Costa Fascinosa Review

Cannot reach Costa by phone on weekends - causes big problems

Review for the Mediterranean Cruise on Costa Fascinosa
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looksatsmallthings
6-10 Cruises • Age 60s

Rating by category

Cabin
Value for Money
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Additional details

Sail Date: Apr 2015
Cabin: Inside Classic

We chose a Costa cruise because of our very positive experience with them 8 years ago. We have done 9 or 10 cruises with different companies including Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, and Holland-America. We knew in advance that there would be few fellow Americans on the ship, that Italian would be the main language, followed by German, Spanish, French, and all the rest. The Fascinosa is a very large ship that was remodeled a couple of years ago. It is nice, not glitzy like the Royal Caribbean, The weather was excellent throughout the trip, which took place during Europe's spring break for public schools (in fact the voyage began on Easter Sunday) so there were a lot of families with children of all ages. Costa cruises seem to cater to families with kids and do not aggressively peddle alcoholic drinks - both a plus in our opinion.

Travel to our embarcation point was a big problem. We had booked the airline flight to Milan separately (not through Costa), but did book ground transportation from Milan Malpensa Airport to the ship in Savona through Costa (Gioco Viaggi was the ground transport service). Although the overnight flight was supposed to land at 8:30 AM local time on April 5 (the date of embarcation), it did not land until 1:30 PM that same day because the original aircraft had to be replaced. The Gioco Viaggi van was supposed to leave at 12 noon that same day, for a 2 1/2 hour ride to the ship which would leave at 5:30PM (but you had to be aboard by 4:30PM). We knew that we might be late and attempted to contact both Costa and Gioco Viaggi the previous evening, as well as Expedia to ask if Gioco Viaggi would wait for us. It was impossible to contact Costa at all on the weekend by phone (only available for calls Monday through Friday) and we could not even leave a voicemail. We left emails at both Gioco Viaggi and Costa and also asked Expedia for help. When we landed the next day and got out of the luggage area, the Gioco Viaggi van was gone although other carriers for other cruises from the same port were waiting for their similarly delayed passengers. We contacted Gioco Viaggi who said they had received no email from us and there was nothing they could do for us. We found out later from a fellow Costa passenger who was on that very same van that the van had waited for him coming in from a delayed flight from Germany. The upshot was that we missed the boat and had stay overnight in an airport hotel to fly to Rome the next morning and embark from Civitavecchia. Costa's response was to sen us a dessert and fruit tray to our cabin and offer 25% of shore excursions (which we never use because they are always really overpriced for what you get).

Dining - our previous experience with Costa told us that the food is better than average, and the food quality was in fact better than average on this trip as well. However, the food policies are different now. Buffet is available for breakfast and lunch, only. Supper is no longer served in the buffet area - you have to either eat in the dining room or in one of their restaurants where you pay extra (or I suppose you can still do room service). I suppose this is more civilized than the American style of eating 24/7, but it represents a change from our Costa cruise from several years ago. Service in dining room was fine. One odd item is that they no longer offer free drinking water at dinner - you either have to purchase a bottle of water or other beverage a la cart or through one of the beverage plans. We actually brought in our own water bottles filled up at the buffet and the waiters looked the other way.

Cabin Review

Inside Classic

Cabin IC

The cabin was the usual interior cabin that we always book because it is the least expensive and we do not intend to spend much time there other than for sleeping, bathroom and storage. Our expectations were that it would be clean, and it was. The steward was pleasant enough. The bed was comfortable enough. Only strange item was that the little extra things like sewing kits, lotion, and shower caps were not automatically there in the bathroom - you had to ask for them.

Port Reviews

Genoa

Although we missed the port coming in, we saw it on our way out. Savona is a pleasant town and the people there were very friendly to us and helped us get to the train station between half a mile and one kilometer from the port. We walked to the train station with our rolling luggage and skipped the scenic stuff that appeared to be in an area we would cover in 1/2 to 1 day of walking if there were an informative walking tour available.

We had already booked the Best Western City Hotel in the center of Genoa for two nights following our disembarcation. This is a four star hotel in the center of 80% of what one would want to see in Genoa. It was a bit difficult to find using Google Maps, but is only a 20 minute walk from the Genoa Piazza Principe train station when dragging rolling luggage. The breakfast buffet was excellent in quality and quantity, including locally produced cakes, croissants, eggs, bacon, various cereals, and freshly extracted vegetable and fruit juice (you select the vegetables and fruits and they juice it for you). One could get a complementary snack with coffee or tea in the same location later in the day, consisting of the croissants and bread left over from the breakfast buffet.

