ButterSpoon

No idea where my original reply to this has got to! Long story short we'd already visited Gibraltar on this cruise, and I was braced for someone to bring it up with our poor tour guide whenever he strayed close to the topic, but thankfully we escaped that particular horror 😅

Yes, I'd never heard of either place until spotting this itinerary and they've been fascinating to learn about! The headlines my initial research popped up were definitely alarming at first, but we figured you can find alarming headlines from just about anywhere.

We recently visited this intriguing little port with Marella, and struggled to find concrete info about what to expect before we went. So I thought I'd leave a bit of info here for anyone else searching for similar in future. First up...where?! Melilla is a small Spanish city on the coast of North Africa, surrounded by Morocco. It's basically opposite Almeria, with daily ferries making the crossing to and from mainland Spain. Among the likely tourist attractions are various old forts, a network of tunnels built into a cliff and used as a hideout during wartime, and a picture-perfect tiny cove beach (all very close to the port). Despite some differences it's very clearly Spanish, you can use Euros and it's covered by most EU roaming plans. One big thing we weren't sure about was how to pronounce it! Onboard the ship, everyone was going with "Mel-ee-ya" but once in the city, our tour guide assured us that it's actually "Mel-ee-ja" with a soft J (like in Beijing). Apparently this is a regional difference in how Spanish-speaking places handle a double L. Important to know: You can't walk through Melilla port, and must take a shuttle bus instead. We were on an organised tour, but there were also free shuttle buses taking people from the ship and doing a loop of (supposedly) three stops: a fort attraction, the city centre, and a beach. On the way to our tour coach we did see a couple who had already returned on the shuttle bus as it never stopped at the beach and just brought them back to the port instead, they were asking the Tui staff to have a word with the driver and make sure he knew where all the stops were supposed to be for their second attempt. This is pretty illustrative of the impression we got, that Melilla is trying its best to be welcoming but is just not quite prepared for handling large numbers of tourists just yet. Unfortunately we visited on a Sunday, and our tour began early in the morning so most things were shut and the city centre had an air of utter desertion. The temperature was already well into the 30s (about 90f) when we set off at 9:15, and Marella being a British line I expect they knew our pasty pale selves would never handle the heat later in the day. The tour guide was giving out Melilla-themed straw sunhats for protection but it was a very windy day and we couldn't really wear them (or in my case, fit it into my suitcase to bring home 🙃) We were on a coach tour "Historic Melilla and Underground Caves" which definitely was not as advertised, but ended up being interesting anyway. Sadly it started in the city centre and worked its way out, so we never got to see the place bustling as more locals woke up. Melilla is home to four main religions / cultures, and our tour guide talked at length about how this means the city is basically always celebrating something on a weekend and everyone sleeps in until noon on Sundays to recover. There were indeed all kinds of stages and event areas set up through the middle of the city, so I bet it's popping off on a Friday and Saturday night! There were a few cafes open for drinks, a couple of the usual souvenir tat shops, and a beautiful beach with freely available umbrellas, but otherwise I'm not sure what the people who got the shuttle bus really found to do until things got going in the afternoon. Important to know: Other than our tour guide and one lift operator, it seemed staff in the few tourist attractions only spoke Spanish or extremely broken English. Be prepared for this. Since Melilla is surrounded by Morocco, it's also surrounded by a very large and intimidating fence that starts and ends in the sea. There are four border crossings, and pre-covid it was common for Moroccan workers to commute into Melilla. During covid, border crossings were shut, and now only one has reopened. Reading between the lines it's clear this has had a big impact on the local economy, and is probably a good part of the reason they're trying to attract more tourism. Our tour took us through some very deprived areas for a good look at the fence (complete with warnings not to get too close as proximity alarms would alert the police) where I got my first ever glimpse of Morocco! A house on a hill on the other side of the fence, with the resident staring at this group of tourists in utter confusion. Can't say I blame him. The city centre itself was actually very beautiful, with stunning architecture and at least one large shady park that looked pleasant for a stroll. And yes, there is a McDonalds. We did consider going for a wander after our 4-hour tour, but by the time the coach had taken us back to the port and we were faced with the prospect of waiting for another shuttle bus to take us back out we decided to just head back to the ship instead. Slight regret about that in hindsight, I would at least have liked to stand on the roundabout that Tripadvisor lists as one of the main things to do here! We got to drive round it about six times though so that'll have to do. All in all it was an educational and interesting port, with a tour that definitely made some of our fellow visitors feel uncomfortable about the focus on the fence and immigration. Not the sort of place you see every day, and I'd 100% be interested in revisiting in a few years to see if their tourism plan is working! I'll leave enough room in my suitcase for a new hat next time, though. Our guide was extremely proud of his city, and his enthusiasm for its multicultural nature was honestly lovely to hear about. He also let us know that as part of the focus on tourism, EU residents can apparently get heavy discounts on flights and ferries from the mainland, as well as accomodation in Melilla itself! Of course he was telling this to a coach load of British people who are no longer eligible, but still, it might be useful info for someone out there!

Just got back from a week on D2. The smoking areas were the starboard side of both the promenade deck (on deck 4) and the pool deck. We're non-smokers but love to spend a lot of time louging around on whichever side of prom deck faces into the port, so we were among the smokers a lot of the time (if any other non-smokers are worried about this, it wasn't an issue at all and there were plenty other non-smokers out there too). As the previous post says there are some tables and chairs outside the main doors, it seemed like there was always quite a party atmosphere out there especially later in the cruise as all the smokers got to know each other. But the smoking area extends the whole length of the promenade on that side. There's also a drinks service although it seemed more frequent and attentive some days than others. Can't give as much detail on the pool deck smoking area as we're not really pool deck people, but I did read its existence in the cruise news! I believe it's where all the tables and chairs are, in the partially covered bit over by the windows. Hope that helps!

Just to answer the other part, I also have no need to drive but got a provisional licence years ago and it's always been accepted wherever a full licence would be. Been really handy to have since it just sits in your wallet rather than being a thing you need to actively think about and take with you, highly recommend.

Thank you so much, we're very excited to put all the things we learned into practise. The family member booking our first one made...let's say "some mistakes". And since none of us had ever been cruising before we had no idea what to expect, but will be pros our second time around 😀 Sorry to hear you're having to slow it down a bit yourselves, time catches up to all of us eventually I suppose and we just have to hope we've made the best of it. Which it definitely sounds like you have!

Well, in 2023 we went on our first cruise ever! Just your basic Greek Isles affair, family group of 9. I don't think most of the relations really took to cruising over any other holiday style but I can say that (as I'd always suspected), this year thanks to cruising my husband and I have discovered how amazing a holiday it is and have already booked our second one. Just us two next time, though 😉 On board most of the family just lounged by the pool for a week, but we embraced the inherent cheesiness and tried to sample a bit of everything going on. Even made it to the silent disco which was great fun, my husband does NOT dance and it's always made me a bit sad because I love it. But because we were on holiday he threw caution to the wind and joined in with me and it will honestly be something I remember forever. Outside of the ship we saw plenty of stunning sights of course. Made it to the Acropolis which his dad had especially been looking forward to for years, we got lucky there as they'd had to close it the week before due to heatwaves. And we would definitely head back to Kefalonia for a longer stay. After booking our cruise route was changed to include Kotor and that turned out to be the most beautiful place I think I've ever seen in real life. So much stuff, and that was just from one basic seven-dayer on an older ship! Can't wait to see what our second one brings!