maybe at the outset I will refer to the fact that unless the economic situation of Italy reflected the situation that took place on the ship :), but quite seriously we start with the fact that we had the opportunity to be your guests and regret that the conditions that prevailed on Victoria were terrible, I think. that such ships should be removed from use. Everything old, crackling, perishable. There was a haos on the ship, no one knew anything. People working at the reception were forever uninformed. Excursions offered by the shipowner were up to 300% more expensive than in private companies that were in the port, it's embarrassment :). Drinking and eating was terrible, it was hard to choose anything from what was offered in the dining room for everyone, generally hideous food. No wonder that paid thematic restaurants functioned very well, since the hopeless food was for everyone. We also do not understand the situation related to eternally loudly playing music, which instead of bringing some peace and relaxation during the journey caused irritation and anger. Is there nobody thinking about you? After all, the ship had only one pool and it was necessary to take into account that there are young and old people who also wanted peace and relaxation, and not listening to taunting animators and stupid jokes, was Costa so low down? You count for a service of 10 euros per person per day, as a service when during the whole stay none of the service staff asked us whether we would drink something or do we want something? Mockery!!! Costa today represents a very low level, I suggest that you think hard about buying a cruise from this company, in our opinion definitely "no" Please, finally, fix the toilet, because it's hard to run around toilets generally available on the ship, it's not this epoch, time does not go back only goes forward and Costa goes backwards !!!! Read Less

Taking a cruise on the Victoria is like going back into the early days of cruising, with the exception that the food was for my wife and myself was inedible for the most part. Although the ship underwent renovation in 2018, I found it difficult to see where the improvements were. The ship is dated and worn and stains and wear are evident everywhere I read the previous reviews and I knew enough to lower my expectations, but obviously I didn't lower them enough. The itinerary is excellent and was the primary factor in booking this cruise. Two waiters, Omesha Kilpaldy in the dining room and Kenneth in the specialty pizzeria were outstanding. Other crew members were fine for the most part, but there were a number of instances where crew members were just rude. The majority of guests were French speaking, many of them from the islands, taking advantage of a cruise that leaves close to home. Often we were placed with people who did not speak English for lunch and breakfast. I used the best French I could muster, but in some cases people just didn't want to converse with someone who had poor French language skills. Things you should know: 1. Speaking French would be a real asset, as well as abandoning expectations you would normally have on a mainstream North American cruise line. 2. The water on the ship is not potable. There are four water stations in the buffet area where you can get water for free. There are lineups and the water pressure is so bad that it often takes a minute to fill a glass . Some machines did not work consistently. We had a USA water plan which entitled us to one glass of water each for lunch and dinner. Beyond that you pay 2 euros. You should know that if you go to the specialty restaurant or pizzeria (pay for items) your water plan does not count and you must buy water for 2 euros. 3. The specialty restaurant will offer the advantage of a quiet space to eat, but according to German English speaking acquaintances the restaurant is not worth the price since the menu is largely the same thing you get in the dining rooms. Looking for a North American pizza experience choose the Margherita which is the only pizza which has a tomato sauce base. Other pizza are oil based rather than tomato sauce based, but to be fair they were edible is not tasty. We went to the pizzeria four times, since the food in the dining room was as described earlier. Cost for a pizza and 1 dessert to share was 8 euros, but if you sign up for Costa Club you get a 50% discount. 4. The toilets would often fail to flush in the morning hours. You would press the button and nothing would happen. Then five to ten minutes later it would flush. Some times this led to embarrassment, even for spouses that have been married for over 40 years. The air conditioning system was excellent, but the set up is such that the person closest to the duct gets constant cold air blowing on them. 5. If you don't like crowds, avoid the buffet. Early in the cruise we sat at the larger table for four, an East Indian lady proceeded to take her dirty dishes from her table and place them on the portion of the table which was not occupied, which bring us to the point that, table clearing in the buffet is not as great as on some ships. Needless to say this was an upsetting experience. 6. Be very careful In Madagascar. According to Mauritius friends two ladies were kidnapped and held for ransom in Tamatave. A ransom was paid and the women apparently were returned to the ship. Leaving the port gate in Madagascar is placing yourself among hundreds of people, all wanting to provide transportation. Be prepared to negotiate a price that is considerably less than the asking price. Ships tours are very expensive, but in Madacasgar, I would probably choose the tours since the people are poor and there is a risk to safety. In Nosey Be once we fought our way past the throngs of tour and taxi drivers, we found a wonderful Christian man who took us on a great tour for a very reasonable price (less than one fifth of the ship price). We had to travel a kilometre from the port to find him in a local park. Antisarana (Diego Suarez) was a less pleasant experience with a tuk tuk driver who stopped the vehicle a kilometre from the ship and wanted to renegotiate the price. We were going to tip him 25% anyways. We told him we would walk from there, but if he wanted the tip he would have to take us to the ship. To be fair the police are corrupt and they extorted money from him at two stops. I offered to pay but he wouldn't tell me how much they extorted. 7. For those who like to travel on your own using public transport system, the best place is the Seychelles. Although it is challenging at first, once you know the system and purchase a schedule (main bus terminal) it is quite easy to tour the island at minimal cost. The beaches are beautiful. Anse Goulette and Anse Royal are excellent. Anse Royal is by far the easiest to get to with 5 buses on the route... Buses generally come every 15 to 20 minutes. Would I go on Costa again, not a "snowball's chance in hell", but it was the only game in town and despite the numerous frustrations, it was an interesting trip. Fortunately we did meet some wonderful people on board, Mauritians and Ukrainians. That and the two waiters I mentioned were the best things about the ship. Read Less

