I Took an All Inclusive Cruise at The Peak of Summer (Sold Out Ship)

I recently took an all-inclusive cruise, sailing the Mediterranean at the busiest time of the year.

The ship I was cruising on launched way back in 1997, and the cruise included everything, from flights and transfers to gratuities and unlimited alcoholic drinks. 

I booked another cruise on this ship while onboard, which is so exciting (sailing January 30th 2026). Here’s the link if anybody else is interested in a winter bargain: (code SETSAIL200 gets you £200 off) – affiliate link. If you’re from outside the UK you can book with my USA team at https://emmacruises.com/book-a-cruise/

I usually avoid cruising in peak season because a few years ago, I took a cruise in the summer that had over 900 children on board. It was very busy, and it honestly did put me off for a while.

I wanted to take my mum away on a cruise, though, and the date that worked for her was in the summer, so we decided to give it another go. I was hopeful that it would be a relaxing break for both of us.

It was not cheap, with a starting price of £1558 per person, which is a little over $2100; the stakes were high.

I was optimistic that the ship wouldn’t feel run down, and I hoped we wouldn’t see any bad behaviour caused by the unlimited drinks.

In reality, this cruise took us by surprise in so many ways, we found things we weren’t expecting in our cabin, the bars and even in the food. 

We flew from London to Palma to board the cruise, and the embarkation was the fastest I have ever experienced, taking a total of 6 minutes from getting off the bus to stepping onto the ship.

I’m pretty sure that if I didn’t stop to take these photos, we could have done it in under five, but I can’t resist a photo op like this, the ship looked so good. I’ve had a few embarkations recently that took 2 or 3 hours, so this was such a relief.

Marella Voyager was launched as Celebrity Mercury for Celebrity Cruises, and she is roughly 50 metres tall – which is the same as 31 of me stacked on top of each other.

Inside, she has 11 restaurants and 10 bars on board. In total, she can hold around 1900 guests split across 950 cabins. 

Pre-cruise I had watched some videos about the ships history so I was interested to see what had changed.

This ship is actually as old as the famous Titanic movie, not the ship, of course, but the movie. In that time, she’s had five different names. 

One massive benefit of boarding in the afternoon was that our cabin was already ready when we stepped onboard, so we went to it straight away.

I’d booked an oceanview cabin and we found it on deck 4, not far from where we had come into the ship.

There were big screens around the ship, and if you typed in your cabin number, it would show you where it is, which was helpful. 

Marella Voyager has 13 decks, which might sound like a lot, but if you compare her to a really big cruise ship like Icon of the Seas, which has 20 decks, she’s really not so big at all.

That meant that we were never too far away from anything, but of course, we wouldn’t have all the entertainment like we would on a big, big, cruise ship. 

Our cabin was spacious and bright, and it was here that we found a welcome booklet, which explained everything we needed to know about the ship, including how dining and WiFi worked during the cruise.

You would think that this would be standard on all cruises, but I’ve never found anything quite like this on another cruise line.

It felt very accessible to new cruisers, and I love that. Sometimes cruising can feel quite overwhelming with lots of cruise lingo, and that’s one of the main reasons why I started my channel way back in 2017. 

We dropped off our bags and began exploring. I always feel like a little Pac-Man at this point, trying to run around everywhere to see everything as fast as possible.

The first chance to explore is one of my favourite parts of cruising, and we wandered through the main decks having a look at the lounges. I even found a little cinema, which I thought was cute, and oh, a zebra of course, because why not?

All the Marella cruise ships have mascots, and there are a few that appear around the ship. Find out more about Marella mascots here:

The Secret Life of Marella Cruises’ Animal Mascots (Yes, Penguins, Ducks, and Alpacas Are Involved)

The main public spaces on board Marella Voyager are located on decks 6 and 7. On the lower deck are the Arts House Lounge, the Coffee Port, and the main theatre.

On deck 7, there’s The Squid and Anchor pub, the atrium and the shops. Every venue had its own distinct design, and I loved it.

Outside there is a promenade deck that does wrap around, but it is across two decks. We saw some amazing sunsets from here. 

