experience is like. With Princess, from our third cruise onwards when we finally found our feet with this whole cruising thing, we’ve always selected the room we want to be in. During the booking process you’re simply asked whether you’d like to pick a room or not and we choose to. We also never opt for an upgrade because you’re really gambling with other people’s ideas of “better” if you do that. With P&O they offer two price points for booking, those being the Select price where you choose your room and get a few perks or the Saver price where you’re allocated a room based on what’s available. We always choose Select. A Marella cruise booking is a little like defaulting you into the Saver option offered by P&O. Generally, everyone pays the same price for the type of room they’re in but if you want to throw some more cash their way then they’ll let you have first pick of the rooms rather than wait for the allocation system to slot you in somewhere. Now that we’ve completed a cruise with Marella we might well do that next time but we had no problems with the room we ended up with.

Deluxe Balcony Cabin 7072 is roughly at midship on the port side of the vessel. Our preference when cruising is forward and starboard but this turned out to be a decent location as it was close to the elevators and staircases which meant getting from our room to the buffet area for breakfast took around 30 seconds. If eating is important to you then you could do a lot worse than pick this room or ones in the vicinity.

The room was close in layout to a Princess mini-suite in that it had a seating area (which didn’t get a lot of use from us to be honest) but was otherwise mostly what we’ve come to expect from cabins on ships. I didn’t take very many photos because you can find plenty of them online and who am I to deprive those people of potential web traffic!? The only things I’d note about this room are:

• The wardrobe doors will kill you if they get a chance. The bi-fold arrangement caught our fingers half a dozen times and fellow cruise bloggers who you’ll be hearing about quite a lot during this Journey to Jordan travelogue set, Paul and Carole, have an even more brutal tale of assault from this piece of furniture that they might be willing to share.
• If you’re a fan of sitting on the toilet and staring at the toilet roll just out of reach then you are in for a treat on Marella Discovery. I can picture the person in charge of designing the cabin turning to her colleague and saying “So, how long are your arms? Okay, thanks. I’ll just add on another thirty centimetres then.”
• Showering was a two-person job half the time. No, not for the sexy reasons you’re thinking of. One person needed to be on guard to stop the bathroom from flooding which it did no matter how careful the person under the water was trying to be. I’d like to think that our steward was used to always picking up one absolutely drenched-through towel every evening because it was a known problem and didn’t think we were the sort of weirdos who wrapped ourselves in one when washing but we’ll never know for sure.

For the record, we’re a completely different sort of weirdos.

We’d been to the port of Naples once before, that being a stop during our Royal Princess cruise back in 2016 (there are a couple of posts here: Royal Princess – Italy) and so I’d been excited to see the Casa Del Portuale building again that I knew to be there. However, it transpired that on that previous cruise we’d been docked in the more industrial area of the port whereas Marella Discovery was alongside at the dedicated cruise terminal some way from it. On the one hand a shame because it’s a gorgeous piece of brutal architecture but on the other hand a better chance to appreciate Naples as being a little more attractive than it had seemed on that first visit. The views were more varied and I was very pleased to be able to see Mount Vesuvius from our balcony with other points of interest being a San Giorgio-class amphibious transport dock ship, San Giusto, and a horse’s arse.

Marella Discovery Atrium

To the hub of the cruise ship next, the atrium. This was a very bright, very open area, with plenty of natural light coming down and from alongside. We haven’t cruised with Royal Caribbean before (their family-friendly reputation is us-hostile so they’ve never been in the reckoning, although we have spotted some Asian itineraries they do that have started to worm their way into our travel-planning thoughts) but if you have then the Discovery will be pretty familiar to you as the ship is a Vision-class vessel and formerly the Splendour of the Seas. We were very impressed by the atrium area although as the cruise went on we started to find some issues with a lack of seating space in the evening and the final set of steps leading down to the ground floor were so smooth and reflective it felt like we were risking life and limb every time we descended them.

