Calling at Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Vietnam and China
We cruised with Costa previously (Costa Mediterranea) and enjoyed it very much so when we decided on this cruise our obvious choice was Costa. The ship for this route was Classica.
We flew to Hong Kong, transfers and overnight hotel stay was fine. We were picked up from our hotel and taken to the ship and expected to go on board without much delay as we had already checked in on line, which Costa encourages. We arrived at the ship to be told we had to join a very long queue and that there were no facilities to fast track people who had already checked in. We were not the only ones in this situation. We queued for over two hours in the scorching heat, lucky for us it was not raining, and the whole system was a shambles. We eventually got on board and were a little taken aback at how basic the entrance was as Mediterranea has such a grand atrium but we though it could only get better. Costa claim to have larger cabins on this ship but we soon realized that to make the cabin larger we had less wardrobe space. The bathroom was very sparse; we had to ask for toilet paper, as there was less than half a roll. The shower was very small and each time you used it the water went all over the floor.