As the sun was shining, we decided to head up the main pool deck on the top deck, and I was hoping that I would have time to fit in a swim later on this cruise.

I don’t like to swim when it’s busy, and given the time of year, I wasn’t going to hold my breath for a quiet time. I was hopeful, though, as I always am.

We were on board for 7 days and were cruising around Italy, France and Spain. I booked this cruise just a couple of months before we went.

The outside decks felt spacious, and everybody seemed happy and excited to be on board.

We found a mini golf course on the top deck which looked really cute, and a basketball court too.  

Marella is a very British cruise line, and almost everybody onboard was from the UK. We do love the sun, so it’s no surprise that the top decks were busy when everybody was on the ship.

That said, though, it was never as busy as some other cruises I’ve been on, and we could always find a seat. 

These two pools are the main pools for the ship and there did used to be another at the back in an area which is now called The Summer House.

The summer house is now a bar and they’d have live music in here. This was one of those spaces that I walked into, and it had a real “wow” factor.

It was a lovely go-between when it was too windy to sit outside, but we didn’t want to be completely inside the ship. The roof does retract, or so I’m told, but we never saw it do that during our cruise. The chairs were comfortable and the bar service was always fast. 

One of my favourite things about Marella cruises is the number of included restaurants. There are seven on this ship.

There are a couple of speciality restaurants too, which cost extra, and I would try one later in the cruise. It was worth every penny, but not what I expected at all.

For this first dinner, we decided to head to the Italian restaurant. There is one big main dining room onboard that is right at the back of the ship, it has huge windows, and there are three separate sections, all with their own menus.

On the lower level is the standard cruise menu, and on the upper level, there is an Italian restaurant and a British section on the other side. A section with a British menu, I mean, not a section for British people, that would be weird! 

It did seem a little strange to double down on the British food when Marella is a very British cruise line anyway, but I knew I’d have to try it later. 

I also really wanted to try the Mexican restaurant Abuelas and the pizzeria. 

The menu at the Italian restaurant is massive, not just in terms of the number of options, but also in terms of its actual size.

There are a couple of things on there that cost extra, but to be honest, whenever I see a price, I just tune out and order something that’s included.

If there was an extra special cookie dessert or something, I might consider paying extra for it, but there were so many included options, we both chose something that was included. 

The food was good and we enjoyed the included drinks. I ordered the tiramisu, which might sound like an odd choice given that I don’t like coffee and’ve never had a cup before, just because it tastes horrible to me. However, these were surprisingly good. Only one of the three was coffee-flavoured. 

As well as the physical menus, all of the menus are in TUI’s app. It isn’t really an app it’s a website that you can visit, but it had everything that we needed. We could buy WiFi, check the daily schedule and find out when venues were open.

You do need to connect to Marella’s WiFi to get the information, but you don’t need to pay for a WiFi package. You just need to be connected so that the cruise line can send the information to your phone. Find out more about that here:

You Don’t Need to Pay For Wi-Fi To Use a Cruise Line App – Here’s Why

WiFi isn’t included on most cruises, and that does take first-time cruisers by surprise.

I’m not sure why Marella’s app isn’t a real app, but I am very happy to let you know that my website, The Cruise Globe, is now available as an app.

Download Cruise Globe for free from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. You can track and log your cruises, replay the routes that you’ve taken and see where cruise ships are right now..

I’m so proud of this app, so if you could take the time to leave us a review in the Apple or Google store, we’d appreciate it so much. It really helps us to spread the word! All the features are free to use, by the way. 

After dinner, we headed to the theatre, and the theatre entertainment is one of the things I like best about Marella cruises.

The theatre cast performs 12 shows on a 14-day schedule, meaning that every day apart from 1, we had a proper all-singing, all-dancing theatre show.

The cast were incredible and it was something that I looked forward to every day. The sets and the costumes were fantastic. It was so nice to see the men in something other than black skinny jeans, it seems like that’s all they usually get to wear, and that’s so boring. 

The theatre itself I love so much too, you are able to get in and out of any row without climbing over people because theres so much space and there are tables for your drinks.

That one is important on an all-inclusive cruise! Most of us had a drink in our hands at most points.