We had an amazing time during our stay on Costa Victoria mainly because of the nice friendly and helpful staff. We travelled with our 7 year old son who was treated like a Prince by all staff on the ship but mainly the animation team and kids club. Ferdy and Sara were exceptionally good with him, most of the staff is Italian nd most of the guests were French spraking but they all made my son included and welcomed. I was happy my son made so many friends even though he can only speak Polish and English, the language is not a barrier he loved his time in the kids club. The animation team work so hard, special thanks to Ralph who was the kindest person on the ship, Francesco the sports instructor and crazy Marco. The staff at the restaurant were incredible as well and made up for the bad food at times. Donna the waitress is so lovely and helpful always smiling. The exurcions are terribly expensive, it's much cheaper to get something on the land. WE MET SO MANY nice people on the ship and on the land and visited hidden gems and that's what we are grateful for. The food, drinks packages and service charges are things we want to quickly forget about ;) Thank you to the staff of Costa Vicortia who made our journey so special Read Less

We had read previous reviews and we must have been cruising on a different ship as the ship was beautiful spotless good furnishings and fabrics and the public toilets were kept spotless.The itinerary was 27 nights from Italy to Mauritius ports included Crete Suez Canal Jordan Israel Maldives Seychelles Reunion Island.We could not call at Oman due to a Cyclone so much value for money on this cruise even with gratuities and drinks package we paid half for a four week cruise compared to a two week cruise on other companies. All the staff spoke english and were very friendly. The food was very good five courses every evening in the main dining rooms so much choice and of a good quality . Water was available free all day in the buffet restaurant until about nine in the evening .You only had to pay for water lunch and evenings in the main restaurants.Our cabin was kept spotless as was all the ship cleaning was done 24 hours a day. There was so much to do during the day and every evening there was a show. The entertainment team were a credit to the company especially Marco and the rest of the team. The english speaking guests had their own dedicated english speaking customer service advisor as did french german and spanish speaking guests. The daily information newspaper was printed in English and other languages. The cruise was magical and we have no hesitation in recommending Costa and Costa Victoria this was one of our bucket list cruises we travelled a quarter of the world and received so much value for the price we paid. We will be looking forward to booking another cruise with Costa for next year. Read Less

