My husband and I have just returned from a 14-day cruise aboard the Costa Marina, starting at Savona, Italy, on 14th February, and visiting Spain, North Africa, the Atlantic Islands, and France. Before booking, we fully appreciated that the Costa Marina was a very small ship, with only around 800 passengers, but having read a couple of favourable reviews, and with the incentive of the reasonable price offered, we thought this would be a good choice for our first cruise, to celebrate our recent retirement - & of course Valentine's Day!

Things went wrong from the start!

The travel (arranged by Costa), comprised a KLM flight from Aberdeen, via Amsterdam, to Milan, followed by a 2.5 hour bus journey to Savona. It was hectic at every stage, involving delays, frantic dashes from one runway to another, and then a long queue at Milan to fill in paperwork when our suitcase was lost! There were about a dozen British couples in the same situation, all trying to get to the Costa Marina on time, minus all their suitcases! We arrived late, after the scheduled sailing time, although they held the ship up for us. We were very tired and hungry, having eaten practically nothing but an ice-cold, KLM sandwich all day. Having missed afternoon tea, we were not offered any refreshment, and we barely had time for a drink of bottled water (found in our tiny cabin & for which we were later charged 2.88 euros!) before being rushed into a mandatory safety drill. We had booked an early sitting for dinner, but this was changed by Costa to a late sitting, at 8.45 pm, due to demand from higher priority Costa Club passengers and we were unable to alter it. Read more