This Cruise Liner carries a 5 star rating-but I'm afraid it falls woefully short of that tag on many counts. We cruised as a family our ages ranged from 12 to 75-I can only say that every member of our family was disappointed with most aspects of this cruise. I myself will probably never cruise with Costa again. Embarkation at Civitavecchia is truly awful-long queues-no air conditioning-a bad combination.Embarkation took upwards of an hour which after waiting for our luggage at Rome airport for 1hour 45 minutes coupled with a further wait for coach transfer (which took well over an hour and a half for those who waited for it) led to us taking a Taxi to the dock at a cost to ourselves of 150 Euros-We didn't set off on a good footing. Once aboard I'm afraid it didn't get much better-it was very apparent that a lot of the staff cannot speak English-(neither did they speak French,German,or incredibly being as we were on an Italian ship Italian!)After our long hot embarkation process-our first visit was to the restaurant-but ordering a drink was incredibly frustrating-our 'Bar Service' server struggled to take an order for 3 beers and 1 coke despite us asking in 4 different languages! And then there is the smoking-you cannot get away from it-despite no smoking signs everywhere-they are just ignored by the majority of Italian Guests who just carry on regardless-There are designated areas for smokers-but they are just ignored. Whilst appreciating that we have no control over who our fellow guests may be and how polite or impolite-it must be said that the behavior exhibited by passengers on board was disgraceful at worst and unruly at best!-pushing and shoving at the buffet is the norm. Be prepared to come back to your sunbed after a dip in the pool to find an Italian on it and your personal belongings on the floor beside it,and guess what? They will not move,and neither will the staff on board do anything about it.(except perhaps shrug their shoulders!) I was treated rudely by so many categories of staff (even an officer) that it suggests that staff onboard simply cannot cope with their workloads or maybe they are just rude!! The only time that courtesy is apparent is when you are parting with money-how sad is that? The Kids Club for 12 year olds is poor to say the least-the children of this age are just not catered for very well-most end up in the ships video arcade which is inappropriately situated next to the ships casino and its smokers! I am an experienced traveller and have travelled all over the world-we take up to six holidays a year-but never have I been so disappointed with a holiday (more to the point the service and attitude of staff and crew-and ambience of the ship) as I was with this one. English speakers are not catered for very well on this ship-so if this is the only language you speak-BEWARE As far as our Ports of Call went-Well they looked good on paper-but the reality of it is that with the exception of our stop in Malta-there was precious little time to see or do anything of worth. Our excursion in Tunis was cancelled as they could not cater for us in English-this led to us taking a Taxi Tour from the portside with a driver who said he spoke English-but we actually had to conduct the tour in French!.NB This trip actually was half the price that Costa wanted for a much shorter trip. The Stop in Palma was so short that if you blinked you missed it! and surely Barcelona deserves a whole day in port at the expense of a shorter day in Savona? Overall This was a very bad experience for us all and next time we will be returning to the tried and trusted Royal Caribbean, NCL, or Celebrity cruise lines.