When you’re planning your first cruise with Marella cruises it can be difficult to know what is included in your cruise price and what costs extra.
In this detailed guide you will find out everything you need to know about what to expect from your next cruise with Marella. This covers everything from which of their ships are all inclusive and what this actually means to what isn’t included in their all-inclusive cruise and what these additional costs are.
Which Marella ships are all-inclusive?
All Marella ships are now all-inclusive as standard.
What’s included in Marella Cruises and what costs extra?
Accommodation
When you book a cruise with Marella you can choose from the following categories of cabin:
- Inside cabins– These are the cheapest and smallest cabins and have no window
- Sea view cabins– These cabins include a window or portal window of the sea
- Balcony cabins– These cabins come with your own private balcony and outside space
- Suites– The most luxurious cabins onboard with lots of added extras.
In addition to the above, there are also variations on these cabins such as single cabins and deluxe balcony cabins. You can view our detailed guide to cabins on Marella cruises here.
In all cabins on Marella, you’ll receive the following facilities:
- En-suite bathroom
- Air conditioning
- Tea and coffee making facilities
- Small mini fridge
- Towels and beach towels
- Hairdryer
- Safe
- TV
- Toiletries
However if you stay in a suite or some family rooms you get premier service – this includes continental breakfast in your room (once per week) , express check-in and my personal favourite Clarins toiletries.
When booking a cabin for your Marella cruise, you will need to decide on the following:
- Which type of cabin would you like – suite, balcony, outside or inside
- Do you want to choose your cabin
If you want to choose where your cabin is onboard a Marella cruise, this comes at an additional cost, which is currently £50 per cabin.
Food
On a Marella cruise, breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and snacks at a choice of venues is included. Although Marella cruises are billed as all-inclusive its worth noting that not all of the restaurants on the ship are included. There are also speciality restaurants where you can dine at an additional cost.
The menus at the restaurants onboard a Marella cruise change daily and this Marella dining guide contains further information and menus of what to expect from a Marella cruise.
What we also liked on a Marella cruise was the fact that there are no set dining times, like you have on other cruise lines, meaning that we could dine when we wanted to, rather than having to try and fit our schedule around when the cruise line wanted us to dine at.
For instance on the Marella Explorer, the following restaurants were included in our cruise fare:
Included food on Marella Cruises:
- Main Dining Room – For breakfast, lunch and dinner
- Vista – For dinner
- The Mediterranean – For lunch and Dinner
- Marketplace Buffet Restaurant– For breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, plus snacks
- Snack Shack– Sandwiches, salads, fruit, burgers, pizzas etc
Food that costs extra on Marella Cruises:
- Speciality Dining– Restaurants offering specific menus such as Surf & Turf steakhouse and Kora La, the pan-Asian restaurant which are two of the four speciality restaurants.
- Scoops– Serving ice cream
- Coffee Port – Coffee, handmade chocolates, cookies and cakes.
Whilst the speciality dining restaurants such as Surf & Turf are really nice, there is really no need to pay extra for dining onboard a Marella cruise as the quality of meals in the main dining room is excellent.
For these speciality restaurants you need to make a reservation in advance and the most popular restaurants often sell out and there is a cover charge per person, approx. £30 per person.
On the latest addition to the Marella fleet, the Marella Voyager, there are a couple of restaurants and dining experiences that you won’t find on the other Marella ships like a brand new buffet experience, a Mexican eatery and a stylish Speakeasy Bar.
You can read our detailed guide about the restaurants on a Marella cruise here.
Drinks
This is what sets Marella apart from the other cruise lines where you have to purchase a drinks package. On a Marella cruise a huge selection of drinks are included in your cruise fare, such as draught beers and cider, wine by the glass, spirits and aperitifs, cocktails, soft drinks, cocktails and fruit juice.
An upgraded premium drinks package is available at additional cost, but we didn’t feel it was necessary to upgrade as the cost of bottled water and other premium bottled drinks that we paid for wouldn’t have been the same amount as the upgrade cost.
Entertainment
Included on your Marella cruise is a wide range of entertainment options to suit all the family, each evening you receive a daily programme called Cruise News which has the details of all the activities and entertainment for the following day.
Every ship in the Marella fleet has a large theatre called the Broadway Show Lounge which features various live shows in the evenings during your cruise.
