Europe - Eastern Mediterranean Cruise Reviews

The cruise was very good. The best thing about the trip was the excursions.

This cruise was very good. My boyfriend and i had....fun. The best cruise ever.

overall=AMAZING. This ships staff really made the cruise, from the stateroom attendants, to the dining staff to the security staff.. they were all great. The only thing i would change is the amount of activities. I saw so many interesting activities online (RCC.com), i was a little dissapointed that this ship did not have some of those things. On rcc.com i could not find the activities specific to the "Spendour of the Seas". other than that i would and have recommended cruising with Royal Carribean.

The ship was elegantly clean. The service was marvelous with sensational fine touches that made my stay memorable. Entertainment was very enjoyable with fine praise to the talented staff.

Itinerario molto bello, staff molto gentile, procedure di sbarco lunghe e non gestite bene. Il buffet non era dei migliori. Nave molto pulita.

My sister and I planned a cruise for our parents 50th wedding anniversary. From the time we got on the massive ship to the end of the cruise, we were treated royally. My sister and I selected the Concierge package. From early check in and priority check out. From the daily fresh fruit and hor devours in our rooms. The tours were fabulous, the glass blowing demonstration was outstanding. We even spent time in the library. Having balcony staterooms was an absolute must when pulling into ports such as Santorini and Rhodes. There is something to be said about quality and that is what Celebrity was all about. The quality was outstanding. I could not have planned a better trip for my parents.

We just sailed on June 25, 2010. The overall experience was excellent. My review will contradict the others on this site but perhaps things have changed. I thought the food was very well done. We did not have any issues with waiting in lines. All queues were managed well. The service at times was a bit inconsistent but still nothing to complain about. The excursions were overpriced and I would recommend that you do the day activities in ports on own. The entertainment was very average to disappointing. The cirque type show was outstanding and if it wasn't for that show I would say the entertainment was awful. The ports of call were great but sometimes felt rushed to make ship's departure.

Pleasant and helpful unless you have a problem and then they refuse to talk to you

We were delighted and pleasantly surprised by this cruise and the high quality of the food selection and dining. The high quality and attention by the wait staff and diverse menus more than made up for the lack of specialty restaurants onboard. Overall, the staff was very friendly and attentive plus you never felt pushed to purchase drinks or were bothered to take part in activities i.e. around the pool and could relax. The highlight was the personal invite at the captain's table for our 10th wedding anniversary. The cocktails at the bar and the bar staff were top. Pricing was reasonable and not gauging. Overall, despite the ship being from 1996 - it was in very top condition save for some carpets needing a refresh / replacement. The design of the ship also made for a smallish gym with some dated equipment which had seen better days but the pool and common areas were better than average. The shows were above average and most of the "live" music had high quality musicians. Except for the latin/ Cuban group - many songs played were from the 60's-70's era which seemed a bit pass. The timetable for ports were OK however, in Split and the last port of call were just too short to enjoy. An advantage of the ship and its docking was that we only had to tender once whereby another NCL ship which was larger had to often tender at the same ports. The final embark / disembarkation process and time was excellent, fast and highly organized. We also experienced this on a previous Celebrity cruise which is part of the same cruise group.

Embarcation was very well organized and from the time we boarded we were busy picking and choosing from a myriad of onboard activities. Our stateroom attendant was great as was our waitress in the dining room. She learned our names immediately and recognized us whenever she saw us onboard!

I liked the design of the Royal Promenade area. You felt like you were on a street and not a ship.

Have not even gotten on the boat and hate the company due to customer service

We were never able to board the ship along with 50 other passengers because of a volcanic eruption in Europe that cancelled all the flights in Europe for 5 days. This was the worst airline delays that have ever happened in Europe. It was absolutely impossible to fly into Venice for 5 days. This happened to be two days before the cruise left and three days after the cruise left port. I called and emailed the day before the ship left explaining there was no possible way for us to get there. Costa did not respond until after I sent three emails spaced over two weeks. Ultimately, they kept all our money and offered no form of reimbursement or credit. Their response to the situation was "A natural occurrence such as this is out of the control of the air carrier and cruise line. Our terms and conditions, which the guest agrees to and which are listed in our brochures and our website, clearly define cancellation penalties. When booking a cruise with Costa Cruise Lines, this action defines that you agree to our terms and conditions. We hope you understand this is an extreme situation and an "Act of God," normal cancellation penalties apply. Regretfully, we are not able to provide compensation for this cancellation" The frustrating thing is that there was absolutely no way to get to Venice for the cruise. Airlines and Hotels recognized the unique circumstance and adapted their policies by offering refunds and other forms of reimbursements. Costa simply said tough luck and kept everything for absolutely no service rendered. If you book with Costa be aware they are only focused on revenue and not the customer!

