This was my first cruising experience and was therefore unsure what to expect. I loved every minute of my Costa cruise! I am a university student who travelled with my parents and had a great time onboard. The atmosphere was great, the staff friendly and entertainment quite enjoyable. Though english was the minority language, this only added to our experience. The value was quite amazing as it only cost about $1500 for all three of us to cruise for 7 nights.

We flew into Nice on the morning of our embarkation and took a 2hr shuttle bus booked through Costa to the port in Savona. This worked out very nicely, getting us to the ship with just over an hour to spare before departure - definately worth the additional 49 pounds. The actual embarkation was smooth, our bags already in our room by the time we arrived. My only criticism would be that as non-EU citizens we were made to surrender our passports upon embarkation for the duration of the cruise. It was never made clear to us why this is a policy and were uncomfortable exploring forgein cities without proper identification.

We had an oceanview cabin on deck 2 and had ample room as we did not spend much free time in the cabin. The room was equipped with outlets of varying voltages so an adapter was not necessary (though we did need to use one if more than one person required an outlet at once). If I was to book a cruise later in the season I may look into a stateroom with a balcony, but as it was, the mornings were quite chilly in midmarch and am not sure I would have used it much. Our housekeeper was always around the hall to offer help and was always on top of things, one of the nicest staff we met! Read more