The reason I decided to write this review is to warn those people who privilege the rest and sleep at night to dancing and partying (I am not judging here, cruises are the right place for such things, just claiming my share of pleasure-the night's sleep): this is an old ship and there is practically no sound isolation. My cabin ( 11101 if i remember well) was exposed to very loud music to the point things were trembling each night from 23 till 1.00. Earplugs were not helpful. In this ship it is either one is lucky to have one's cabin far enough from the epicenter or not. Hospitality did not offer any sustainable solution either. Having paid about 4000 euros for three persons in a suite for a week's time, I really think it was a pitiful investment. This was a real shame, because on the whole the total experience was not awful at all. The club restaurant provided very friendly personalized service accompanied by quite acceptable and sometimes deliscious food. I could say Edd and Err saved our expeprience on the whole. Excursions, inspite of all the efforts of the guides, were not at their best, because the poor guides had to speak up to 4 languages which resulted in repeating one thing like where to find the toilettes and where to meet up to 4 times...Very little space left for cultural information. Spa on this ship is a joke and not worth a try, a shame again because it used to be a good part of a cruise activity for me and family. Finally, a valuable info for coffee lovers: traditionnally, on all Costa ships I travelled coffee is a very delicate issue: my point is, the americano they are offering in general service, is below human dignity, while the one in the bars is too strong for a morning. Well, I could order a cappucino, but I do not drink milk... My personal solution was to pack a little french press coffee maker and the brand I am used to. It could serve for a good verbal tea as well. Hot water is something one can always count on Costa company! The last but not least-many thanks to our cabin butler Yan for his perfect service and friendly smile. Read Less

Chose this cruise because the dates and the embarkation port were convenient for me. That is the good stuff out of the way, and the rest was downhill. The fact that drinking water is not provided free on a cruise in such a hot region tells you all you need to know. in 21 days only one of the two ice machines worked and then only for one day. No water provided with evening meal and no tea or coffee afterwards. Menus poor and reconstituted potato used. Drinks packages were a complete rip off. Passports were taken on day one, and only a photocopy given out (too late to be useful in some cases). When we went to Langkawi we found that the duty free shops would not allow sales unless the photcopy was shown but we had not received ours. So after a hot and sweaty trip back to the ship - queueing at the info desk to receive a copy, then a further hot and sweaty trip back to the shop - I finally managed to buy some perfume, but the whole process took half of the day we were there. Then the final insult, a photocopy (second one) was delivered to my cabin half an hour before the ship sailed out. I was given the WRONG advice about the mandatory visa for India and so paid out £140 for a two year visa instead of a £40 short term stay visa. The disembarkation port was Savona, Italy, where the ship was going into dock for a 12 day maintenance period, but we still had to vacate the cabin by 8 am and then sit in the theatre until 11.30 waiting for our transfer coach. No laundries on board and the cabin laundry service was EXPENSIVE. Would never book with COsta again. Read Less

They say you get what you pay for, but even at the great price they were offering, you got a lot LESS that what you paid for on this cruise. As an adult I have been on more than 100 cruises and as a teenager my father was a cruise ship captain. This cruise was by far the bottom of the barrel. The crew is so over worked, that there is no way they can provide good service. The biggest thing the ship needs to do is get less senior officers and more workers. There are more than enough officers standing around doing nothing while there was a shortage of people to do the work They even charge for water. On every other ship we have been on, you could always go some where to get water, tea or coffee at no charge. If you want water at dinner, no problem either pay per glass or purchase a water package. The food in the dinning rooms and buffet was so bad that it forced you go to the for pay dinning rooms. The terms planning, organization, and logic have totally evaded this ship. Our tours (that we did not book with the ship) were great and we plan to visit many of the ports again on another cruise line. In the disembarkation talk the crew speaker spent over 10 minutes telling us why we should give them 10s on the survey because the problems were not the fault of the crew. In short, stay away from the Victoria and Costa in general. Read Less

We had chosen this cruise because of the nice weather and the price was ok for us. We did a cruise with Costa Neoclassica from Savona to India in November 2017 and that one was beautiful. All our cruises with Costa were nice. We exprerienced more than 10 cruises, but this cruise was a disaster. It was the last cruise of this ship Victoria, it sailed from Asia to Europe and to be refurbished in Marseille to sail in Europe in the next future. The Italian animation team was very much to loud, the whole day they screemed on the deck. The refurbisment was already started. The carpet was already pulled loose, the stairs were already disassembled and sanded, the tenderboats were already sanded, the ceilings already came down, the chairs were already re-upholstered. All day you heard knocking, sawing, sanding, carpentry and so on. The workmen in black and white suits were busy all day. The quality of the food was in the first week ok, but the last two weeks terrible, old frozen food, no variety, cheap food unmade. I think the freezers had to be empty before the cruises ended. The dinner lasted 2.5 hours, there was far too little staff, between the various dishes we had to wait half an hour. Food appeared that you had not ordered, or it did not come at all. At 8 o'clock in the morning most of the chairs were already occupied with towels and personal belongings. Passengers occupied the seats all day long, although sometimes they were not there for hours. Costa did nothing. For me NEVER COSTA AGAIN. Read Less

