Marella Cruises will put its Summer 2028 program on sale October 15, 2026, anchored by six new itineraries, a first-time call at the Greek port of Patras, and a cruise-and-stay offer spanning 119 hotels.

The headline distribution shift for sellers: Marella is concentrating capacity in four European homeports — Corfu, Malaga, Palma and Dubrovnik — rather than spreading the fleet across new bases. That gives agents fewer gateways to learn but deeper inventory in each, with sailings departable from 22 airports across the UK and Republic of Ireland.

The new itineraries

The new port, Patras, features on the "Grecian Gems" itinerary aboard Marella Explorer, sailing from its Corfu homeport starting July 2028. The call extends the line's Eastern Mediterranean coverage on Greece's northwest coast, a region most cruise operators reach only through Athens or Ionian Sea routings.

The second new itinerary, "Spanish Shores," is a seven-night roundtrip from Malaga aboard Marella Explorer 2 from June 2028, calling at Gibraltar, Ibiza Town, Mahon on Menorca, Palma on Majorca, Cartagena and a day at sea.

CEO Chris Hackney framed the deployment around measured demand, not projection. "We're building on the continued popularity of our core homeports for Summer 2028," he said. "Demand for our Eastern Mediterranean Cruises remains strong, with Summer 2027 already ahead of last year. We're also returning to Malaga for another summer season following the success of previous sailings from the region."

That Summer 2027 booking pace — already ahead of the prior year — is the concrete demand signal behind the 2028 build-out. Hackney also flagged Patras as part of a broader push: "We're always looking for opportunities to offer customers new destinations and Patras is an exciting addition to our program. Alongside new itineraries and expanded cruise and stay options, Summer 2028 will give customers even more choice when planning their next cruise."

Four repositioning sailings

The remaining four new itineraries are repositioning cruises from April 2028, packaged with special guest speakers and additional entertainment — an attempt to convert low-season positioning legs into sellable product rather than discount inventory. They are:

• Sail into Spring (Marella Explorer): a 10-night sailing from Las Palmas, Gran Canaria to Corfu, and an 11-night sailing from Santa Cruz, Tenerife to Corfu
• Flavors of the Mediterranean (Marella Discovery 2): a five-night cruise from Palma to Dubrovnik
• Transatlantic Treasures (Marella Explorer 2): a 13-night sailing from Barbados to Malaga
• Atlantic Horizons (Marella Voyager): a 13-night sailing from Barbados to Palma

Fleet deployment and cruise-and-stay

The rest of the fleet homeports in Europe for the season: Marella Discovery and Marella Voyager in Palma, Majorca, and Marella Discovery 2 in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

The cruise-and-stay program expands to 119 hotels across Majorca, Corfu, Dubrovnik and Malaga — all four homeport markets — which tightens the link between Marella's hotel inventory and its port strategy. For sellers, it packages a pre- or post-cruise stay in the same market as embarkation, simplifying the sale and lengthening average booking value.

The October 15, 2026 on-sale date gives the trade roughly two years of lead time on Summer 2028 departures, and the line will be watching whether the Summer 2027 booking pace it cites carries through to justify the expanded hotel and homeport commitments.