I went to the earlier theatre show but they do perform twice a day and most shows are around 45 minutes long. We were still able to get a pretty good seat even if we showed up 5 or 10 minutes before the show.

I did have visions of long queues and people standing on the edges because it was the peak of summer, but I’m happy to report we didn’t experience that at all.

Maybe the later shows were busier, but the ones I went to weren’t ever busy at all. 

It was around 9pm by the time that we finished and that was perfect timing for our sail away from Palma.

Up on the top deck was a sailaway party, and we had multiple of these during the cruise.

They were always great fun, and I loved how there were drinks carts around where we could just take a drink.

They had Pepsi here too, which is my favourite, and you don’t have to scan your cruise card or anything to get one of these drinks. These are included for everybody.

That means that there aren’t any drink limits per day. They do have more drinks at the bar, of course, but the carts reduce the lines.

They have free drinks at the entrance to the theatre to reduce the queues at the bars, and I think that’s so smart. No other cruise line has anything like this. 

Marella do have a premium drinks package that you can upgrade to and I did on this cruise, I’ll let you know at the end if I think that was worth it for me, it didn’t work out exactly how I imagined but thats just because something changed. 

At the sailaway party, I got to take part in one of my favourite cruise ship things, waving. Because it was dark and the ship next to us, the MSC Virtuosa, was far away, we had to wave using our phone torches. 

I picked a person and went left to right and up and down at the same time as them. It seemed like we were copying each other, so I decided to wave around and around in circles to see if they’d copy me. They did, and it made me so happy.

MSC are an Italian cruise line, so it’s very possible the person making circles didn’t even speak the same language as me, but we spoke the language of waving, and I love it so much. 

I went to sleep very happy and snuggly in my bed, and when I woke up, we headed to the buffet. The buffet is food court style, and it’s probably the best one like this that I’ve ever been to. I loved it.

The whole buffet felt so spacious and well-designed. There were eight food stations, and all of the food was served to us. For breakfast, there were all the usual things like cooked breakfasts, pasties, cereals and even food like bacon and sausage rolls ready to go.

I usually had an omelette or some fruit, and the buffet was surprisingly not busy. The buffet includes water, juices, tea, and coffee, all of which are included in the cruise fare.

They also have, soda, beer, and wine, which are on tap, that are included. It’s proper Yorkshire tea too, and they do have peppermint and other flavours for me. 

I knew that I’d have to come back to the buffet for lunch and dinner later, and the roast dinner section was calling my name. I hoped that they’d have proper Yorkshire puddings. That’s always the ultimate test of a cruise ship buffet for me, that and the cookies, of course. 

I was also really impressed by the allergen markings. Every item had a menu, and it was really easy to see which were gluten-free or dairy-free. They had a gluten-free corner too, and because everything was served to us, we could always ask the staff if we had any questions. 

Because we had the premium drinks package, that meant that we could have drinks in the Coffee Port at no extra charge. The cookies did cost extra though.

The premium drinks package cost £13 per person per day and basically meant that we could have soda in cans, premium hot drinks, and cocktails, which were more expensive than the standard included ones.

Looking at the menu here, I realised that if we didn’t have the package, the drinks really weren’t very expensive at all. It wouldn’t be abnormal to pay $4 or $5 for a can of soda on a big American cruise line, but here it was just £1.50, which is around $2.

That is a good thing about the all-inclusive model: you’ve already paid for a lot in your cruise fare, so the extras don’t cost so much.

Marella includes all gratuities and tips too. There are no automatic tips added on each day, and nothing is added to you onboard account for drinks.

The area by the Coffee Port overlooks the small atrium, and on the ground level, there is the reception and excursion desk. Above this are the shops. It was a nice enough atrium, it certainly wasn’t “party central” but we enjoyed sitting around here. 

I decided to have a peppermint tea, and I saw giant cookies in jars on the side, which immediately caught my attention. It was a bit early in the day for those, but I promised myself that I’d come back later to test them out. 

On the lower level by the reception, I found our cruise maps display, which makes me very proud. I’m a co-founder of this company, and code EMMACRUISES gets you a discount on everything.

