First Costa Cruise after 1 NCL and 3 Celebrity. Only company for Canrian Islands in July, with a very intersting deal for a Balcony "Premium" stateroom. Embarkation was slow and a little chaotic but bags were waiting at our cabin. Cabin kept immaculate by our steward, towels changed daily and beach/pool towels on request. Plenty of storage, surprisingly spacious and a large comfortable bed. Small but adequate balcony. Clean ship. Decor is kitsch, but less in real life than on the pictures... Main restaurant is good.(Italian) food very nice, if not amazing. Portions would be regarded as small by some US guests. Buffet restaurants are noisy and more chaotic. There are lot of "mediterranean" people on this cruise so do not expect straight queuing, and be prepared some times to cope with the crowd... Average food. Continental breakfast in cabin. At the buffet restaurant : no eggs.You have to go to the main restaurant if you want eggs. Very effective room service ( 15/20 minutes). Holiday camp style entertainment at the pool venue. Most of the Theatre shows very amateur but some of them of high quality. Nevertheless lively atmosphere with lot of young and older cruises enjoying themselves in the different bars ; "italian" atmosphere. Be aware that the cruise line is somewhere "money grabbing " : especially on photos/videos and shore excursions. But we always organise our excursions by ourselves : Costa doesn't provide any information on ports... Disembarkation at Savona was rapid. But leaving the port with the local shuttle bus needs nearly one hour Read Less

Arrived at the port at 1pm to find pushing , shoving and yelling and no signs to help and had to hunt for assistance. Finally on board and we were directed to the buffet as our cabin was not yet ready. More pushing, shoving and yelling with lines to the buffet ,scrambling for a table and the food was not good. 6pm and no suitcases but I found them by the elevators and took them to our cabin. Dinner: we finally found our assigned table but there was no place left for us. More pushing , shoving and yelling as there were about 60 other passengers without tables and only one Maitre D who could reassign tables and only he could take you to the new table so he was running around like a chicken with its head cut off . Our cabin was pleasant with a balcony.Our bathroom was "stocked" with one small piece of ordinary soap and a liquid soap dispenser in the shower.Our balcony neighbour smoked frequently and even the ash came onto us. Coffee and tea were only available at breakfast and afternoon tea.Any other time like lunch or dinner you had to pay for it. The coffee served often tasted stale and reheated. Water was available at the buffet but if you wanted table water in the dining room at lunch or dinner you paid for it At sea the buffet was closed in the evening so if you wanted a snack there was a pizza room with a charge. Food: served almost warm,never hot, and of mediocre quality. The only salad served was sad looking green salad with a few garnishes and commercial tasting dressing Meal service in the dining room at breakfast and lunch was very slow and often the waiters were grumpy. Meals in the buffet had long lines and poor food. It had the atmosphere of a high school cafeteria Library: the books were old paperbacks left by passengers and the Costa label stuck on.They then filled out a triple form to take them out. There were generous areas for smoking but that did not stop some passengers for lighting up wherever they felt like it.Passengers were told in the daily bulletin not to enter the buffet in bathing suits but that did not stop them. They also left their towels on the sun chairs and disappeared the result was that these were in short supply. Breakfast in the cabin.5 euro charge Often the ship was docked far from the entrance a shuttle was provided with a charge for it At each entrance to the dining rooms when about 600 people would charge in at the same time only one hand hygiene gel dispenser was provided and it was often empty. The ports were interesting( which is the main reason we chose this ship) but they did not always stay for a full day. If there was ever a problem the staff would make the excuse that "the ship is full". Surely they would have known this for some time and made adjustments? It seemed to be understaffed which is perhaps the reason some of the staff were grumpy and less helpful than usual. On the positive side the Costa theatre perfomances by their entertainment team were very innovative and professional. Also on the positive side we arrived back healthy and in one piece! The business model seemed to be like Ryan Air i.e. charge for everything and anything they could. However what we paid for the cruise did not reflect this and so we feel we did not get what we paid for. Read Less