TUI Discovery

Don't let cruising on Discovery during school holidays put you off either Thomson or Discovery. Cruise during term time and there will be a lot less children aboard. My Discovery cruise next year is 2 weeks before spring half term and the Majesty one is just after the start of autumn term.

I have experienced 'chav' behaviour on all Thomson ships ;)

Yes I agree Linda. My daughter is RCI at moment and says there are children still running around at 3am. The security are having to round them up. Madhouse at sea. Thank goodness we are able to avoid school holidays. One advantage of being old.

I have experienced 'chav' behaviour on all Thomson ships ;)

Ditto.

Sadly true. :mad:

We have just returned from a Cruise on P and O Ventura . We took our 8 year old grandson, we were amazed how well P and O dealt with children there were over 700 under 16's on board. Obviously we were aware of the increased amount of young people on board but with 3 children's clubs dealing with the various age groups with activities unto midnight each day, in the main we had no problems on board with unruly children.

Well done P and O. Glad to here there is at least one line who have the children under control.

Yes I agree Linda. My daughter is RCI at moment and says there are children still running around at 3am. The security are having to round them up. Madhouse at sea. Thank goodness we are able to avoid school holidays. One advantage of being old.

Don't let cruising on Discovery during school holidays put you off either Thomson or Discovery. Cruise during term time and there will be a lot less children aboard. My Discovery cruise next year is 2 weeks before spring half term and the Majesty one is just after the start of autumn term.

Well done P and O. Glad to here there is at least one line who have the children under control.

On P&O Oceana we had lots of kids running around and a group of them thought it would be fun to swop over the sleeping/please make up my room cards in cabin doors. The result was a letter from the captain to all people with children aboard. Any more of that behaviour and people would be leaving the cruise early :eek:

We have just returned from a Cruise on P and O Ventura . We took our 8 year old grandson, we were amazed how well P and O dealt with children there were over 700 under 16's on board. Obviously we were aware of the increased amount of young people on board but with 3 children's clubs dealing with the various age groups with activities unto midnight each day, in the main we had no problems on board with unruly children.

Over 700, that's a worse ratio than Discovery :eek:

Apparently Ventura has a 3rd and 4th berth capacity of 405 so about 300 adults were traveling alone with a child under 16:confused: . I bet they were the well behaved ones.

Yes, I think you are right Dave. Hopefully it will have returned to normal (whatever that is :D )by the end of September and we do have a week in adult only hotel afterwards to recover :)

I was aboard Discovery the last week in June and there seemed to be very few children aboard. They were more in evidence the second week but not any trouble.

We did Ventura last year with 700 kids on and no problems at all, you would never believe there was that many on. For adults only we are just back off the Arcadia and had a fantastic time around the Fjords. Had rainy weather in Bergen but mostly sunshine apart from that.

I was aboard Discovery the last week in June and there seemed to be very few children aboard. They were more in evidence the second week but not any trouble.

Ditto.

 

Sadly true. :mad:

On our last cruise on the Celebration there were lots of loud, over the top groups who didn't even bother to change clothes in the evening, sat in the bars screaming and shouting and drinking to excess. Really spoiled things for others. Seems to be more and more large groups booking now. Wonder if they would have as much to say if they were travelling as couples. Think because they are travelling in groups they can do as they please. We like to see people enjoying themselves but some of the behaviour (and language ) is unacceptable.

The large group problem is a pain in the rear end.

One one cruise a couple or so years back a bunch got together in the upstairs part of the show lounge and were very noisy etc. during a performance.

I was for going over and asking them to desist from such behaviour, however 'er indoors made it clear that was not on the agenda - rightly so, as one thing can lead to another.

Somebody must have complained because the CD came on stage and politely asked for silence during the acts and pointing out how discourteous such conduct was to the artist, also suggesting that the various bars were the place for a party get together.

That resulted in much applause and murmurs of approval.

About as bad as people who want to chat during a film at the cinema !!!

Let's not go there, I'm transforming into Victor Meldrew again !!!

Hi there this is my first post and will be going in the TUI discovery at the end of October and after reading luckily enough for me it's an adults only voyage across to the Caribbean which would be a long time if the kids are misbehaving. We have booked the all inclusive package but am aware there are some things you still have to pay for whilst on board such as upgraded restaurants and drinks. If anyone knows the cost of this so I may try and budget accordingly it would be much appreciated just general things like the restaurant upgrades and cocktail upgrade prices. Also I'm a novice to cruising and anything you recommend I should book or do on this ship would also be brilliant!

Thanks for reading and hope you can pass in some pearls of wisdom!

Michael

We are on this cruise too, and although we have done the other Thomson ships, it is our first transatlantic and our first on Discovery, so looking forward to exploring somewhere new. We have the inclusive package, and the drinks menu has been posted on the Discovery FB page and seems to work similar to their other ships with a decent amount of drinks to choose from with others marked with an asterisk which have a small extra amount to pay to get them - around £1.70 per drink I believe. I am going to look into the premium package which can be bought on board for £70 per person per week which allows you to drink anything from the menu inclusive, and that includes the premium coffees I have been told. Not having been on her yet, I can't give details about the pay restaurants, but we have never used them on any of the other ships as the choices between buffet and main dining room have always been adequate for us. We are looking forward to returning to the Caribbean islands which we love. We booked ships tours on every island the first time we went, but are happy to wander round ourselves now in the port or find a local beach. Looking forward to a whole new experience, and have no doubt it will be fantastic.