Let me know when you see our prints on the ships. They’ll be on MSC ships soon, so there’s lots to find. 

It wasn’t long after this that the captain made an announcement, mentioning that we would be experiencing some rough weather.

I did see the sick bags come out in the staircases, but it really wasn’t too bad at all. It was definitely a case of better safe than sorry. 

Our cruise only had one sea day on the 7-day cruise, so we really weren’t spending a lot of time at sea.

That’s my number one tip if you are worried about seasickness, book a cruise that doesn’t spend much time at sea. It might sound silly, but theres no medicine or cruise hack that is better than just not sailing.

That said, though, I am a very travel-sick person, and I felt completely fine on this cruise. 

When I went out to the promenade deck, it became immediately obvious why the captain said that we might be experiencing some bad weather.

It was SO windy. My sunglasses blew off my head on one side of the ship and rolled all the way across the ship to a lady who was standing on the other side by the other doors.

Luckily, that door wasn’t open too, or they might have blown through the ship and off the other side.

She picked them up and gave them back to me. Of course, I spoke to so many people on this cruise, and everybody was so lovely. Lovely is the perfect word for it, and it’s your Britishism of the week.

I had to Google this, but ‘lovely’ apparently means something that is very nice, beautiful, friendly, or delightful.

Anything can be lovely, really. I’d say that all the crew on board were lovely, as were the Squid and Anchor decorations in the Squid and Anchor pub.

Lovely just feels like a warm, soft compliment to me. If you’re reading this, I think you’re lovely. 

For lunch, we decided to just grab a quick bite to eat at Nonna’s Pizza. This is a little venue located behind the buffet, and it was open for lunch and dinner.

For lunch, they make little personalised pizzas and I had a BBQ chicken one. It was exactly what I needed to fuel my day of exploring. People tend to think that sea days are all about sunbathing, as they are if you want that, but for me, I tend to walk miles and miles around the ship. 

On sea days, the daily schedule is usually pretty busy, and we headed to The Squid and Anchor to watch the theatre cast do a talk. I always love these kinds of behind-the-scenes insights.

Not only do the showcast perform more shows than on any other cruise line, but they also do things like this and dance at other events, like the sailaway parties. They must be exhausted, but they do a great job.

They’d have gameshows in here too, and this was a popular venue in the evenings. They would have music in here, but this wasn’t really the nightclub venue. There was another venue like that that I’d visit later for the silent disco.

I had a J20 to spice things up, and we watched a very talented guy perform. I think his name was Brian… or maybe Nick…

Abuela’s is a Mexican restaurant onboard, and we decided to go there for dinner. We enjoyed it so much that we came back again later in the cruise, and I ordered the exact same thing again, just because I loved it.

I had a burrito, nachos, and, of course, churros for dessert. I love the design of this space, and we never had to wait for a table here or anywhere.

Marella’s dining is completely freestyle; there are no set dining times or tables, you just show up when you are hungry.

I was fully prepared to have to wait to dine somewhere, but we never did, helped I’m sure by the fact I like to eat early. You do book the paid-for extra, speciality restaurants, but the rest is completely flexible.

There are almost no dress codes too, you do have to be dressed, but honestly that’s about it. I spent most of this cruise in shorts and a t-shirt and the odd dress.

It was hot, hot, hot outside, but not inside so much, though. This ships conditioning in the public areas was really good, and I even wore a little cardigan a few times! 

Right at the top of the ship is the Electric Rooms. This is the nightclub and bar area, and it’s here that we went for the silent disco. It was busy as you’d hope it would be, but we were always able to get a seat.

If you’ve never been to a silent disco, I need to let you know that it’s the least silent thing of all. What it is is that everybody puts on headphones and there are a few options for channels that play different songs.

You can see by the colour what other people are listening to. Just because people have headphones on that doesn’t stop them singing along and clapping so if you do want to just sit and watch without any headphones on, it’s great fun.

Everybody seemed to be having a fantastic time, but nobody seemed too drunk, and there certainly weren’t any fights or anything like that. 

I don’t think anybody felt the need to binge drink, really. We all had free drinks all the time, so there was no rush to drink as much as possible in a short period.

