diff --git a/integration-tests/reactive-mysql-client/pom.xml b/integration-tests/reactive-mysql-client/pom.xml
index abbc89d474d2f..ae0acce505b10 100644
--- a/integration-tests/reactive-mysql-client/pom.xml
+++ b/integration-tests/reactive-mysql-client/pom.xml
@@ -212,15 +212,12 @@
                                         <!-- Speed things up a bit by not actually flushing writes to disk -->
                                         <tmpfs>/var/lib/mysql</tmpfs>
                                         <wait>
-                                            <!-- good docs found at: http://dmp.fabric8.io/#build-healthcheck -->
-                                            <tcp>
-                                                <mode>direct</mode>
-                                                <ports>
-                                                    <port>3306</port>
-                                                </ports>
-                                            </tcp>
-                                            <!-- Unfortunately booting MariaDB is slow, needs to set a generous timeout: -->
-                                            <time>40000</time>
+                                            <!-- good docs found at: http://dmp.fabric8.io/#start-wait -->
+                                            <time>20000</time>
+                                            <!-- wait until MySQL is actually up by checking if mysqladmin can ping the server with specified username/password -->
+                                            <exec>
+                                                <postStart>mysqladmin ping -h localhost -u hibernate_orm_test -phibernate_orm_test</postStart>
+                                            </exec>
                                         </wait>
                                         <volumes>
                                             <bind>