It was around the atrium that we upgraded to the Premium Drinks Package and that’s worth mentioning. If you cruise with Marella then the basic drinks plus gratuities are included in the price. That’s already a great deal because unlike certain other lines I could mention with a basic drinks package (cough, Celebrity, cough!) the basic drinks package for Marella covers a huge range of what’s available on board and what most normal people would like to actually drink. Premium drinks can be bought but there’s a small surcharge (very small) unless you want to upgrade the package. And here’s where Marella excels again: it’s £50 per person per week. That’s a tiny fraction over £7 a day to be able to drink anything, including the speciality coffees. For us this was an easy decision to make when you compare similar pricing on other lines. A feature of drinking to be aware of is that the drinks package only applies between 10:00 and 02:00 for some unfathomable reason. If you want a drink outside those times then you will pay extra.

Anyway, drinks package upgraded we promptly went and ordered some Bellinis and were charged for them because the upgrade hadn’t gone through the computer system quickly enough. Our waitress apologised and let us know we could talk to reception and get the charge removed but we couldn’t be bothered. We’re not the sort to quibble over a few quid here and there. We’re the sort who then get another drink immediately afterwards. Oh, and we loved the slanted glasses.

The Shops And The Pub

It doesn’t feel right to turn to your other half and say “Let’s go check out the shops and the pub” when you’re on a cruise ship but that’s what happened next. Of course, it was still early so the pub bar hadn’t opened and as you possibly already know, no shops open while a ship is in port because all the staff are ashore laughing maniacally at the low prices on land so this wander through these two areas of the ship was rather perfunctory.

The boutique shops were exactly what you’d expect to find on a cruise ship: some cruise line souvenirs, basic clothing, snacks, perfumes, designer bags, that sort of thing.

The Squid and Anchor pub was not exactly what you’d call a traditional-looking pub considering this was a British cruise line. Its name was arguably quite misleading in that it was more a general entertainments lounge than anything else. I think for the name I’d have liked some more features in line with a pub and perhaps more than just the squid and anchor motif on chairs and menus to bring that theme in more. However, it was a mostly fine venue with the only thing to consider if attending something where the screen at the front is in use being that some seats had very obstructed views thanks to the pillars.

Marella Discovery Speciality Dining Restaurants

Our initial exploration of Marella Discovery next brought us to the very top of the ship, deck eleven directly over the atrium. This was the location of Bar Eleven, the ship’s late night drinking and dancing venue and somewhere we knew we’d end up most if not all nights on this cruise. That’s the kind of people we are.

Just off from Bar Eleven were the two speciality dining restaurants Surf and Turf (no prizes for guessing what sort of food that specialises in) and Kora La (a general Asian restaurant). Prior to embarking on this cruise we’d decided we would be trying all the dining options anyway but it was good to see how the rooms were set up just to be certain. They both met with our approval, especially the views afforded by Kora La, so the next time we passed the self-assistance machines off the atrium we used our cruise card and booked dinner in each of them for the following two nights.

Miniature Golf, Rock Climbing, And Swimming Pools

Out onto the top deck of Marella Discovery next, the location of most of the photos you’ll see from cruise ships because this is where all the daytime fun happens. We’re not fun people – we’ve been called intimidating and irritating in roughly equal measures but fun doesn’t factor into most people’s reckoning – but we don’t begrudge others having some of it on occasion.

Heading aft brought us some more pleasing views of Naples, including those from the ship’s port side where coast guard and naval vessels were tied up. This was late afternoon, on the cusp of evening starting, and the sun was sinking in the early November sky bringing a cool dusk with it. The back of the ship on the top deck is where you’ll find a couple of the sporting activities you can enjoy. A miniature golf course decorated with boulders is the first thing you’ll come across. Behind that is the rock climbing wall, an activity I’d never tried before but which I told my wife prior to the cruise I was going to have a go at while at sea because it felt like the sort of random experience to boast about that we quite enjoy. Sadly, I didn’t make it mostly thanks to forgetfulness on my part but also partly because the time when you can climb is limited by appropriate staff being around, and on the one day when I did remember and when there were staff around I was so hot from just standing by the wall in direct sunlight that the thought of strapping myself into a harness and suffering the exertion of climbing as well just sweated itself out of my body.

I must confess to really liking the TUI logo on the ship’s funnel and also liking the way it was lit up. Incidentally, if you’re wondering about whether the ship is a TUI ship or a Thomson ship or a Marella ship then let me try to explain. TUI are the parent group who operate German and English hotels, flight operations, and cruise lines. Thomson were part of it but were rebranded to be TUI UK. The English cruise line was then rebranded as Marella while the German line are still technically TUI Cruises but everyone knows them as the Mein Schiff ships because they’re all called that with numbering after them (e.g. Mein Schiff 1, Mein Schiff 2, etc.), the reason for that being that German names for beautiful concepts such as discovery and exploration and jewels and glamour all run to around one hundred and twenty letters in length, are unpronounceable, and cost a fortune to paint onto hulls.