In the corner of this venue was the casino, it’s teeny tiny, but that’s what most British cruise lines do when they buy American ships. We just don’t gamble on cruises in the same way.

Find out how Marella transformed ex-Celebrity and Royal Caribbean ships to suit British guests here:

How Marella Cruises Transformed Ex-Celebrity and Royal Caribbean Ships

I’m not sure if it’s because you can gamble on machines like this in any pub at home or on any high street, so it’s really not something we need to rush to do when we’re away. I did see some people use this space, but the dancefloor was far more popular.

After trying a few drinks here, I went back to my cabin and filled up my water jug and bottles from the water machine in the corridor.

There were 3 of these machines on my deck, and each night I’d fill it so that I had fresh water to make my morning cup of tea in the kettle. Every day is better when it starts with a cup of tea, and I really miss it on other cruise lines. 

From this point, we had a port every single day, we started by visiting Italy where we had a long day in Livorno and then we went to France. We visited the port of Villefranche, which is where most people go off to Monaco or Nice. I’ve been to both those places before, so I decided to stay in port, and it was such a beautiful place.

Really hot, of course, but manageable. This was a tender port, so we used little ships to get to land and back, it was all really well organised and I heard other guests commenting about that too. The water here was just so clear.

In Toulon, we actually got a free boat ride because there was a shuttle from where we docked to the town. It was a long way away, but for me, this was such a great chance to film video clips and take photos like these. It’s rare you get to see a cruise ship from this angle.

The older ships are so square and pointy compared to the newer ones, just a change in design styles, I suppose. 

After exploring the town, we’d usually come back to the ship and would sit up by the pool enjoying the live music. They’d do trivia here, too, and it was so nice to have questions that I had a chance at answering.

Usually, the questions on the American lines are about New York theatres, for example, whereas here the questions would be about London theatres! That said, though, I still didn’t win any trivia, but it was good fun to play along. 

One day, we heard some music coming from the cruise port side when we were docked. We headed out to the promenade deck and saw the crew cheering and dancing as the buses from the excursions came back.

It was so sweet watching the children and adults dance around and high-five the crew as they welcomed them back on board.

This Pikachu was watching from the window too, which I thought was so cute. I usually do that with my Captain Hudson or my First Mate Rolo. I love to see it. 

We also got the chance to see more of the crew one night in the theatre, which I thought was lovely. There we go again, lovely. It reminds people that there are so many crew members behind the scenes who are working hard, and it’s great to recognise bartenders or your housekeeping team.

It is hard to imagine just how many crew members there are behind the scenes. but if you take a look at the theatre, that seats pretty much the same number as the number of crew. 

Our meal in Piccadilly’s was good and we sailed away from port while sitting there. Luckily for us, the restaurant has huge windows on three sides, and the views are particularly impressive from the bottom level.

We sat down here for lunch one day and then returned to sample the regular menu in the main dining room as well.

I could have quite happily eaten from these menus for weeks or maybe even months without getting bored. There were so many options. The bread basket was good too, and that’s important. 

After dinner, we headed to the Arts House. I played a quick game of shuffleboard, which is a nice nod to the game usually played on the deck.

They’d have live music in here too, and I loved the little touches like the cushions. Whoever designed this ship, I love it. 

Given that we were cruising at the peak of the summer season, I was expecting to walk from venue to venue trying to find a seat, but was really pleasantly surprised. 

There definitely were kids on our cruise, and more than normal, but they were usually in the kids’ clubs or just in places where I wasn’t.

Marella doesn’t normally do big discounts for children, so they aren’t as busy as lines like P&O or MSC.

It was P&O’s Iona where I had 900 children onboard one week, and this cruise was nothing like that, which was a relief. I still enjoyed that one, of course. 

One of the bars onboard is a kind of speciality bar. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be a secret bar, but if it is, it’s very badly hidden. I found a sign on the wall and just walked in. Bit cheeky I know but I wanted to see what was going on.

You can book a show of sorts in here, but it said that it was interactive, so I decided I didn’t want to do that one. I still wanted to have a look around, though. It’s a very nice bar, and my friends who have been inside do recommend it for those of you who like audience interaction. 

