Inside

Balcony

Outside

Costa Cruises

Family Cruises

Gay & Lesbian Cruises

Romantic Cruises

Singles Cruises

Cruises for the Disabled

Senior Cruises

Fitness Cruises

Gourmet Food Cruises

La Romana (Casa de Campo)

Genoa

Guadeloupe

Caribbean - All

Caribbean - Eastern

Dominican Republic

Caribbean - Southern

France

Caribbean - Western

Mexico - All

Transatlantic

Jamaica

Terrible

Very Good

Poor

Costa Pacifica

Costa Favolosa

FABULOUS DEAL TRANSATLANTIC MARCH 19 TO APRIL 3RD. 2023

Colon (Cristobal)

We chose this cruise because a group of friends were going and we liked the destination itinerary.       

Right from the start there were communication issues... the Costa app didn't work for anyone with a US phone.  Everyday we were told the app would be working the next day. The only day it worked was our last day in port when we were disembarking the ship. Outside our cabin, we were supposed to receive a nightly itinerary for the next day which was to include excursion tickets and instructions, but that was incorrect more than 50% of the time. That created confusion and a lot of time wasted in the mornings trying to find where and when our excursions were departing.

 Before the trip, we booked a number of excursions, which were all underwhelming (at best), and when we tried to cancel one excursion near the end of the trip, they made it basically impossible to cancel and get a refund.  The entire operational part of the cruise felt designed to take your money and after that, you're on your own.

The stateroom and balcony were small but adequate. The cabin did have a bit of a musty smell, but other than that, very clean. Also, on a positive note, our cabin housekeeping was excellent (5 stars) the entire trip. 

On most of the boat the food was mediocre at best and the food service staff was not very helpful.  The exception to this was in the Archipelago Restaurant.  By far, the best part of the cruise.  Everyone there, from the maitre'd, Fabrizio, to all the servers (Deepen, our favorite), did a stellar job.  Nunzio, the Sommelier, was very versed in his craft and had a great personality. We enjoyed him immensely. In fact, we ended up eating there almost every night.  The food was very good, (not the best I've ever had) but the overall experience was what made it. Kudos to this group! 

We utilized the spa massage services a number of times and the staff there was friendly and did a nice job. The facilities were clean and the overall spa atmosphere was good.

A big disappointment was no one on the "Help staff" (especially the excursion people) really seemed to want to help resolve any issues you had. The excursion "help" desk was only open for a very limited time each day and they were much more interested in trying to book excursions, rather than help people resolve problems.  They were quick to tell you to use the "app" which wasn't working for us and kept sending us to the wifi desk to get the app to work.  There we stood in another line to wait and hear "it should be working tomorrow".  It became evident that no one really cared and it was a futile attempt to try to resolve the situation. 

Many of the bartenders and food servers also exhibited a negative "I don't care attitude" which we found offensive at times. We are not demanding travelers but we encountered numerous incidents where a lack of common courtesy was exhibited and certainly not  be expected. 

We've traveled on a number of other cruise lines and do not plan on using Costa for any future travel.  There are too many good alternatives to choose from.

Don't like to complain, but in this case, I will make an exception.

Several years ago I had a fabulous cruise with Costa (a few wrong things for me) but fabulous.  I had not heard from them for ages and suddenly I got this offer and it was amazing.  I was not even thinking of cruises at the time.  It began in La Romana and ended in Sevona Italy....7 fabulous stops...though I only got off once where the town was right in front of the ship.  I have mobility problems and can't deal with docking in some container yard and taking a bus to the town. 

This is an older ship but there is NO ship at sea as clean and polished almost to the obcessive!  I was so impressed,  The quality of the decor features, while not my taste were "TOP OF THE LINE QUALITY" .  The staff were totally amazing and really went the extra mile to look after my mobility.  They changed my assisgned Dining Room so it would be easier for me to get to...what a great team I had. While the base price was as low as it gets you did have to buy a drinks package as you don't even get a bottle of water to take a pill in your stateroom.  I also had to buy a WiFi package to keep in touch with e-mails...they were extremely helpful setting it up. WARNING this ship has gone HIGH TECH ... the menues photo's, everything requires a smart phone of tablet or a 12 year old to access.  The ship was mostly elderly people not a bit interested in gadgets. I was so glad to set things up on my tablet.  On the Lido there is a fabulous burger bar...small charge...there is also a fabulous Pizza bar...small charge but both the best food on the ship.  Sadly the great Italian quizine of my previous Costa cruise is no more.  They have three Food Stylists and all courses are very small....good for me, but they are much more about the look than the taste...BLAND EVERYTHING....on an Italian Ship?  Sorry, soup was good but I wanted to get off at ports and buy them a selection of spices...I don't think they everheard of Oregano.  Pity....and when things were familiar they were not very tasty. My stateroom hit all the marks for design...FUNCTIONALITY, FUNTIONALITY, FUNCTIONALITY.  Everything served its purpose for use .... Glam design came second.  I am Canadian (English) and sadlyat 85 I enjoy an stop in my cabin to watch a film and relax but other than NEWS which I was escaping, nothing was in English.  Today its all about cleanliness, sanitation etc. and this ship was high above standard until a lot of kids came aboard at France and they were in the hot tubs swimming under water, filling their mouths with chemical water and God only knows what else and spitting it at each other. The parents didn't give a damn.  Crew not allowed to say anything to them.  They could all end up very sick especially when adults would spend hours in the tub drinking cocktails and never leaving to go to the washroom.  

