Kalynan

Cheers, we're all on way to recovery. I'm in front and now testing negative !

Forgot to add, the only other thing we brought back on the flight was Covid ! Well we think we got it on the flight rather than the cruise as we tested several times after our return on the Thursday - all negative and then the first of our party of 4 (me) to test positive wasn't until 3 days later on the Sunday. After myself, all 3 others tested positive in the next few days. All have had only minor symptoms and now getting well on the way back to normality, thank goodness !!

We were there a few weeks back and we had to collect the luggage from the carousel at Dubrovnik and take through security to the waiting buses outside. The luggage was loaded into a box-type van and then transported to the ship to be delivered to our cabins while we were transported by bus to the port terminal to compete all the admin. Interestingly on the return flight the luggage was 'bonded' all the way from outside our cabin door the evening before our flight, to the carousel back in the UK (Glasgow for us) without us having to lug it around. Only stuff we took through the airport security and onto the flight was our carry-on bags. To be fair, this was reasonably well organised both outbound and inbound.

Pool towels (blue) were provided recently on Ex2. To change them over, just leave them on the floor in the shower with your other bathroom towels that need to be replaced.

Hi Jim, apparently on our sailing there was around 1400-ish passengers (information sourced from a girl in the Spa who did nails for my sister-in-law) which is around 75% - 80% capacity. Definitely would have needed more staff if we had been at full capacity !! Hope things are better on your Discovery cruise !!

We just finished the Sail 3 Seas today which included Sicily and Italy as Destinations & they still require FFP2 masks on public transport including tour buses and some shops. Marella say bring your own, however on our tours they were handing out masks at the tour buses when passengers were boarding.

We were also on this cruise and agree with everything mentioned by Oscar. We sailed on Ex2 from Newcastle last September to Iceland and the experience then was a lot better. Better food, better service & better entertainment all meaning a better experience with better value for money. Having said this, this cruise was still good (just not as good as 8 months ago). We have also cruised on a few of the other Marella ships, even the old Dream and things have changed quite a bit for the worse unfortunately. We had really long waiting times in the MDR and when food did arrive the quality was not there (beware the Lasagne in the Vista about which we complained to the senior dining room supervisor ). In Nonna's restaurant last night it took the staff 3 attempts to bring the ordered drinks and this was only 2 x cans of Diet Coke !!! The same Cocktails ordered in different bars were frequently not made to the same standard and some were just plainly rubbish. The crew are not to be blamed directly but much rather the senior management team at TUI/Marella who set the strategy and corporate approach are responsible. TUI/Marella are obviously cutting back on their costs however they will need to be careful to not diminish the product too much to make it unattractive, especially since their pricing does not make them as attractive an option as they once were to the bigger cruise lines. Overall it was a good cruise MAINLY because the weather was brilliant and the destinations were all excellent, as opposed to anything that Marella did.

PLF no longer required for Croatia, as per below...... https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/croatia/entry-requirements