{"id":685910,"date":"2026-01-10T03:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T03:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/685910\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T03:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T03:45:11","slug":"west-lothian-couple-say-their-5000-honeymoon-cruise-turned-into-a-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/685910\/","title":{"rendered":"West Lothian couple say their \u00a35,000 honeymoon cruise turned into a nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"

A West Lothian couple who spent \u00a35,000 on a honeymoon cruise in the Caribbean <\/strong>say a litany of problems on the ship turned their holiday into a nightmare.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lorna Smith and Darin Paterson boarded the Marella Discovery on December 2 and were soon told parts of the ship were out of bounds because of overrunning maintenance work.<\/p>\n

Lorna\u2019s part of a Facebook group where hundreds of other passengers are sharing their concerns \u2013 including the tap water turning brown and an overnight fire in a laundry room.<\/p>\n

There was also a power failure, which plunged the ship into darkness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was looking forward to the holiday of a lifetime,\u201d Darin told STV News. \u201cBut it was a pure shambles from start to finish.<\/p>\n

\"DarinContributedDarin and Lorna on their wedding day. Contributed<\/p>\n

Lorna added \u201cHalfway through the holiday, I thought \u2018I just want to go home now, I\u2019ve had enough\u2019. It wasn\u2019t enjoyable. We did get to meet a lot of nice people and chatted away to them, but everybody was basically in the same boat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no water in any of the pools; they were all empty. There was scaffolding up on the pool deck, and we couldn\u2019t use it. The pool bar was closed, and they only had one pool bar open in the atrium during the day, so everyone congregated there. There were disabled people who couldn\u2019t even get a seat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple say a planned visit to Antigua was dropped due to technical work, while docking in the British Virgin Islands was scrapped as a result of \u201cweather concerns\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like some compensation or even a refund, because it was a trip from hell\u201d, said Darin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve not carried out what they were meant to carry out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lorna added: \u201cThey haven\u2019t fulfilled what we booked. I know there can be changes because it\u2019s a cruise, things happen, weather etcetera, but the majority of this was nothing to do with the weather.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was to do with the ship \u2013 it shouldn\u2019t have sailed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marella Cruises said on Friday it had apologised to passengers for their experience and that it had made a gesture of goodwill.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said:\u00a0\u201cWe apologise to guests for their experience and understand the disappointment it may have caused.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of our commitment to our customers, we have extended a gesture of goodwill and remain focused on providing enjoyable and memorable holidays.\u201d<\/p>\n

STV News is now on WhatsApp<\/p>\n

Get all the latest news from around the country<\/p>\n

Follow STV News <\/a>Follow STV News on WhatsApp<\/p>\n

Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country<\/p>\n

\"WhatsApp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A West Lothian couple who spent \u00a35,000 on a honeymoon cruise in the Caribbean say a litany of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-685910","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115868750634415769","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}