I am an American living in France. This was the fourth cruise that my girlfriend and I have taken together in the last two years. Two of the previous three were with Costa. The only significant difference on our part this time was that we had her nine-year-old son with us. Overall, we were disappointed.
We chose this cruise on the Costa Pacifica for two reasons:
1. We wanted a cruise where one could get by with French. (My girlfriend and her son don't speak English.) In the previous two Costa cruises we found that one could get by quite well with French.
We specifically chose a cabin w/o a balcony because of safety concerns with a nine-year old. The room was acceptable but no more than one would expect on a ship half the size. I was disappointed that there was only a shower with a plastic curtain rather than a real door; on a previous Costa cruise we actually had a bathtub!