Costa Serena. A brand new ship. Absolutely chaotic. Costa has not been able to implement many of their processes in the ship when it comes to customer service. We could see the staff struggling when you went to them with questions or queries.
Must admit, the ship herself was beautiful, latest equipment and great interiors and decor. Loved it.
Had bad experience in the following matters: 1. Embarkation was a mess. No clear priority was demonstrated for Suite class passengers 2. Very bad communication through the Indian Travel agent. We never received any information package after we booked the cruise except for one cruise confirmation ticket. NOTHING ELSE. Therefore we had to end up doing lots of paper work when we reached the ship. 3. Some of their staff in the ship were racist and clearly demonstrated hatred towards an Indian family (that we are one). 4. Asian vegetarian food was tough to find. In India, costa had advertised that they will provide Indian food on board. But we did not find it. I had to fight and ask, post which they gave me some basic indian vegetarian food everyday. 5. Activities for Children was an absolute let down. Our nine year old didn't have any good activities to participate. 6. The customer service centre in the ship always had very Loooonnnggg queues. 7. Not very friendly for english speaking passengers. Italian and Spanish were clearly the main preferred language. English took a back seat and all announcements made in English lacked clarity and lacked appropriate pronunciation. 8. Destinations like Bari, Italy and Dubrovnik in Croatia are absolute waste of time. 9. Shore excursion was fairly okay but for at Dubrovnik, Croatia. We had a nightmarish experience with a shore guide called Mr Mario who was hired by Costa for a guided tour. He was an arrogant, loud mouthed dictator. He did not allowed us to board the tour bus because we were eating ice-creams. He shut the door of the bus and made us stand in the street. Finally he allowed us to board after we threw the icecreams in the dust bin. He did not allow an elderly woman do take a toilet break. She abandoned the guided tour because of that. Costa did not demonstrate careful screening and selection of tour guides. 10. Costa may not be friendly for elderly people to travel given the way they select tour guides.