I think this ship is great at any price and there are a few things they need to spend money on to improve it.  HIRE a SOUND TECHNICTIAN who doesn't think maximum volumn is talent.  Often the music drowned out the singers.  The Mix was dreadful and blasting in every venue and you could...in places hear more than one venue at a time. Turn it down guys is a cruise ship, not a Rock Concert.  I'm deaf in one ear and need an aid in the other but but had to remove it as it was buzzing from the blasting sound systems...everywhere.  "Volumn does not mean talent"  I was in te professional theatre all mylife and believe me....this is so unnessary....it doesn't cost anything to just turn it down in degrees until its blended and still all its meant to be...at times you had no idea if the performers could really sing or not....so much reverberation.

Anyway....I managed to have a great time....great Wiskey Bananna Coloda....For transatlantic I never pay the extra for a balcony I wouldn't use so I had a picture window and a fabulous vew, staff and full size bed....some ships are reducing the size of beds to fit smaller spaces.  The high tech photes were taken by great people with talent to make sure you looked your best but I got a high pressure salesman who was pressuring me to buy 500 Euros of pictures.  I bought three...the most expensive at sea...25 Euros each and never when back to see anymore because I didn't want to be pressured into spending money for pictures I didn't like. This needs fixing. Sound needs fixing and I have an idea....Why doesn't Cosa Cruises try serving classic Italian food....it always tastes good and doesn't have to look like a Christmas Ornament. 

Thanks, Costa...

All of the staff spoke great English and we never had any problems with communication. They were also kind and patient to all of the guests.

The entertainment was plentiful. There was always something going on. We especially enjoyed the evening shows in the theater.

There was gym available on the ship, but we found that on cruising day it was too accommodate everyone that wanted to use it.

We did not have a drink package, but that was no issue. There was water always available next to the pools. The drinks were reasonably priced and if you sign up (for free) to their loyalty program you can get a discount on many items.

The food was fantastic. For dinner there was a different menu every day and you get 4 meals. You can have lunch at the restaurant or you can have it at the buffet. The buffet breakfast included pancakes, pastries, eggs, cereals, breads and everything else that anyone really needs. At snack time they offered sandwiches, churros and cakes. The buffet was not self-serviced and that did create some lines, but it wasn’t a huge issue. 

We booked one excursion through costa and we must admit that that was an organisational nightmare. We did not have an escort to the location and no one was really sure where we were supposed to go. The excursion itself was great.

All in all, it was not perfect, but considering the amount of money that we paid it was a great experience.

Great value for money

We chose this cruise because of the time it was going and the stops it was making. We had never been on a Costa cruise but thought it would be OK because we have been on many different cruise lines and they have all been good, some better than others in certain areas, but all satisfactory.

Costa was disappointing in almost every area. The web site did not work well and was frustrating to use and to book excursions. We could not download the on-ship app. We were told this was because of our US cell carriers. We found enough employees that spoke English to help us, but a majority of the announcements were only made in Italian. We could not get published information delivered to our (6) rooms on a consistent basis, which was important because we did not have the app. Information was unclear on where to meet for the excursions we had booked. 

The buffet offered almost the same choices every day. It was not self-serve and would take quite a while to get food. You got a new plate for everything you asked for, so you could end up trying to fit many different plates on your tray. The plates were placed on the top of the glass guard and difficult to reach if you were short. The buffet would close at times during the day and would be closed off with crew members standing guard so more people could not get in line. We laughed about being on an Italian cruise ship and not being offered pizza unless we paid extra for it. 

