Costa may be part of Carnival Lines now but they are miles away on being even close to the Carnival or Princess Lines. The only positive on the 18 days was the serving staff both in the restaurant and bars. The worst part was having 18 days of the most horrific food I have ever encountered on a ship or even for that matter on land. The menu choice was poor. The translation from what they thought they were serving in Italian into English was wrong, wrong, wrong. The food was prepared in a manner that it didn't matter what you ordered it all tasted like a wet paper bag. No flavour whatsoever,. I truly believe there are no adult octopus in the sea. The ship served all the baby ones during my cruise. Another favourite almost daily in some form or another was pumpkin. I think they secretly had a pumpkin patch on board.

As there was not other option at dinner you had no choice but to eat in the dining room. On the last night on board I was presented with 2 steaks both horrific and sent them back. One was cooked like shoe leather the other although cooked med-rare as requested tasted like a mouthful of water and no resemblance to beef whatsoever. They close the buffet at 6:00 (unlike other cruise lines which always offer that option). Your only recourse was a pizza and beer at a charge of $5 Euro after 6 p.m. Lunch was also a mess in the buffet. Rude people jumping the line and butting in. Spread out over almost 1/2 of deck 9 and once again the food was terrible and cold. You would try and walk around to all the stations to see what was offered and by the time you finished you would forget or could not find what you had decided on. Lessons are learned in life and one I just learned is that this was definitely my first and last cruise on Costa Lines.