Marella Dream has begun a minor refurbishment and intensive refit at Palumbo Shipyards’ Lenak Rijeka yard in Croatia. It will be her last before she is sold out of the Marella Cruises fleet.

The ship is undergoing regular maintenance and classification checks, as well as steel renewal work, but will also have some minor changes and upgrades made to her public areas and staterooms.

Marella Dream is getting her final facelift while under the Marella colours

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The 1986-built, 1,506-passenger ship was last refurbished in November 2018 following a 12-day dry dock in Cadiz.

Marella Cruises haven’t said exactly what changes are being made to the ship, but it’s unlikely to be anything extensive as the cruise line has confirmed Marella Dream (along with Marella Celebration) will be leaving the fleet by 2024.

“[Dream] will be having a refurb to make sure it is up to the standard our customers want and expect. The dry dock will give us chance to look at all areas [of the ship] and get done what we need done,” Chris Hackney, Managing Director, Marella Cruises told Cruise Critic.

“We’ve got some draft plans for the ship, but they haven’t been finalised at this stage. There will need to be more of a review on that, but we’ve got time to do that after Explorer 2’s launch,” he added.

Marella Celebration is also due to leave the fleet in the next few years

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During that same interview he revealed that Marella Cruises would be retiring its two oldest ships in the next few years.

“I would say they [Dream and Celebration] will retire in the next five years. That’s realistically the timeline. We haven’t got concrete plans for when they leave and what replacement options will be, clearly we are in the market to grow and not shrink,” he said at the time.

The 1984-built Marella Celebration is homeporting in Dubai for the coming cruise season between November, 2020 and March, 2021. The British cruise line will sail it’s second cruise season in the Middle East after deploying Celebration in Dubai during 2016/17, a season that the cruise line said had been extremely popular.

Marella Celebration will arrive in Dubai on December 15th, 2020 and begin a season of 16 roundtrip cruises from the city until March, 2021. Each cruise will be 7-nights and will visit several cities in the Arabian Gulf.