Costa Favolosa Cruise Reviews - Reviews

(At the risk of plagiarizing a line from Tale of Two Cities.)  We truly enjoyed ourselves.  Service was great.  Waitstaff in the restaurants were wonderful.  Room steward was excellent.  We had plumbing problems.  Our toilet failed several times (no it wasn't clogged - it simply wouldn't flush).  Each time it was fixed very promptly - within minutes of us reporting it - but that shouldn't happen. 

We were a group of 9 Americans, and fortunately, we all get along very well.  None of us is bilingual, and that makes it tough to have casual conversations and make new friends on the cruise.  Don't get me wrong, everyone we met was friendly and tried to engage in conversation, but it was not easy.

The food was very good, but I'm used to seeing midnight buffets on cruises, and not being nickeled and dimed for every little thing.  My son in law was actually charged 38 cents for a glass of ice that he requested. 

Communication was a challenge.  During disembarkment on the last day of the cruise, no announcements were made in English - only Italian and Spanish.  And, a full 30 minutes past our scheduled disembarkment time, no one had been called to leave - only the excursion people were being addressed.  At that point, we had a plane to catch and simply left on our own, ignoring the schedule. 

The shows were fair at best, with the crew's presentation being the best of them all.  Nightlife was limited by our preferences (Italian karaoke is not my idea of a good time).

In summary, the ports of call were fine, the food was fine, the service was fine.  I would probably seek out a different cruise line that catered more toward my American tastes next time. 

con: food was not so great   Lack variety, at times salty. At dinner you were charged for water and where not offered tea or coffee with dessert.

Pros: great nighttime entertainment.   We enjoyed having a stop at different port almost daily.  Cabin size and cleanness was great.  Staff just ok not overly friendly. It was great meeting so many people from different places that spoke different languages making this a unique experience.

Costa favolosa was the worst cruise I have ever been on.  I have been on many cruise lines.  the food quality was only a little better than a high school cafeteria food.  If people like this cruise they have never been on any other cruise.  The entertainment was poor.   The ship had no real food choices but italian and that was very poor. All  other ships have multiple food types and different places to eat.  If the main dining hall was open the buffet was closed along with any other options.  The lines were always very long because they only would have one place offering anything at one time on the ship.   They nickled and dimed you for every thing and the quality was poor.  The spa hot tubs, steam rooms and relaxation rooms were extra.  they had no ice cream unless you paid extra and only at limited time offerings . They had no soda drinks  or even juice with out paying more.   All other ships I have been on at least had juice through out the day or soda during the main meal of the day included.   They had no piano bar jazz club.  no comedy club.   the excursion desk was disorganized.   One of my  excursions was even cancelled and another was set for the wrong language.  The management told the room staff not to waist towels making towel animals which on all other cruises is a custom.  There was no onboard welcoming party.   The alcoholic drinks were watered down.   If this was my first cruise I wound never do another.

REALMENTE ESTUVO BIEN, DE ACUERDO A LO ESPERADO, SIN EMBARGO LA PARADA EN OSLO FUE MUY TEMPRANO Y CON MUY POCO TEMPO PARA VISITAR UNA CIUDAD QUE OFRECE TANTO. MUY TENDENCIOSO A CONTRATAR LOS TOURS QUE SE OFRECEN AL INTERIOR.

LO MEJOR DE TODO FUE LA ATENCIÓN DE JESS, NUESTRO MESERO A BORDO EN EL DUQUE DE ORLEANS.

What an unpleasant overall experience.

The crew was pleasant but appeared tired and overworked and rather resigned. When engaged in conversation, they were quite emphatic about how badly the cruise line had deteriorated since "that American company" (actually Carnival is owned by American/Israeli billionaires) took over ownership.  Experienced cruise travelers also decried the deterioration in the service, cleanliness and quality compared to years past.  This apparently is a far cry from the Costa you knew and loved.

stateroom was nice. It is a recently built Italian luxury ship. What's not to like?

