This was our third cruise with Costa.We have been on the Serena and Favolosa before this cruise and standards have certainly dropped.The Serena was amazing,so we decided to book for the following year on the Favolosa.Before I review the Fascinosa I will just let you know why Venice doesn't like us.We arrived in Venice a day early and stayed in a great hotel next to Piazzale Roma.At 6am we were woken by sirens and on looking out we saw that Venice had flooded.We finally made it to the port at 2pm when the water had receded only to find that the port of Venice was closed due to bad weather.The Favolosa was not able to dock until after midnight and we finally boarded at 3am after more than twelve hours laying on the floor in the terminal along with 3500 other passengers.We felt so sorry for all those disembarking as most had missed their flights.The whole thing was awful,but not Costa's fault and because we were late leaving we had to miss Katakolon and go straight to Izmir.We all received a letter in our cabins telling us of a 35% refund on our cruise which was great.The ship was great except that we thought the food was not so good as the previous year on the Serena.

This year we decided to book again with Costa and try the Fascinosa.I also travelled on Oceania's Riviera from Istanbul to Venice in the summer and had no problems with Venice this time except for the heat and swollen ankles.My daughter and I arrived at the port to embark the Fascinosa at 1pm and went into the terminal to wait for our number to be called.It bought back memories of our trip on the Favolosa as people were laying on floors,the queue for the bar and toilets was long and no one seemed to know what to do.We finally boarded at 4.15 and went straight to our inside cabin which was larger than our two outside cabins on the Serena and Favolosa.Just as we got to the cabin we were called to the safety drill so we dropped our bags and rushed to our muster station.We could see people still boarding so they had to do their drill later on.That night we went to dinner and waited 45 minutes to have our order taken and an hour before the drinks arrived.When the food arrived it was so bad that we thought we would not return and just go to the Pizzeria every night.Everyone around us left their food as well and looked unhappy.

The next day we decided to try it to see if things were going to get better and they did.The food was an improvement from the night before and the staff seemed a little happier as well.The rest of the cruise was great and we enjoyed all the ports of call especially Mykonos.We found the cost of the coaches into Corfu,Mykonos and Dubrovnik to be very expensive though.The drinks package was excellent as usual and well worth getting.On our final morning we went outside to find that we were surrounded by fog.It was so bad that we could hardly see the ships distinctive funnel when we were stood just below it.We then received the announcement that the port of Venice was closed and we would be waiting to see if it opened soon.We couldn't believe it.Our flights were booked for 5.10 that afternoon so we weren't too worried until the next announcement told us that the port was not going to open for some time so we would be diverting to Trieste.We tried to get more information but the queue for the reception desk was a mile long and we waited two hours to try and get help in the card room where they had set up some laptops for people to look for new flights etc.We arrived in Trieste at 12.35 but could not leave the ship until 4pm as we had purple as our disembarkation colour.Even when we were allowed to leave,our luggage took some time to be offloaded.It was chaos in the car park where the new passengers were being bought in by coach from Venice and we were all trying to get on these coaches to go back to Venice.There were very few Costa staff around to sort out the chaos and people were actually fighting each other to board these coaches.After trying to board five coaches and being pushed and shoved around,we boarded a coach and set off for the airport.We arrived at 7.30pm and approached a member of the Costa staff who said good luck to us when we asked for help and she told us she couldn't help unless we had booked our flights with Costa.We found so many people in the airport looking for new flights and after trying to do the same we found a hotel where we eventually got on the Internet and found new flights with BA for a few days later.There were no other flights at all as many had arrived before us and snapped up the few seats left.We then calmed ourselves down and spent the next day in Venice and at our wonderful hotel. Read more