normally i cruise with princess, but i liked the ports of call for this cruise. first let me say, the room size was great. we actually had too much storage. we had a jr suite which had a walk in closet, king bed, couch, chair and ottoman, and a full size bathtub, oh and a walk in closet. i did not gain any weight on this cruise because the food was not good at all. i mean it was eatable but truly i never ate anything either in the dining room or the buffet that i really liked. i bought a wine pkg before the cruise which u were suppose to be able to use either in the dining room or the buffet. each time i tried to select a bottle of wine in the buffet dining area, i was literally finished with my meal before i ever got the wine. however, they do offer little bottles of wine in buffet area for sale for $6.25. i did enjoy the wine in the pkg, back at our suite, but you could buy several little bottles for $6.25 and come out a lot cheaper. the ship was very organized in getting on and off the ship and all the excursions were very organized. glad we did this cruise, but i prefer princess.

I went on this cruise with my soon to be 21 year old daughter. This was a repositioning cruise, and for that reason there were a lot of days at sea. The majority of the passengers were so elderly that the cruise director had a "bling your scooter" parade. There was nothing for those of us of baby boomer ages and younger to do during those days at sea except to sun by the pool on days when weather permitted. On other days we did a lot of reading. Internet is extremely slow and extremely expensive. Also, it can only be accessed in public areas. Of course the slow speed makes a lot more money for the cruise line. Almost all activities were aimed at the super senior set. Also, although my online ticket package stated that I could sign a waver for my daughter to consume beer and wine, which I did, she was given a child's ship pass and could not order anything other than soft drinks. This was even while in the Mediterranean where the legal age everywhere is 18. The wait staff was great, but the food was mediocre at best. I've cruised Carnival and Norwegian and both had better dining options and a greater selection of food. I thought that this wold be a great Transatlantic adventure, but was disappointed in the reality.

The ship is beautiful, however, the general staff is very rude. Our cabin steward and the gentlemen who waited on us for dinner were very nice and customer service oriented. It is an Italian ship so we expected the food to be very good. The food was less than average, although the menu's were well varied and sounded good. Breakfast was very cold, whether in the dining room or at the buffet. The taste of the food was average to poor. I would not recommend this cruise ship to anyone.

I booked a trip with Costa Cruise lines during the time period that the Iceland volcano cancelled >10,000 flights from the US to Europe. I even bought multiple airline tickets to try to get to Europe. Since the flights were cancelled, and there was absolutely no way of getting to our port, there was no way of going on the cruise. I got 100% refunds on all of my airline tickets, and even the hotel stays, even though they had a "no refund policy." Costa cruises was not only the only part of my trip to not give me a refund, but they would not even issue me a credit to travel with them at a later date, giving the reason that this was a "god-given" event not in their control. This was supposed to be my honeymoon trip. I guess an act of god gives this cruiseline the right to profit off of me, and I'm sure many other people that day. I chose to go on Costa because of a previous cruise that I enjoyed, but after this, I will NEVER think about sailing with them again!

The accommodations were nice but not luxurious. I did think that some of the furnishings in some of the lounges were a little worn looking. The midnight buffet was a little disappointing -- not the extensive spread found on other cruises. The buffet food was only okay but the dining rooms with wait service had excellent food. The ship was kept very clean.

We were very pleased with this cruise. The crew was wonderful. Don't think we encountered anyone that was unpleasant. Our room was great and the bed was so comfortable. We had a mini-suite which was a good size for myself and husband and teenage son. It was wonderful to have the balcony as well. The entertainment was fantastic. I even went to one show twice I liked it so well. My son really enjoyed the teen program and participated with it every day. We really liked most of the ports. Our favorite was Funchal and Malaga. We did do some of the shore excursions offered by the ship. The quality of them I think depends on how good your guide is. We had a great one in Casablanca but some of our friends didn't get a guide that was as good and therefore didn't care for that stop as much as we did. There are a lot of extra costs but we kind of expected that so no big surprise. I probably would not have done the soda package for myself and husband if I had realized that water and iced tea were included in the cruise price. It was not bottled water but it was fine and the iced tea was really good. We didn't end up using the soda package very much. We only ate at 2 speciality restaurants, Cagneys and the Tex-mex place. They were both really good but Cagneys was exceptional. Probably the best steak I have ever eaten. The other restaurants were good also. We really enjoyed the buffet too. Better than most buffet food. Overall, we loved the cruise and look forward to booking our next one with NCL.

The ship looked nice, but the food ,the cabin and the fact that it was always late made me glad the cruise was over. We were late getting into port due to the fact the captain did not call in our time. We were 4 hours late getting to port the last day of our cruise and this caused over 200 people to miss their flights home.