Food - really bad. Buffet was rather stale and unimaginative and unchanging, sorta like gong to McDonalds every day except even McDonalds is fresher and often has better variety. reminded me of feeding the livestock when I was a kid.  Balanced diet and all that, but not very imaginative.  And just sort of shoveled out there.  

And talk about ripoff, you cannot get even water to drink at your evening supposedly fine dining dinner, without paying for it.  the menu items there were also unimaginative and not that flavorful. Again, I don't know why.  Shouldn't be that hard on an Italian ship with Italian chefs.  And I am an experienced Italian cuisine diner, both in and out of Italy, having been raised by and married to outstanding Italian cooks. Heck, they didn't even know how to set the table properly. Waiters seemed motivated and nice people, so I assume they didn't receive training.

Overall experience was not unlike being trapped in a generally pleasant but bland floating prison.  With services, food, entertainment, excursions, port calls all appearing corporate database managed down to the lowest possible cost.  And the attitude seemed to be to simply try to squeeze every last $$ from passengers, by any means possible.

Literally filthy buffet room chairs. Rest of public areas not quite so bad.

entertainment - Entertainers tried hard, but, for example, the bass was so overpowering, artists could hardly be heard. Strange experience. And markedly unpleasant.  Where did they get those sound engineers?  We chatted with many of them ( my wife does that sort of thing). they too were pleasant but seemed a bit tired and resigned. I wonder why.

"Shopping" was also a joke.  Couldn't even find a place to buy toiletries. And the stuff offered for sale was just junk at inflated prices for the unsuspecting.

And $30 for a prepaid hour of S-L-O-W internet use (Yes, i do need to check business sometimes even when on vacation. how do you think I can afford taking my wife on cruises?) seems another ripoff, given the free wifi available virtually everywhere else. Even airliners charge a lot less. Doesn't seem like a good business decision, when it simply adds to the feeling of being exploited when they have you by the shorts.

No more Carnival associated enterprises for me. Ever.

If you like cruising, check the details carefully. And chose anyone but a Carnival associated line.

I hope this info helps a bit.

Great effort was expended to sell us various beverage packages.  We were told we couldn't even get a glass of water at dinner.  I bought a water package.  Each night after that we were given water with no charge against the package.  Wound up with five extra bottles of water at the end of the week.  Another ruse to get euros out of us.  The food was lousy.  I had a couple of dishes that were OK, but none I considered really good.  Tried the veal belly.  YUK!  All of the beef dishes, including the hamburgers, were poor.  I realize now that I'm spoiled on American beef.  The entertainment was weak, also.  Having cruised with Carnival I expected much more, and found much less.  I heard the same comment from others on the cruise about the unexpected slights from Costa compared to Carnival.  One of the excursions we had looked forward to was cancelled because there was no English speaking guide.  It was a wine and truffle excursion.  The language was not really a barrier, but we were not offered an alternative.  The only high point of my time with Costa was the cabin steward.  He did an excellent job.  I will not cruise Costa again, nor would I recommend it to anyone.

Belle croisière beau bateau avec pas mal d activité et belle ambiance comme souvent avec costa

We had a great time on the Costa Favolosa. The cabin was very large, clean and comfortable. The servers at dinner time were excellent and the food was very good although small portions. I really think that the policy of embarkation/disembarkation at multiple ports is great. No long lines to embark and the process was effortless. I was very disappointed in the evacuation drill after embarkation. There was a good film but total disorganization when going to the muster stations. Crew were totally unorganized. The breakfast and lunch hours were much to limiting and we often found restaurants closed for this purpose. Also, NO coffee or even water at dinner. This is silly considering coffee and water are offered at every buffet station.

It was a pleasant experience. Good foods, good shows and a very good service.

Except for Palma, the ship adds new passengers and debarks others, making chaotic lifeboat drills a daily occurrence. No afternoon naps are possible! As English speakers we were seriously disadvantaged: English tours were cancelled due to lack of participants, yet with a no refund policy we were obliged to take tours in Italian or Spanish. Waste of time, in many cases, and very frustrating and disappointing as we chose this ship's itinerary specifically for its cultural activities.. Wish we'd been warned ahead of time that the cruise was not suitable for English speakers. Felt like outsiders most of the time! Even the admin.agents, restaurant people, and tour desk folks hardly spoke English, and when we tried to communicate our concerns the attitude seemed to be "Get lost."

