My wife and I started planning our cruise to the Eastern Mediterranean just under a year ago as a gift to each other for our 25th wedding anniversary.
We had been on one cruise previously, with another line and had been extremely impressed by the quality of service and the friendliness of the staff. Our expectation with Costa was therefore quite high. We were not intimidated by the multicultural environment offered by Costa as we both speak French and English quite well and can get along in Italian.
Venice was our port of embarkation and we made independent arrangements to get there, spending most of a day and a night in that beautiful city before getting to the ship.