There are numerous restaurants throughout this city, most of which have not been reviewed in Tripadvisor or Yelp - either in the English or Italian versions. Note that many restaurants are open every day for lunch, but only a couple of evenings for supper. Many are located in alleyways and narrow streets that are quaint and charming in broad daylight but poorly lit and creepy in the dark. As city dwellers, my wife and I chose to avoid these areas at night. We also chose, some of the time, to eat food purchased at supermarkets - always interesting to see what everyday people there are eating. If you like fruitcake or lebkuchen, then you should get some panforte at the supermarket, Gelato and bakery goods are always fun to get while on the go.

Because our time was limited and the weather was pleasantly sunny but still cool, we opted to tour outdoors and skip museums. We saw the outside views of virtually all of the palazzos, churches, and monuments in the city center in two days of walking using a map without an audio tour. With audio tours and going into all the museums would take us a solid week, at least.

The churches are free to enter and look around. Many are still undergoing restoration work of their interior since Genoa was heavily bombarded in WW2. If it seems odd that restoration is taking place so long after the war, consider that many cathedrals took hundreds of years to build in the first place, and the first priority post-war was to house the people in need of shelter and repair buildings that provide governmental functions. The Jesuit church is fully restored and resplendent in detailed work covering all walls and ceilings. Other churches have interesting explanations on posters describing their restoration activities and the original construction. One observation that I had was that in all the churches that had printed up history, most of them omitted any mention of WW2- the cause of their needing to be restored and why many of their statues were obviously reconstructed from fragments. One notable exception was a church that had a large, unexploded shell fired from a British naval vessel on display as evidence for a miracle protecting that particular church.

Most of the palazzos now house government agencies, universities, schools, and businesses, so how far you can explore the inside of these varies widely.

Rome (Civitavecchia)

Rome is a very big city 2 hrs away from the port by train. Frankly, the best way to see Rome is to to spend at least a week there (the longer, the better). That is what my family did in 1999. An excursion from the ship will give a minimal, superficial exposure that is little better than a live version of your looking at it on the internet. Since we had to catch the boat from Civitavecchia, having missed it from Savona, we were dragging luggage and decide to give up on trying any tourist stuff there. Despite that, we could not avoid passing the Collosseum, triumphal arches, ancient wall portions, and various statuary on the bus ride from the airport into the central train station. Civitavecchia is a small town with a big port. It is an easy walk from the train station to the port. Once in the port, it is advisable to catch one of the free shuttle buses to actually get to your ship as the port is large and the roads have a lot of twists and turns.

Palermo (Sicily)

We caught the City Sightseeing Hop-On-Hop-Off bus which had two major loops through the city for 24 euros per adult. We found this the most efficient way to see the city in the limited time we had there. The sound is transistor radio quality, but in multiple languages (you select from the dials on the box next to your seat) and reasonably informative. Note, if you want to see things well, sit on the top deck of the double-decker bus. Also, save your ticket for a 10% discount on any following City Sight-seeing tours purchased later.

Palma de Mallorca (Majorca)

We took another City Sightseeing tour based on our experience with them in Palermo. However, this tour was disappointingly uninformative compared to the Palermo tour and I cannot recommend using them until they completely overhaul their recordings. That said, Palma de Mallorca is a nice city with a history much more interesting than is suggested by its current role as a resort town for Northern Europeans in search of better weather. Since it was early in the season, many of the resort-type businesses were closed.

Barcelona

Barcelona, like Rome, is a big city that cannot be properly appreciated in a single day tour. We used the same City Sightseeing tour service mentioned in my reviews of Palermo and Palma de Mallorca. like Palermo and unlike Palma de Mallorca, the tour was informative and interesting. The time ashore was too short to take all of the bus routes, so we prioritized the Sagrada Familia cathedral (designed by Gaudi and still under construction) and got there by doing three quarters of one bus loop and then walking 15 minutes. The only way to get back to the ship on time was to take part of another intersecting bus loop and walk 15 minutes down Las Ramblas back to the port. Barcelona has several buildings aside from cathedrals that were designed by Gaudi and these are surprisingly modern appearing even though they were built in the 1920s, Some are available for inside tours. Barcelona is also a big sports town and the tour bus stops at the stadium and its outlet shops. For those interested in languages, Barcelona is the capital of Catalunya (Catalonia) and the local dialect/language is Catalan which has characteristics of French as well as Castilian Spanish. SIgns are in Catalan as well as Castilian Spanish (Castellano).

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