We selected this cruise because of the itinery and price. We wanted to try an asian cruise this time, and not that many options are available departing from Singapore. Royal Caribbean was much more expensive and had a less attractive itinery. Costa Victoria is old. Built in 1996, and is by current standards a small ship. This would however not have to be only a disadvantage. A small ship can have its advantages. Unfortunatelly that was not the case with Costa Victoria. The decor of the ship is just uggly and would really need an upgrade. There's plenty of space on deck, but not enough deck chairs forcing people to simply place the towels on the fake "grass" floor, and the "solarium" in the forward of the ship needs at least a jacuzzi or something to relieve the main pool area. We we're upgraded from an inside to an outside cabin which was a very nice surprise! The outside cabins which comes with only a porthole window. The cabin is very small and the orange colors are not pleasant.No seating are is available so oyu have to sit in the bed to view TV. The bathroom is fine though. The dining options available are the absolute basics. It's either the buffet, or the main dining rooms. The buffet has 4 parallel lines, but only one is serving the grilled meat/fish why all people needs to queue in this line. For lunch the poolside of the buffet is serving burgers. unfortunatelly not tasty at all :(. No pizza or ice cream was available at all which suprised me on an italian ship. The MDR has two seatings, no flexible time dining. The gala dinner was rather good, but most other days the food was below standards. We shared dinner table with people from Scottland, Italy, Russia, Ukrain and Slovakia (we're from Sweden). Exiting, but not practial since not all could speak the same language. There was about 25 other Swedes onboard the ship and some british/americans which would have been much better for us to dine with for language reasons. The "theater" is more like a normal show room in 2 levels. 2 of the shows, one italian tenor and one acrobatic show was good, the other dance shows was boring. When we embarked costa took our passports and said they we're going to keep it for the entire cruise. I tried to understand why, but no one could answer me. They just said "this is how Costa always do", however, I have been with Costa 2 times before and they have not taken my passport. The day before disembarkation we had to queue to get them back. I then noticde the passports had been stamped by Thai and Cambodian customs. So maybe this was the reason for collecting them, but it would have felt better if this information was provided to us prior to embarkation. Btw, we was informormed just days before the cruise that a mandatory fee of $40 per person was going to be applied for Cambodian Visa (also applicable if not disembarking the ship). This shold have been made clear when booking the cruise, or better, including in the cruise price. Cruising is always a pleasurable way to travel, and even with the bare minimum of the cruise experience the Costa Victoria provides I find it worth the money paid. But for sure there shold be a significant difference in price, or much better itinery if I would choce costa again for my future cruises. Read Less

If you want a good cruise, I suggest leave Costa well alone. We hated everything, from embarkation procedure to disembarkation. Couldn't wait to get off. I suggest the management go on cruises with their competitors and learn how to run a cruise line and treat guests. I probably don't have enough space to write all our complaints, but here's some. Our cabin had an interconnecting door with the next cabin and it may as well have been open, as we could hear next door talking and the guy snoring all night, so we hardly got any sleep. We asked to be moved, but were told the ship was full. It had 1500 people out of space for 1900! The food was absolutely dreadful, both in the dining room and in the buffet. Full of butter, cream, cheese or all of them. The meat was so overcooked, you could hardly cut it. After breakfast, you could not get a free cup of coffee. My wife is dairy intolerant and the staff from the chef down, couldn't care less. The Italian staff were generally rude, the other staff, excellent. Eve, the English rep on board was 10/10. She helped any way she could, but was up against "company policy." Which meant, do nothing. Hygiene on board was terrible. Hardly anyone sanitised their hands and there was no policing of it. People filled water bottles beside signs saying don't do this and staff standing beside them, saying nothing. Read Less