The main swimming pool area was just forward of midships on Discovery’s top deck and it looked incredibly pretty and felt very serene in the cool and quiet of the darkening evening. This would contrast markedly with a typical sea day on the ship when the entire area more closely resembled one of those Where’s Wally? drawings with barely a metre of deck space able to be seen amongst the throng of recliners and bodies rammed around the water’s edge.

Continuing our tour of the top deck we reached the front which held a small, slightly sheltered spot for lounging in the sun with a maritime/navigational sculpture and a great view ahead of the ship. In Naples this meant gazing across the water to Vesuvius once more. I do like a volcano.

Marella Discovery has an indoor swimming pool as well, located in a spot named The Glass House. Not to be confused with the place with the same name on P&O ships, this was a very nice spot too which, with hindsight, we should have taken more advantage of. I guess there will have to be a next time to address this shortcoming. What suffering. Oh no. How will we cope. Et. Cetera.

Food And Drink On Marella Discovery

Sailaway wouldn’t be until 23:00, the muster drill would be a little before that, and it had been a long day for us with not much to eat at this point so we decided on an earlyish dinner with the chance to try a few drinks after that in the lounges and bars that would be open by this point. Or even before that. We grabbed a pre-dinner drink in the atrium because, well, because we could.

After comparing menus of the two sections of the main dining room we selected the Italian option of Gallery 47 and the food would be good enough and more to our liking than that in the main section throughout this cruise.

Antipasti and bread was followed by our starter choices of Bruschetta for me and Calamari for my wife, fairly standard options for us in Italian restaurants in general. Our meal was accompanied by more glasses of red wine than I can remember, a benefit of those all inclusive drinks packages.

Saltimbocca Alla Romana for me and the unfortunately-named Stinco Di Maiale for my wife made up our main courses.

I finished with A Trio Of Tiramisu while Lemon Meringue Tart was the dessert across the table from me, and we both washed it down with a whiskey.

Waiter service during dinner was fantastic but let’s be clear: the food wasn’t spectacular. Then again, we weren’t expecting spectacular. The food was very good, though, and if you’ve nothing super-fancy to compare it to then you won’t be disappointed. We did have fancy things to compare it to and we still weren’t disappointed because we knew what sort of cruise line Marella were and where their budget sat in what they would provide. We were very satisfied throughout the cruise.

There was still quite some time at the conclusion of our meal before we’d need to gather for the muster and the pub was open at this point so deciding what to do next was fairly easy. Also, the drinks volume was mounting up by this point and you don’t want to stop when that happens or you’ll get a headache. We were only thinking of our health and not wanting to colour our perception of time aboard Discovery with pain. So, to the Squid and Anchor once again it was!

The drinks menu shows you just what’s included with the drinks package aboard Marella Discovery as well as the supplement you’d need to pay if you don’t upgrade your package. If you think you’d spend more than £7 a day then upgrade. I think it would be fair to say that we got our money’s worth on this cruise.

The muster drill took place on the promenade deck of the ship. I’m not sure quite how much of it people were paying attention to on the back of most of the day drinking (because we weren’t the only ones, that’s for certain) and I wouldn’t want to do it in driving wind and rain but it was quite pleasant in the Italian night air and thankfully short.

As Marella Discovery left Naples we made our way to Bar Eleven. You can order from a standard shipwide menu or one specifically for the venue with the special menu including some premium infusion and smokey cocktails. Both sorts of drinks menus are below.

Being the children that we are we had to try some of the special cocktails. The theatre with the presentation and pouring of the drinks is worth the cost alone.

We had a few more drinks, we listened to the music, we might even have danced at one point. Only one thing is very clear and that’s that we both felt horribly and wonderfully hungover when we woke up the following morning. Even had we been stone cold sober we both agree that there was nothing but very good first impressions of the ship and especially its staff and crew.

In the next post in this Marella Discovery travelogue series we’ll see some more of the ship, see what the first of many sea days is like, touch things from outer space (ooh!), and have our first close encounter with some fellow bloggers.