Marella Explorer 2

In most things Marella exceeded our expectations. The cabin facilities and cleanliness was very good. The entertainment team worked hard and made for an enjoyable cruise. My only criticism was the afternoon teas, to be precise the sandwiches, I have never in my years of cruising experienced such bland uninteresting flavours, no butter, very little filling and wafer thin cucumber, dry and tasteless. I thought I may have been mistaken one day as there was some flavour but then I realised I was chewing a paper towel!!!

Great staff great weather great food brilliant all round experience

A wonderful cruise to stunning, interesting destinations. We enjoyed being on a smallish ship with good facilities, good dining, excellent entertainment and on the whole friendly, helpful staff. Negatives for us were 1. the extremely slow service in the Latitude and Vista restaurants - even arriving at 6 pm for dinner, we had to rush to get to the 8 pm show. 2. often unable to find anywhere to sit in bars e. g. Squid and Anchor and Flutes 3. the level of noise in the cabin at night, particularly noise arising from docking, especially when anchor lowered, plus the sound of heavy objects being moved during the night. This was compounded by the fact that the cabin next to ours (4119) flooded during night of 15 October. We appreciate the commotion in immediate response to this was unavoidable but over the following nights we were disturbed by the work to strip and refit the cabin. We reported this to Reception who initially denied it was happening then said they would report it to relevant staff. This led to no change. We found breakfast and lunch in Latitude unremarkable but dinner generally very good. We went on four excursions: Open Top Tour of Zadar - reasonable, Leisurely Trieste - good, Ancient Olympia - excellent (although guide rushed us round the site at speed), Acropolis in 3D - excellent. We should particularly like to commend our cabin stewards - Tun Tun, Tatiana and Ismail - who were efficient, friendly and caring. Most serving staff provided good service; we recall particularly Ni Wayan, Kemsa?, Leo and Keln in Latitude. Also really loved the shows by the amazing Explorer 2 Show Cast.

Cabin 4149 was a lovely cabin but when the ship was coming into or leaving port the whole cabin shook and rattled. It woke me upon a number of mornings . Service and entertainment were excellent. Vegetarian options were not to my liking.