Marella Cruises

Formerly	Thomson Cruises
Type	Private Limited Company
Industry	Transport
Founded	1973
Key people	Christopher Hackney [1] (Managing Director)
Products	Cruises
Parent	TUI Group
Website	tui.co.uk/cruise.html

Marella Cruises (formerly Thomson Cruises) is a British cruise line operated by TUI UK, offering cruise holidays around Europe, the Caribbean, and Asia.

History

The company had initially entered the cruise market in 1973, but due to rising fuel costs the venture was terminated in 1976. In 1995, Thomson restarted their cruise line after their competitor Airtours had made a successful entry in the cruise business under their Sun Cruises brand. On 9 October 2017, TUI Group announced that Thomson Cruises would be rebranded in late October 2017 as Marella Cruises, with all of the existing Thomson fleet adopting the name change either from Thomson or TUI to Marella (except Thomson Spirit which will be renamed Spirit and Thomson Majesty which will be transferred to Celestyal Cruises). The line also announced that it would base TUI Discovery in Asia for the Winter season of 2018, with the ship being based out of Malaysia, the first in the line's history.^[2]

In 2012, Marella Cruises holds approximately a 1% market share of the worldwide cruise industry.^[3]

In May 2021, with the cruise sector planning for revival following the COVID-19 pandemic, TUI were reported to be planning to merge Marella Cruises with their TUI Cruises joint venture with Royal Caribbean, as they had already done with Hapag-Lloyd Cruises.^[4]

Fleet

MS Island Escape was added to the Thomson fleet in April 2009, as a result of parent company TUI's acquisition of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.'s share in Island Cruises that took place in 2008.^[5] As of March 2013, Thomson operates the Island Escape under its all-inclusive Island Cruises brand.

In March 2015, Royal Caribbean International announced that they had agreed to sell Splendour of the Seas to TUI Cruises in the second quarter of 2016, and that TUI would lease the ship to Thomson Cruises to replace the Island Escape.^[6]

In May 2015, TUI Group announced that as part of their modernization strategy, TUI Cruises' Mein Schiff 1 and Mein Schiff 2 would be transferred to Thomson Cruises over the next few years.^[7]

In October 2015, the Island Cruise brand was discontinued after the sole ship Island Escape completed her last scheduled cruise with Thomson Cruises.

In March 2017, it was announced that Mein Schiff 1 would join the fleet in May 2018, and would become the TUI Explorer.

In July 2017, Thomson had announced that they would be extending the Thomson Spirit Lease until October 2018, and she will be based out of Palma for 18 April and then based in Malaga from May 2018 with her last cruise being on 21 October 2018.

In March 2018, it was announced that Royal Caribbean Cruises and Ctrip were to close the SkySea Cruise Line brand and that the line's sole ship SkySea Golden Era would join the Marella fleet in place of Mein Schiff 2 which would stay with TUI Cruises.^[8][9] The former Mein Schiff 2 was renamed Mein Schiff Herz and joined the Marella fleet in 2023 as Marella Voyager.

In April 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced that Marella Celebration would be immediately retired from the fleet.^[10] The same was announced for Marella Dream in October 2020.^[11] Both ships were scrapped in Aliaga, Turkey, in 2022.

Current

Ship	Built	Builder	Entered service with Thomson/Marella Cruises	Gross tonnage	Flag	Home Ports Winter 2023/Summer 2024	Notes	Image
Marella Discovery	1996	Chantiers de l'Atlantique	2016	69,130 tons	Malta	Marmaris, Turkey Bridgetown, Barbados	Previously Splendour of the Seas, TUI Discovery. Sub-chartered from TUI Cruises. Renamed Marella Discovery in October 2017.
Marella Discovery 2	1995		2017	69,130 tons	Bahamas	Palma De Mallorca, Spain Singapore	Previously Legend of the Seas, TUI Discovery 2. Renamed Marella Discovery 2 in October 2017.
Marella Explorer	1996	Meyer Werft	2018	76,522 tons	Malta	Corfu, Greece Tenerife/Gran Canaria,Canary Islands	Previously Celebrity Galaxy, Mein Schiff 1, sold to Marella in 2018. originally planned to be named TUI Explorer
Marella Explorer 2	1995		2019	71,545 tons	Malta	Dubrovnik, Croatia Montego Bay, Jamaica	Previously Celebrity Century, SkySea Golden Era, sold to Marella in 2019.
Marella Voyager[12]	1997		2023	77,303 tons	Malta	Palma De Mallorca, Spain Bridgetown, Barbados	Commenced Service as Mercury/Celebrity Mercury originally planned to join the fleet in 2019 with the name TUI Explorer 2, later replaced by the SkySea Golden Era/Marella Explorer 2[13] Replacement for the Marella Dream.[14]

Former

Ship	Built	Builder	In service with Marella	Gross Tonnage	Notes	Image
SS Ithaca	1956	Deutsche Werft	1973– 1976	8,977 tons	scrapped 2003
SS Calypso	1955	Harland & Wolff	1975–1976	20,204 tons	originally Southern Cross, scrapped 2004
SS Island Breeze	1962	John Brown & Co.	1996–1998	26,632 tons	scrapped 2003
MS Sapphire	1967	Cantieri Navale Felszegi	1996–2002	12,263 tons	scrapped 2012
SS The Topaz	1956	Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering	1997–2003	25,516 tons	scrapped 2008
SS The Emerald	1958	Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock	1997–2008	26,431 tons	scrapped 2012
Marella Spirit	1983	Chantiers de l'Atlantique	2003–2018	33,930 tons	scrapped 2018
Marella Celebration	1984		2005–2020	33,960 tons	scrapped 2022
Thomson Destiny	1982	Wärtsilä Hietalahti shipyard	2005–2012	37,584 tons	Currently operating for Celestyal Cruises.
The Calypso	1967	Fincantieri	2006–2009	11,162 tons	scrapped 2013
Island Escape	1982	Dubigeon-Normandie S.A	2009–2015	40,132 tons	scrapped 2018
Marella Dream	1986	Meyer Werft	2010-2020	54,763 tons	scrapped 2022
Thomson Majesty	1992	Kvaerner Masa-Yards	2012-2015	40,876 tons	Currently operating for Mano Maritime.

Accidents and incidents

On 9 February 2013, five crewmen of MS Thomson Majesty were killed in Santa Cruz de La Palma whilst checking a lifeboat. The lifeboat ropes snapped and it plunged 65 ft from the upper deck into the sea. It overturned as it hit the water, trapping them underneath. Three crewmen were taken to hospital, but five others - three Indonesians, one Filipino and one Ghanaian - drowned as rescue attempts were made.

References