Marella Cruises, a TUI Group brand that operates five ships, announced new deployment plans for Marella Discovery 2, starting with departures in November 2024.
The new cruise schedule follows the line’s decision in April 2024 to cancel the ship’s originally planned series of cruises in the Middle East and Asia, due to the ongoing instability in the Red Sea region.
The 1,836-guest Marella Discovery 2, which originally operated as Royal Caribbean’s Legend of the Seas, will be based in Malaga, Spain, in November and then in Tenerife and Gran Canaria, in Canary Islands, from December 2024 to March 2025. The ship will deploy to Limassol, Cyprus, for her summer series of cruises in 2025.
All of the newly announced itineraries opened for sale on May 23, 2024. From Malaga, the ship will offer two 7-night itineraries. “Spanish Flavours” will call at Palma de Mallorca, Barcelona, Valencia, Cartagena, and Gibraltar, while “Sights and Delights” will visit Lisbon, Portugal, Cadiz, Cartagena, and Motril, Spain, and Casablanca.
Starting on November 28, 2024, and continuing into spring 2025, the ship will sail from Tenerife and operate the 7-night itinerary “Winter Escape,” calling at Malaga, Gibraltar, Cadiz, and Gran Canaria.
On March 24, 2025, the ship will offer a 7-night “Sail Into Spring” cruise, visiting Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Cartagena, Malta and Limassol, Cyprus. This itinerary repositions the ship to Cyprus for the summer season.
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“We are delighted to offer these itineraries out of two of our well-established homeports for this winter. We know guests love the beautiful Canaries and Madeira and as Marella Cruises is part of TUI, we are able to offer incredible experiences ashore with our destination teams as well as a great onboard experience too,” said Chris Hackney, managing director of cruise at TUI UK.
“We do appreciate how disappointing it was to those customers who were impacted by the cancellation of our Asia programme on Marella Discovery 2, but we are confident with the breadth of programme we have to offer something different to our customers,” added Hackney.
Marella Cruises Features Land Stays, Air-Inclusive Rates
Marella Cruises also features a variety of pre- and post-cruise land stays through the upcoming winter season, offering some 100 hotels at destinations such as Malaga, Gran Canaria, Tenerife, and Cyprus, allowing cruise guests to lengthen their vacations and more fully explore the destinations.
Air-inclusive cruise packages are offered to guests booking either the “Spanish Flavours” or the “Sights and Delights” itineraries. Priced at £931 (about $1,200 USD) per person, the fly-cruise fare covers accommodations in an inside cabin, gratuities, and transfers.
Marella Discovery 2 is currently home-ported in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, operating alternating 7-day cruises in the Western Mediterranean. The “Highlights of the Mediterranean” cruise calls at Corsica and Saint-Raphael, France; Rome and Livorno, Italy; and Barcelona. The “Cosmopolitan Classics” voyage visits Sardinia, Salerno, and Piombino, Italy; Nice, France; and Palamos, Spain.
The cruise line was in the news earlier this week when it announced a new initiative to curtail the release of microplastics into the ocean. Using a new filter in the onboard laundry system, Marella Cruises began a six-month trial program on Marella Explorer.
Microplastics are a major pollutant in the ocean, impacting marine life such as plankton, fish, and mammals. A filter created by Cleaner Seas Group is intended to remove microfibers from laundry wastewater before it is discharged into the ocean.
