Marella Cruises Marks 30th Anniversary with Record Bookings and Fresh Homeports
Marella Cruises is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year carrying record-high forward bookings, according to the UK cruise brand's CEO, who says the milestone year has arrived on the back of the company's most successful year yet.
A strong position heading into year 30
Chris Hackney, CEO of Marella Cruises, said the brand entered 2026 in good shape across every measure that matters to the business, following what he described as Marella's best-ever year in 2025. The anniversary was marked with a fleet celebration in May, when two of Marella's ships gathered simultaneously in Corsica and Dubrovnik for a "party like it was 1996" themed event, a nod to the brand's origins as Thomson Cruises, which launched in 1996.
The line has changed considerably over its three decades. As recently as a decade ago, Marella operated a mixed fleet, blending its own ships with vessels chartered from third-party operators such as Celestyal, which resulted in varying ship sizes and inconsistent onboard offerings. Today the brand operates five ships of similar scale and layout, which Hackney credits with delivering a far more consistent, easily marketed product and giving customers clearer expectations of what they're booking.
The all-inclusive advantage
Marella was among the first cruise lines to move to an all-inclusive model across its entire fleet, and Hackney sees that positioning as particularly well suited to the current travel market, where cost certainty matters to holidaymakers. He said onboard service scores are currently running at 9.7 to 9.8 out of 10 across the fleet.
Much of Marella's flexibility comes from its relationship with parent group TUI, which gives the brand access to TUI's own airline, hotel portfolio and destination infrastructure. Hackney said having TUI's in-house airline available from more than 20 UK and Ireland airports gives the company a real advantage in deployment planning, putting most customers within around 90 minutes of a departure airport.
New homeports and growing hotel add-ons
For the coming winter season, Marella will operate two ships in the Canary Islands and three across the Caribbean. A new homeport in Malaga is planned for 2027, continuing a pattern of adding fresh embarkation points that has already included La Romana and Limassol.
The TUI hotel portfolio is increasingly shaping those homeport decisions too. Hackney said roughly 20% of Marella guests now combine a cruise with a hotel stay afterwards, with growth in that trend accelerating over the past 12 to 18 months as more customers opt to add three or four nights ashore after a week's cruise. Access to TUI's wide range of hotel properties at the destinations Marella flies to supports that pairing.
Dining, feedback and staying power
Onboard, food and beverage development is being driven by a combination of post-cruise surveys and a real-time in-app rating system rolled out across the fleet, letting guests rate individual restaurants and venues during their sailing itself. Marella is now applying artificial intelligence tools to that feedback data to surface trends more quickly. Each ship carries more than ten restaurants, with new concepts added based on demand: Umi Sushi launched aboard Marella Voyager in late 2025 after nine months of development, following an earlier Mexican restaurant introduced when the ship entered service in 2023. Further new venue concepts are in development for Marella Discovery 2, with a planned launch later in 2026.
Hackney said customer satisfaction scores and repeat-booking rates are both at record highs, crediting staff training that encourages individual personality rather than a scripted approach to service, alongside the deeper insight the line now has into what guests actually want.
"The key is really listening to what your customers are telling you," Hackney said. "We've got much more in-depth insight now. That's the foundation of what we should be basing our decisions around."
Sources
- Cruise Industry News: "Marella Marks 30 Year Anniversary with Momentum" (21 July 2026; excerpted from the Summer 2026 Cruise Industry News Quarterly Magazine)