All us residents should read this review before opting for costa cruise lines (in europe) or this ship, the costa favolosa. If you are familiar with the “normal” us-type ships (e.g., carnival, royal caribbean, ncl, holland america, etc) then favolosa will come as a shock to you and the standards you are used to. i am not trying to be disparaging but simply stating the facts in comparison to our 25 years of what we considered “normal” cruising on ships other than costa/favolosa. the differences may make you think twice about selecting this ship or the costa line. This review is based on the 12 day costa favolosa mediterranean / morocco cruise that departed barcelona on october 18th 2022.

I will state the very positive – the itinerary was great (barcelona, cadiz, gibraltar, tangier, casablanca, malaga, valencia, savona (opted to visit monaco) and marseilles. and for the most part the excursions were generally good. but if you want to visit these areas then you must be ready for some vast differences in what you’ve been used to! the standards, policies and practices that are common place on all of the other ships that predominantly serve the us (to include rccl for our past baltic and british isles tours and holland america for our past greek isles tour) are very different of what you will find on costa (favolosa). i cannot say that the comments below refer to all the italian costa line ships but for certain they are what we found on the favolosa.

First off, reservations are normally made by a us based (miami?) element of costa which can only talk to reservations. they do not know (or only will guess) what really happens once you get in europe and on the cruise. there is very little online, except peoples’ reviews, to tell you what exactly happens on costa, so be prepared for an adventure. as we got into this cruise, and the daily challenges, we coined the phrase: “costa—it’s not just a cruise, it’s an adventure!” - - and take that any way you want. following are some bullet points that hopefully you will find useful, and again, they are using all the non-costa cruise line ships as a baseline. Read more