Included entertainment on Marella Cruises:
- West End-style theatre performances
- Cinema
- Live music and tribute acts
- Casino
- Movies under the stars
- Nightclub
- Quizzes and Bingo
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Activities
All of the ships in the Marella fleet are full of activities to keep you entertained during the day and most are included in your cruise fare. All ships have outdoor pools, hot tubs and some ships such as the Marella Discovery also have an indoor pool, so they are the perfect place to relax whatever the weather.
Dependent on the ship in the Marella fleet, there are also jogging tracks, fitness centres, gaming zones, libraries, sport courts, climbing walls and mini golf.
Activities that come at an additional cost include the
- Casino
- Spa and beauty salon treatments
- Hairdressers
- Photo shoots
If you have children then four of the five Marella cruises are really family friendly (the Marella Explorer 2 is an adult only cruise) and have three kids clubs available.
- Hideout – A fun space for teens with air hockey, games consoles and more.
- M Club– This is the main children’s club onboard
- Mini M Club, This is dependent on the ship but is for babies and toddlers.
Tips and Port Fees
What really makes a Marella cruise stand out is unlike many the majority of other cruise lines, there are no tips or port fees to pay – these are already included in your fare. These can be between £200-£300 on other cruise lines for a typical 7 night cruise so it’s a big saving to have this included in the base price with Marella.
Flights and Transfers
This is the main highlight and benefit for me of booking a Marella cruise. When you book a Marella cruise, your flights are included and because Marella is owned by TUI, it means you can fly from your local regional airport.
When you arrive at your destination, a TUI representative will be there to greet you at the airport and take you to the cruise ship by coach.
Having everything in one package from TUI makes such a difference especially in comparison to other cruise lines where you often need to arrange your own flights and transfers.
What isn’t included with Marella Cruises
As mentioned above with the specialty restaurants and upgraded drinks packages, although Marella Cruises are billed as all-inclusive not everything is included in the price. You don’t need these extras to enjoy the cruise but its worth
Room Service
Unlike other cruise lines such as P&O room service is at an additional charge. Prices are reasonable with a selection of meals available for less than £5.00 and its available 24/7 but we have never needed to pay for this service as there are so many dining options just a short walk away from your cabin.
Laundry
There are no self service launderettes on a Marella cruise. If you want your clothes cleaned or pressed on a Marella cruise then this is at an additional cost. You can pay per item or Marella often have promotions where you pay per bag.
We have done this on cruises with Marella and it was great value at just £?14.95 per bag. Our laundry was collected from our cabin in the morning and was returned the following day.
WiFi
WiFi access like on most other cruise ships is not included with a Marella cruise and comes at an additional charge. I really hope cruise lines stop charging for something that I think should be included in the price of a cruise.
There are various options available, which is more flexible than other cruise lines with wifi access from 1 hour to 15 days. However when we used the WiFi onboard it was so slow it was practically unusable.
If you are interested in getting WiFi onboard a Marella cruise the prices are below
- 1 hour, 75 mb limit – £8
- 1 day, 300 mb limit – £15
- 3 days, 800 mb limit – £25
- 8 days, 1.6 gb limit – £49
- 15 days, 2.4 gb limit – £90
When your Marella cruise ship is in port you’ll be able to get data and connect to the internet over 3G, 4G or 5G if your tariff includes data roaming. However, when the ship is at sea you’ll want to turn off your data on your phone or you could build up a huge bill using a maritime network.
Shore excursions
On a Marella cruise, shore excursions are at an additional cost. After booking your cruise you will be able to see which cruise excursions are available at the ports that you are visiting and what the costs are.
There are benefits of booking these official Marella excursions but costs can quickly add to the cost of your cruise, especially for a family. The good news is that you don’t need to pay for these official excursions if you don’t want to, at many of the ports that we arrived at we didn’t use the Marella excursions and booked our own attractions and transport which was cheaper than the official excursions.
Alternatively you can just get off the ship and do your own thing and explore the port that you arrived at – we did this at Trieste in Italy instead of a 2 hour drive each way on the Marella excursions to Venice and it was one of our favorite cities that we visited on our trip.
Overall
Marella Cruises are popular with families for good reason. They are one of our favourite cruise lines as they offer great value for with so much included from your flights and transfers to food and drinks. While many other cruise lines charge extra for gratuities all of this is included in the ticket price with Marella Cruises.