Our cruise then visited Barcelona next and then on to Valencia. In Barcelona, we decided that we would stay on board because I’ve been there lots of times before and it was really hot.

I’ve been to Spain almost as many times as my home country on a cruise, I’m very lucky I know, and I do love spain. You can create these for free on the Cruise Globe, my free app I mentioned earlier. 

I wanted to go for a swim at some point during this cruise and figured that this would be the quietest day, giving me the best chance to have the pool to myself. 

Sometimes, treating a port day like a sea day is the best. You really get a chance to relax, and there are far fewer people on the ship.

We were able to get a bite to eat from the Snack Shack too and this is the main poolside venue, here they had chicken wings, burgers and sandwiches and salads in the fridges. I do think the buffet sandwiches were much better, but still, being able to pick up a pot of melon or a cookie from here was great. 

The swimming pool itself is 6 ft 2 deep, which is really deep for a cruise ship pool. Most modern cruise ship pools are half that height or less, but back in the 90s, they made swimming pools which were designed for swimming.

They just don’t make them like they used to. For good reason, too, because water is really heavy, and if you think about a cruise ship with a swimming pool in it, it’s really weird. I’m glad I’m alive at a time when that’s possible, though. 

I did feel like a kid getting my mum to film me swimming around in circles, but I wanted to, and so I did. The pool was salt water, so it did feel more floaty than usual. 

Most days on this cruise, it was between 30 and 35 °C, which is the hottest temperature that I can survive in. That’s around 95 degrees Fahrenheit

Anything hotter than that and it feels more like the temperature that you cook food at.

It wasn’t unbearable, but I definitely couldn’t do as long walks as I usually do in port. Valencia was beautiful, and I saw a sign that said it was 36 degrees. 

Exploring the cruise ship with everybody else off gave me a great chance to see the places that I hadn’t found yet. I found a bar called Flutes, which was really cool, and another called Aperitif.

We actually never went to either of these during the cruise because there were so many options. We certainly didn’t feel bored even though this is a smaller ship than we are used to. 

All that exploring was making me hungry, so I headed up to the buffet. It was in here I had a roast dinner and it was fantastic. I also discovered these cakes, and oh goodness me, I had one every single day.

They did have cookies in here, and they also had cookies at the coffee port, but I honestly preferred these cakes. I just love icing like this, it’s hard to beat.

Having said that, though, I did know that they did big premium cookies in the Coffee Port, and those are always good.

I did accidentally order one once with raisins in it, which was disappointing, but that one was on me.

I don’t know who thought raisins in a cookie were a good idea, but I know plenty of you love them.

For me, it’s a food that’s so gross that it has to trick you into thinking it’s another food in order to get eaten. The same way that parsnips pretend to be roast potatoes… 

One thing that made this buffet feel more luxurious to me was the ice cream bar. Usually, on a cruise, you’ll find a vanilla soft scoop machine – and that’s about it unless you want to pay extra.

On here, though, all of these ice cream flavours are included, and they have multiple different sorbets every day. Me and my mum did our best to try most of them, and you could have them in a cone or a bowl. 

Generally, I found the food in this buffet to be really good. I have taken a couple of Marella cruises in the past which were themed cruises and the food wasn’t as good. But I do think that was just a difference in priorities though.

If everybody is partying and drinking in fancy dress, you focus more on getting the quantity of food out rather than its quality.

On this cruise though, I’m happy to say the food was great, we never had anything that we didn’t like, and there was so much choice.

I’d go as far as to say that this is one of my favourite buffets ever.

While I was waiting, I caught up with a bit of work using the onboard WiFi. Marellas WiFi is different from most lines because you pay by the MB rather than the day.

If you’re a heavy internet user like me, doing video calls on the WiFi, then a daily rate is better, but for most people who just want to check their emails every now and again and to share pictures on social media, this way does work well. It means you can log in and log off when you’re not using it. 

The speeds were pretty good, and it worked for what I needed. We were in port most of the time anyway, and I’d just use my phone like normal when we were docked. 

