It is nice to cruise on a medium size ship that "only" accommodates about 1,600 passengers instead of the 3,500+ on the new mega ships. We were looking forward to this cruise and the ports. We embarked at Trieste (near Venice) and took a 7 day cruise of the Adriatic sea. The Classica is a nice ship with a relatively convenient layout. The rooms were very spacious compared to many of the cruise ships that I have been on. Unfortunately, the electrical outlets did not work in our cabin and it took some time to get them turned on. The shower had horrible pressure and was more of drizzle than a shower. The bed was comfortable and our room steward was efficient.

I was not impressed with the food, even in the main dining room. I was expecting an Italian ship to have great pasta dishes but they were all rather ordinary and none of them were cooked al dente. Fortunately, none of the food was bad and I would give all of the food quality a solid 3 rating. The main dining room service was excellent but slow. Should it really take 2 hours to eat dinner when most of the dishes are precooked? If you want to eat a quick dinner you are out of luck because the self-service buffet is closed during the two main dinner sessions. Apparently on Costa, the fancy midnight buffet is a casualty of the weak economy. There is no midnight buffet, just a few little snack areas that are set-up in or near the public areas. The little pizzeria on the ship was therefore swamped with late night snackers and it took 40 minutes to get a pizza.

My biggest food and drink complaint was the method Costa apparently is using to maximize it's profit from drink packages. While waiting to embark, you will be visited by one of the bar staff who will show you the monetary wisdom of buying an inclusive drink package. There are many to choose from. I bought one that included all drinks except for the premium brands. Perhaps part of the plan to limit the number of drinks you order is to make certain that all of the bars are understaffed. I have read this same complaint in other reviews of Costa. Passengers are all crowded around the bar because the number of barroom waiters is so small. In the main Piazza Navona bar, I decided to do a little test and sat in a centrally located chair and waited to see how long before a waiter would appear to take my drink order. After an hour of waiting, I finally decided to join the crowd of passengers elbowing their way to the front of the bar to get drinks directly from the bartenders. It was this way the entire cruise and in both of the main bar venues. You can not have 4 waiters trying to service 400 passengers! Of course, I finally added 2 + 2 and determined that this was Costa's way of serving the least number of drinks after charging $140 for an "unlimited" drink package. So folks, sharpen your elbowing skills if you want to get served more than one drink every 90 minutes. Read more