 | |
| Formerly | Thomson Cruises |
|---|---|
| Company type | Private Limited Company |
| Industry | Transport |
| Founded | 1973 |
Key people | Christopher Hackney [1] (Managing Director) |
| Products | Cruises |
| Parent | TUI Group |
| Website | tui |
Marella Cruises (formerly Thomson Cruises) is a British cruise line operated by TUI UK, offering cruise holidays around Europe, the Caribbean, and Asia.
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]
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.
| Ship | Built | Builder | Entered service with Thomson/Marella Cruises | Gross tonnage | Flag | Home Ports Summer 2024/Winter 2024-25 | 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 La Romana, Dominican Republic | 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] |  |
| 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. | 1997–2000 | 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 | laid up | |
| 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. |  |
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.[ citation needed ]
Royal Caribbean International (RCI), previously known as Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (RCCL), is a cruise line brand founded in 1968 in Norway and organized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group since 1997. Based in Miami, Florida, it is the largest cruise line by revenue and second largest by passengers counts. In 2018, Royal Caribbean International controlled 19.2% of the worldwide cruise market by passengers and 14.0% by revenue. As of January 2024, the line operates 28 ships and has three additional ships on order.
Celebrity Cruises is a cruise line headquartered in Miami, Florida and a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group. Celebrity Cruises was founded in 1988 by the Greece-based Chandris Group, and merged with Royal Caribbean Cruise Line in 1997. Celebrity's signature logo is an "Χ" displayed on the funnel of Celebrity ships, and is the Greek letter chi, for "Chandris".
Royal Caribbean Group, formerly known as Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., is a global cruise holding company incorporated in Liberia and based in Miami, Florida. It is the world's second-largest cruise line operator, after Carnival Corporation & plc. As of March 2024, Royal Caribbean Group fully owns three cruise lines: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Silversea Cruises with 65 ships in the current fleet and 5 ships on order until 2028. They also hold a 50% stake in TUI Cruises and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises.
Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), also known in short as Norwegian, is an American cruise line founded in Norway in 1966, incorporated in Bermuda and headquartered in Miami. It is the fourth-largest cruise line in the world by passengers, controlling about 8.6% of the total worldwide share of the cruise market by passengers as of 2021. It is wholly owned by parent company Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings.
MSC Cruises is a Swiss global cruise line based in Geneva, with operations offices in Naples, Genoa and Venice. It was founded in 1970 in Naples, Italy, as part of the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC). In addition to being the world's largest privately held cruise company, employing about 23,500 people worldwide and with offices in 45 countries as of 2017, MSC Cruises is the third-largest cruise company in the world, after Carnival Corporation & plc and Royal Caribbean Group, with a 10.2% share of all passengers carried in 2021.
Marella Explorer is a Century-class cruise ship owned and operated by Marella Cruises. Before joining TUI she cruised as MV Galaxy with Celebrity Cruises, and later as Mein Schiff with TUI Cruises. She was laid down at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany, on 25 May 1995, was launched in May 1996, and was delivered to Celebrity Cruises on 10 October 1996. She entered service on 21 December 1996.
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The MV Horizon was a cruise ship that sailed from 1990-2020, and was the first new build for Celebrity Cruises. She was sent for scrapping in Aliaga in 2022.
Island Cruises was a cruise line that was founded as a joint venture between Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and First Choice Travel PLC, each of whom owned 50% of the company. The company operated in Europe, the Caribbean, and South America, aiming its products primarily at markets in the United Kingdom, Brazil and Argentina. First Choice was later acquired by TUI Travel. In 2008, Royal Caribbean sold its stake in the company to TUI, and the cruise line's only fully owned ship, the Island Escape, was transferred to TUI's Thomson Cruises. Island Cruises was discontinued in 2015.
Marella Discovery is a former Royal Caribbean International Vision-class cruise ship now sailing for Marella Cruises. The second in the line of the Vision-class ships, she features a seven-story lobby, rock-climbing wall, and a 9-hole miniature golf course.
The Vision class is a group of six cruise ships built by Royal Caribbean International, and operated by themselves and Marella Cruises. Although called a class by Royal Caribbean, the Vision-class ships were built as three pairs of sister ships, each pair differing from the others in size and design. Unlike other Royal Caribbean classes, the Vision class is not named for the first ship built; Vision of the Seas was the last ship in the class to be built. Royal Caribbean had been promoting "Project Vision" for some time before ordering the first two ships in the class in 1992, but Vision of the Seas was not ordered until 1994.
Marella Explorer 2, formerly Celebrity Century and SkySea Golden Era, was the lead ship of the Century class of cruise ships for Celebrity Cruises, and the co-flagship of the Celebrity fleet, along with Millennium-class ship Celebrity Constellation, and the newest Solstice class, Celebrity Reflection. Other ships belonging to the Century class include Marella Explorer and Mein Schiff 2 (2011).
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