It seemed like there was not enough help because tables in the buffet area would sit with dirty dishes for quite a while. We were very pleased with the dining room staff. They were very helpful and attentive. Most crew members were not friendly and would seldom acknowledge you. There were no towels offered out by the pool so if you used your towel on an excursion, you could not get a dry one until that evening.

 There were very few activities during the day or evening except on the main stage. Most of the evening shows on the main stage were satisfactory. We went to an information meeting for those that would disembark the next morning that was held before the all-aboard time.

Perhaps your Costa cruise experience will be great. We can't recommend them because there are much better cruise experiences to be had.

Disappointing

Before the cruise I read a lot critical reviews about Costa but I just thought that Americans are to demanding and as an European I can manage with European customers and service. I was totally wrong. We have cruised before e.g. Princess Cruises and have loved every second. This time was different. 

Ok, I have to admit that the ship seemed quite nice and cabin was also proper and clean. For first hour I was satisfied with my choise. Then it began: 

We did not get our luggage to our cabin until around 6:45 pm and were late few minutes from dinner (7:00) even though we changed our clothes in a hurry. We were not let in anymore and we were advised to go to dinner buffet.  That was something I have never seen in a cruise ship and we are not even picky. Plastic plates, nothing to eat, nothing. Normal 5 Euros lunch buffet for construction workes is fine dining compared to this one. I would describe it as a snack bar with unappealing choises. Then we noticed that there is also pizza available which would have made this dinner buffet somehow ok. Pizza, pay extra 4,25$. 

As going through the ship I also noticed directly that you have to pay extra for everything. We had a drinking package but not even water available in a cabin and you cannot get water bottle from bar. So, you pay to get water to your cabin. Ice-cream extra 1,5$ etc. 

At this point we were quite disappointed already but still tried to make our cruise comfortable. It did not work, the whole cruise was just pain. Customer service is slow, announcement spoken in bad english after many other languages. Many customers like us are not native english speakers but that is the only language we can use there, so it was hard to handle things because my english is not in excellent level and staff spoke even worse english. 

Still I could have lived with this food issue, bad customer service and all extra payings. But fellow travelers.... Loud, rude, unpolite. We spend the end of our vacation again in a AI-hotel in Dominican Rep. and were so thankful for civilized way other customers acted in a hotel. Customers were north americans and from Scandinavia. Not pushing in line, not shouting in big groups, always paying attention to other peoples presence and not just thinking of themselves.

Huge disappointment!

We took this cruise for two reasons: the great itinerary (initially 6 port stops in 6 days, although the last one in St. Maarten was cancelled after the Sept. hurricanes), and the fact that it was one of the only cruise ships departing from the Dominican Republic where we were spending 3 more weeks on this trip.  All-in-all, we weren’t disappointed.  We expected that the other passengers would be mostly European, but we were flabbergasted to find out that we were the amongst the only English-first-language passengers on the entire ship! (we only heard English being spoken by any passengers between themselves once on the entire cruise).  The passengers were about 30% Italian, 30% French (including many from Martinique and Guadeloupe, and some French-Canadians), 30% Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking (I think mainly from South America), and 9.99% Northern European, who mostly had to communicate with the service crew in English, who were mostly Fillipino, Chinese and Indian, and English was their only second language. Anyway, we didn’t view this as a disadvantage since it lent a decidedly European flair to the cruise, and this may have been the reason that they assigned us our own table-for-two at dinner.

The Isla Catalina stop was basically a beach day at a very nice island beach just a few km off the coast of the D.R. near La Romana. The other four port stops were four very interesting and beautiful islands of the Lesser Antilles, St. Kitts, Antigua, Martinique, and Guadeloupe.  We were not interested in beach, catamaran or scuba tours and wanted to see the interior, seascapes, and historical sites on these islands.  We only took one Costa tour (in St. Kitts) due to the relatively short port stop, and we had previously booked the remainder of shore tours via the internet with private operators, all of which were probably better, longer, and cheaper than those offered by Costa.

The food was generally very good, especially in the main dining room, where the dinners were six courses with fresh plates and the right cutlery for each course, and the service was excellent.  It was mainly Italian with only limited pasta, with mainly fresh ingredients in imaginative dishes.  However, beef and shrimp offerings were limited, and steak and lobster were never offered except for a significant additional cost, even for the gala dinner.  The desserts at dinner, especially the chocolate ones, and also in the buffet at meal and snack times, were excellent. Every day they offered excellent small sandwiches, real Italian pizza, and those excellent desserts in the buffet.  However, that was it for snack foods.

The ship was very clean, with handrails and walls being wiped down often.

