This cruise was totally unexpected. a last minute deal that came up on the internet for the CostaMediterranea. Although the ten of us were already booked for a New Year's sailing on the Carnival Glory, we all said "why not?" and booked the CostaMediterranea that very day for the November 27th sailing to the Eastern Caribbean. Then I went to Cruise Critic and read the reviews. There were a few positive reviews and some very negative ones. I also went to some large, online Cruise Travel agencies to compare prices and noted that they did not even represent Costa! Had we made a mistake booking in haste?. So, I decided it couldn't be too bad, a fairly new, beautiful ship and the ports of call were wonderful. St. Maarten and Tortola were two of our favorites and at least we would be getting away from the cold, winter weather and traveling to the warm, sunny Caribbean.
Here is what I have to share about our experience. Overall, the cruise was a good value, considering how inexpensive our tickets were. Many of the complaints that were written about the Mediterranea in Cruise Critic are true but there were also some pleasant surprises. The embarkation went smooth once they opened up the line.
We had booked an outside cabin on Circe deck. Our cabin #1240 was the very last one located aft on port side. It was clean, spacious with plenty of storage space. I did notice a loud rumbling noise in our cabin while waiting to sail. At first I said to myself "oh, no, we are going to be hearing the rumble of the engines and generators during the entire cruise". Then to my surprise I looked outside my window where the noise was coming from. A large garbage barge was tied up to the side of the ship taking on loads of foul smelling refuse from the ship. The barge was about 15 -20 feet below our window and it stayed there taking on garbage until time to sail. Outside on deck if you walked past, the odor was noxious. Needless to say, this did not make a very good impression.