I did need that internet access, though, because I had to get my confirmation of the other cruise I booked onboard. Yes, you heard me right, and I don’t think I have ever said that in a YouTube video before. 

I’m going to be taking my friend Matt, who you may recognise as my cruise globe co-founder, he’s only ever cruised with the very traditional cruise line Cunard before, so it’ll be interesting to see what he makes of Marella, who are very casual.

We booked outside of peak season for this next trip, and it was considerably cheaper than this one, as expected.  Marella always has discount codes on their website, and I have a guide on how to find them on my website here.

How To Find Discount Codes For Marella Cruises

I used one for this booking, and because this one is out of season, it was cheaper to book a large balcony than it was for me to book this oceanview cabin in summer. 

I was feeling so happy when we went to the Silver Spoon restaurant. I was expecting it to just be like every other speciality restaurant, but it wasn’t. Our meal cost £39 per person, and it promised to provide a twist on the classics that we know and love. 

I ordered a Scotch Egg for starter and this is certainly not like any scotch egg I’ve ever seen before, for those of you who don’t know what a Scotch Egg is, it’s usually an egg wrapped in sausage meat and then with bread crumbs on the top.

My starter had all of those things, but just in a different way – and that was the whole point.

It was really yummy and our mains were too, this is the ham egg and chips, and this is the Beef Wellington.

These were good, but not as memorable as our dessert. I should add here quickly how beautiful this restaurant is, we had a table right by the window and it felt very elegant. It does have a smart dress code, so I had put on a dress.

When I saw on the menu that there was a sharing dessert called “What a Mess”, I couldn’t resist.

I assumed it would be just a normal dessert, but in some kind of splat. I was half right about that, it did splat, but I didn’t know that I would be doing the splatting.

Our waiter told me to hold the chocolate ball and to drop it, in hindsight I did throw it a bit hard but I didn’t want it to not break, it felt like an easter egg and everybody in the restaurant was looking at me.

I realised I’d thrown it too hard as soon as it left my hands and went all over the table and the chair. It didn’t go on me though, which was a miracle.

Inside the chocolate dome was meringue and some creamy stuff. I honestly have no idea, but it was very tasty, and I’m glad that we went to this restaurant.

This is the kind of thing my mum and me will be talking about for years and that was the whole point of the cruise, to make memories and to relax. 

For this cruise, I paid £1,558. That’s for a 7-night cruise, sharing an oceanview cabin with my mum.

Her cruise fare also cost that. The price included our flights, transfers, drinks, tips and meals.

Have a closer look at my Marella Voyager cruise here:

I did upgrade to the premium drinks package too, but now that I know that Pepsi is included in the standard package, I don’t think I’d feel the need to do it again. It used to be just fountain soda, which wasn’t very good.

We did drink a lot of tea, which would have cost extra, but without really caring about the higher-priced cocktails, I don’t think I need it, and I haven’t upgraded for my next cruise. 

Considering that this cruise was at the peak of the summer school holidays, when everything is usually double the price of normal, I don’t think that’s too bad.

I’m glad we took this cruise because it fit in nicely with my mum’s calendar, but I do still prefer out-of-season cruises, mostly for the weather.

This ship wasn’t too busy at all though, it didn’t feel any busier than any other cruise out of peak season.

I also bought a couple of speciality cookies, a shuttle bus ticket and the speciality meal, bringing my total to £1690.80. That’s a little over $2,200.

I booked another cruise on this ship while onboard, which is so exciting (sailing January 30th 2026). Here’s the link if anybody else is interested in a winter bargain: (code SETSAIL200 gets you £200 off) – affiliate link. If you’re from outside the UK you can book with my USA team at https://emmacruises.com/book-a-cruise/

I recently sailed on another older ship, Norwegian Star, built in 2001.

Find out whether I liked her, and whether I thought she could still compete with the newer ships in the Norwegian fleet in the video below:

Before You Go

I love to sail from my local cruise port. You can get some great value sailings with MSC. Find out what you should know before cruising with MSC from the UK here:

7 Things You Should Know Before Cruising from the UK with MSC

Find out about the differences between two other British cruiselines here:

P&O vs Ambassador: Which Cruise Line Is Right For You?