The entertainment in the theatre was pretty good, as far as it went.  The lead male and female singers, as well at the dozen dancers were very good, but most of the shows were limited to 45-60 minutes.  However there was no show at all one night, and another night was wasted on “The Voice of the Sea”, basically a corny passenger karaoke show with judges (although this drew the largest crowd from the mostly European passengers – Italian culture at its finest!).  However, we had recently taken an MSC cruise which, although no better in other regards, offered far superior, longer, and more varied theatre entertainment.  In fairness, MSC seems to be head and shoulders above most other cruise lines in this one cruise feature.  The bigger disappointment was the remaining entertainment in the lounges, where the singers and musicians were quite mediocre.  In the main dance lounge, I kid you not, they actually sang that classic, great 1960s hit “Itsy bitsy teeny weenie yellow polka dot bikini” in heavily-accented English with a Latin beat with dozens dancing to it!  Again, Italian culture at it’s finest!

Drink prices were EUR 5-6 for basic beer/wine/liquor, up to EUR 10 for fancy cocktails.  The basic drink package was EUR 188, so you would each have to have almost 6 drinks/day to break even.  Like all cruise lines, they state that bringing alcohol on board is not allowed, but we put a bag of wine and a bottle of scotch in a plastic bottle in our luggage and it was not detected, saving us a few hundred dollars.  Juice/water/coffee/tea was available free only at breakfast, but only water at lunch/dinner, and they had the audacity to put up a sign saying not to fill your water bottles with the free bulk water (yeah, right!).  However, this is a remnant of European culture where one must never stoop to drinking safe tap water, but only expensive bottled water that costs as much as the wine or beer!

As I said, the lower level Filipino, Indian and Chinese staff were generally hard-working, polite, and excellent at their jobs, but some of the mostly Italian senior staff were insufferably snotty. I asked one of them a simple question, which they replied in a haughty and rude tone, and then later it turned out the answer they gave me was totally wrong! 

One little thing, however, really showed their attempt to extract every Euro from the passengers: at the port stop in St. Kitts the ship docked at the commercial port some 3 km from the city centre where the two other piers were taken by other cruise ships.  I would guess that the port authorities would charge more for the premium central piers, however its not unusual for a cruise ship to have to dock at a more distant pier and run a shuttle bus service to the town centre.  What is unusual, however is to have the audacity to charge the passengers EUR 7 to take this shuttle!

However, apart from these minor annoyances, this was a pretty good cruise, and is recommended if you want to see these particular ports and you can get the cruise for a good price.

A pretty good cruise

We picked this cruise as a package leaving La Romana in the Dominican Republic a one week cruise and then a one week stay at the Be Live Canoa in La Romana. At almost every port new travellers boarding the ship, and every time a safety drill onboard even as late as10:30pm at night blasting in our rooms even us who already did our drill on the first day. Food menu is basically always the same day to day. If you look for tea in the evening the hide it away, and you must ask for it. Who knows why? The state rooms are well kept, and ship is clean. We had a cabine on the second level and heard loud noises from the floor above us which were the fridge units for the dining area. At all times of the night heard shovelling noises and piling of boxes or so. Last day of cruise they offered us to sleep on the eight floor balcony room, and we did, sleped like a baby no noise. We should have complained sooner. I had my lounge chair taken away from me by an Italian tourist, him saying its an italian boat and they have sonority over us. Called security and argued for a while but he won, and me off looking for another place to sit. We watched him and his group to get off the chair but they never left. He had people relaying him to sit in my place. They can keep there ships. Never again will our group of 10 travel on any Italian ship including the Costa line. Does not compare in any way to Celebrity or Royal Caribbean which we both did years before.

Picking up travellers at almost every port.

for the ilands ,   the menbers off the excursions were not very patient whit people from quebec, everytime we ask for information they said read your paper you get at your room ,only 1 restaurent  la carte and buffet  all the reste must pay ,theatre show are done by 9pm

then left whit there bars ship,there was entertainement  was ok. was clean and cabin also the dinning the service was very good exelente waiters excursions were goog but expensive and everything in euro , one off our freinds was at the pool  a italien lady took the long chair he ask for it back. went to explain to the people in charge  they said nothing cold be done  fellt very ognored,when we were leaving the cruize they ask how many people were loking foward to go home everybody put there hand up exept 1 ,then he ask wouls anyone like to spend another week on board only 1 person put her hand up, so i think you  need to work on the social for  quebec  everyone was desappointed  did not feel support was good

Disappointed

Filters

1-8 of 8