My first cruise was only a good month ago with the MSC Fantasia so I don't have much to compare with. We booked the cruise on Costa Favolosa because it was pretty cheap and we had a good experience on MSC. We opted for the cheapest cabin without balcony. A few days before departure we got notice that they improved us to a balcony cabin without extra cost. Very nice!

Embarkation was smooth, we were about the only people boarding at the time, but there was no real welcome. Our cabin was immediately ready tho so we started with unpacking our bags before proceeding to a bar.

Service throughout the cruise was very slow with a lot of unfriendly personnel, especially at the bars. We had to wait up to 30 minutes to receive our drinks. After 1am it was only possible to get drinks in the disco since all the other bars closed. On one evening the disco had 2 barkeepers that couldn't keep up with the demand so waiting times even extended. Especially because 1 of the 2 was clearly incompetent and seemed to work in slow motion mode (not on purpose, she just couldn't do any better). A majority of the cruise we were waiting on drinks. We had the Più gusto drinking package which included most of the cocktails and most of the cheaper stronger drinks. Maybe the slow service is a way to keep the cost down on those packages. Read more