Gill and Ray.

There are 2 pay and 1 'half' pay restaurants on Discovery. The Steak 'n Turf and Kora La cost just under £20 and you have to make reservations. The Glasshouse has 2 evening menus, the steak on hot lava rock etc one for about £9 and the other side with pizzas etc is free.

You also have the main dining room 47 degrees and in the evenings the balcony 47 with an italian menu. People think the Italian menu is restrictive with 2 rotating menus but there is plenty of choice on each of the menus. Then you have the buffet which is called Islands because all the food is served from islands ;) No continuous counter.

I thought that the food was better quality than on P&O with more interesting choices, more international cuisine than 'meat and two veg'

You pay a small supplement for some drinks but IMO the house wines are quite drinkable. There is plenty of choice of other drinks.

There are 2 pay and 1 'half' pay restaurants on Discovery. The Steak 'n Turf and Kora La cost just under £20 and you have to make reservations. The Glasshouse has 2 evening menus, the steak on hot lava rock etc one for about £9 and the other side with pizzas etc is free.

 

You also have the main dining room 47 degrees and in the evenings the balcony 47 with an italian menu. People think the Italian menu is restrictive with 2 rotating menus but there is plenty of choice on each of the menus. Then you have the buffet which is called Islands because all the food is served from islands ;) No continuous counter.

 

I thought that the food was better quality than on P&O with more interesting choices, more international cuisine than 'meat and two veg'

 

You pay a small supplement for some drinks but IMO the house wines are quite drinkable. There is plenty of choice of other drinks.

Interesting comparison dave. When you say better quality than P&O are you meaning across the board - mdr as well as buffet? Iirc I think you prefer the buffet and as we tend to use the mdr, I'd be interested if you can draw any comparisons about the mdr's.

Interesting comparison dave. When you say better quality than P&O are you meaning across the board - mdr as well as buffet? Iirc I think you prefer the buffet and as we tend to use the mdr, I'd be interested if you can draw any comparisons about the mdr's.

It is difficult to say as I have had bad experiences with P&O main dining rooms. I don't like green beans ;) The 'special' xmas dinner last winter was awful and I found the food boring and obviously cheap. Food is subjective of course and one couple on discovery said their beef wellington was awful and did not believe me when I said mine was excellent. Same with the lady who wanted her steak well done and said it was too tough, my medium rare one was excellent.

Broadly I would say there is a bigger variety of food on Discovery but you have to move between restaurants to sample it.

I am wary of food on P&O as I have had 3 cases of upset stomach aboard including one real norovirus on Britannia. My last cruise on Aurora was ended with another bad stomach and I had to stay in Singapore for 2 days before I could fly. They basically messed up the flight arrangements etc and I ended up with substantial compensation. Maybe it is the buffet as I don't care for the mdr experience on P&O. Ventura this xmas might be make or break for P&O.

ps - Thomson breakfast sausages are awful IMO

pps - I was asked by P&O if I was interested in having xmas dinner at 3pm, there is still hope

Thanks. As you say it is always very subjective. We'd always been perfectly happy with Thomson until one seriously disappointing trip when the food quality had nose-dived. It has made us wary but more recent reports sound much more positive.

P&O got some very bad press early in the year on a number of their ships which included a face to face with senior staff on one world cruise. There was an admission of budget cuts which, it was said, were going to be reversed. I must say early this summer we thought the food was excellent both for variety and quality so hopefully your next experience will be better - although that was in the mdr.

Thanks. As you say it is always very subjective. We'd always been perfectly happy with Thomson until one seriously disappointing trip when the food quality had nose-dived. It has made us wary but more recent reports sound much more positive.

 

P&O got some very bad press early in the year on a number of their ships which included a face to face with senior staff on one world cruise. There was an admission of budget cuts which, it was said, were going to be reversed. I must say early this summer we thought the food was excellent both for variety and quality so hopefully your next experience will be better - although that was in the mdr.

My last P&O cruise was part of a worldie early this year, maybe I was one of the victims, in more than one sense ;)

Thanks Gill that's brilliant help really looking forward to it now as its our honeymoon we wanted to make sure we had a chance to relax and have the option of doing things at the same time and have heard lots of good things. Hopefully we get nice weather and calm seas for the journey over and will look into what to do on the islands from now on I think and get some things booked in. As its our honeymoon I would like to do something special for my partner would there be anything you can think of or reccomend doing that would be nice.

Thanks for your reply again

Michael

Thanks as well for the info davecttr I'm a big fan of food so the more the better and the choices sound great.

Michael, just go with the flow, but your best bet is to have a look through the excursions which have a variety of choices. It very much depends on what kind of things interest you. I love getting out in caramarans rather than coaches, going for a swim or a snorkel somewhere. We did an old school bus tour of 3 different beaches on one island which was hilarious. The rail trip in St Kitts was brilliant with rum punches and pina coladas flowing freely when we went in 2013, but not so good this year with 1 drink when we went although others in different carriages had more than 1 drink given to them which helps. Taxi drivers ply for hire and some do tours which include food if yoiu want to do island exploring with a local firm rather than Thomson. A lot on here do that sort of thing, but you must get back to the ship in plenty of time if doing one of these as it can go without you if you are not on one of Thomson excursions which they will wait for if running late.

Plenty of wonderful things to do, don't worry, just be sure you will enjoy yourselves.

Gill.