mabellloyd

Going on Britannia 25th February thinking of having a drinks package. We drink vodka and tonic will that be one drink or two? 

We did the crossing on Discovery arriving home on the 23rd December. We had a beautiful cabin on deck 8. It was fully refurbed , settee. no doors on wardrobes but we had drawers where the fridge would have been. The colour scheme was black and white. Brand new bathroom with a door on the shower. New carpets throughout the ship. Islands buffet has more seating and looks much brighter.
We had plenty of problems departing Malaga. Massive queues at all bars not enough staff. This went on for 4 days until we were got to Lanzarote where more staff were taken on. The food was of a much lower standard in all venues, even in the paying restaurants. Surf & Turf £31.95 Kora la £26.95 felt pressured into having more expensive drinks. The entertainment was rubbish. Party band Shine didn’t sing anything other than reggae but nothing you can dance to. Other band The Collective were often in the show so not appearing in the bars. Jon the pianist in the live room is often very disrespectful to customers.

Entertainment team not very social, not getting people up to dance.

We have we have been cruising since 1996 twice a year the majority on Thomson’s and Marella and we this was the worst cruise we have been on along with a lot of other people.

No I didn’t download the Bimsafe app it was just off the ships Navigate app. No we didn’t have to have a test for every island some require a test done 48hrs prior to arrival and some 72hrs. So we only had 2 tests in the Caribbean. Yes they were just the normal boarding passes perhaps it was because we were away for 19 days. Perhaps on a shorter cruise you may be able to print in the UK.

I have just done the repositioning cruise Palma to Barbados and have  just posted a review of this. Marella provide all the testing you need all lateral flow.

We’re back last week from the repositioning cruise on Discovery Palma to Barbados. Was worried for months whether the cruise would take place re COVID testing as most Caribbean islands require a PCR test. As it turned out Marella had negotiated a lateral flow test. We had one 48hrs before the first island Antigua and one 72 hrs before arriving in Barbados all at Marella’s expense.

Our itinerary was changed 2 weeks prior to sailing we should have gone to Cape Verde instead we went to Malaga overnight, Cadiz, Lanzarote, Tenerife, 6day crossing, Antigua, Tortola, St. Maarten, St. Lucia, Greneda, Barbados.

With reduced passengers onboard the ship felt very safe. In the entertainment venues there are certain chairs with stickers on “Keep me free”.  But once people got to know one another this rule goes out the window. Whilst indoors you need to wear a mask, exeptions are on the pool decks and whilst seated in venues and the dining rooms.

When in St. Lucia and Greneda you cannot leave the ship unless you are on a ships tour. All the other islands you were free to visit without restrictions .

We used the onboard app Navigate after boarding. There was no muster on the open deck we had to watch the info on the app. Your cruise card was not enabled until you had watched it. We had major problems when it was time to come home. 48hrs before disembarking we had to print our own boarding passes using the app but the volume of people using it was overwhelming the ship’s internet. We ended up queuing at reception where two receptionists had to do it for us and then used our phone to take a picture of it. The day after they made apologies about the internet situation and we still needed to fill in our Passenger Location Forms. We were told to wait until we got to Barbados to fill these in and we would use the cruise terminal with a much better connection.  There were only 3 flights back to the UK and we were on the last one to Manchester. They called you by flight and then deck to come to the terminal were they checked you had your COVID vaccine status and boarding pass. After this you went to the next room to complete your PLF when we went in it was chaos. Hundreds of people competing for internet time we were there for 2 hours. People were sat on the floor but most were in a very long queue filling it in as they went. All in all the last 48 hrs were so stressful I was in tears on more than one occasion.

When  we got to the airport we still had to go to the check-in desk where they didn’t look at the boarding pass we had stressed about just scanned our passport and gave us a paper boarding pass. Then when we got to Manchester went through Passport Control no trouble, went to the luggage belt no one looked at the PLF. There were about 6 officials at the bottom of the stairs where they randomly stopped someone, about 6 per plane.

We did enjoy the cruise but if we did another one we would stick to European cruises as we would still have internet access.

Thanks to you all for the info looking forward to the cruise.

I am going on the Dream 21/02/17 was wondering who are the band. We have enjoyed cruises on the Dream and Celebration which have had the band Topmen who are excellent.

:oHi,

Just wondering if Top Men are on board the Dream. Thinking of a last minute booking for Atlantic crossing in April.

Thanks