I start with the good things, very nice cabin, clean, and confortable. Good shows. Staff not friendly at all. Food very poor variety. Service bad. Most of the machines were not working, like to get ice, coffee or water. During the buffet, staff was not cleaning tables. Disrty tables all the time. For breakfast no variety. No milk sometimes, no more buffet after 3pm. only cheesse pizza. Sandwich service, one person making sandwiches taking hours. At the restaurant, you have to ask for water like 5 or 6 times, they don't care. very slow service. People at the reception had no patience. Lack of information in all the ship. You didn't know where to go to exit the ship in every port. TV progrmas not good only news, if you wanted to watch a movie you had to pay $7.50 euros. The adults pool, full of kids, jumping and screaming. I could keep going on and on. Advise, do not book Costa. Princess is number one.

Vacation was really great. It was my first experience with the cruises and I liked it very much. The ship is almost new, staff is very polite, food is good, entertainment program is variety. The only downside is that in some ports (Barcelona, Napoli) we stayed only 4,5 hours and of course didn't have enough time to do the sights calmly.

Being used to taking North American cruises, the cruise did not give us any good tast in our mouth.

I would not take another Costa cruise. I picked the cruise based on the itinerary and the ports delivered (Bari was a strange stop)but Costa's inefficiency and poor service made the already short times in port even shorter. Communications from the ship seemed lacking and service was mediocre compared to similar cruises I have taken in the past at similar price points on different carriers.

Staff behaved as if you were in the way, and for the most part, didn't seem to care about customer service. There was smoking allowed across almost the entire ship, so it was hard to get a breath of fresh air. Very little pool space considering the number of passengers.

The staff did not seem to know how to manage so many passengers. The focus was on selling additional services and speaking English was a negative.

Nice, new ship. Food was overall good; Ports in Venice, Istambul and Izmir were great. Not sure why they include Bari. Stateroom wasn't clean until after 3pm. We never got sheets for the bed even after asking. Shampoo only on 3rd day, etc. Disrespecteful and awful treatment by guest services staff; dining staff was OK but service was extremely slow. 45 minutes into service and we still didn't have any appetizers... that was for 3 days.

In general we were very pleased with our first cruise and Costa delivered on virtually all its promises. We state above what we liked and didn't like, so won't repeat here. Thank you for a wonderful holiday!

We were all very disappointed with the cruise. Everything was so expensive and everything cost money. This was our first cruise and it was not what we expected. To start, the first picture taking was 40.00 Euros just ridiculous. Then, we tried to purchase the all inclusive package for alcoholic beverages for my boyfriend and I and they told us we needed to have a minimum of 5 and that was an argument. Well, we were only 3 (my boyfriend, my mother and I). Then, they told us that we could do it, however all 3 will have to do it. Well, my mom doesnt drink so only my boyfriend was able to benefit from that offer. Also, we werent aware there is a charge of 7.00 Euros to clean the room per person, that should have all been included in the price of cruise. Internet was 10.00 Euros per hour!!! And the phone was 8.00 per minute. Outraging. Many many times we tried to contact the front desk and they wouldnt pick up the phone. We purchased an excursion in Croatia. The newsletter we receive everyday confirmed no passport was required. After we left the ship, got into the little boats to get to the port, then got in the bus the guide person said we needed passports so half of the bus had to get out, walk on foot to the port, catch the little boats, go to the cruise ship and get our passports. At that time there was so many people on the ship trying to get out the ship actually went to the port and we all went out. That fiasco took over 1.5 hours. Obviously, we missed the excursion and after waiting 20 minutes calling the front desk to make sure they didnt charge that excursion to us, the receptionist said we needed to have the tickets and turn them in. When I told him I didnt know if we still had them he said find them. Luckily we did and turn the in and got reimbursed, however, how the receptionist handle the call was far from professional. In addition, the only discotech was closed several times during the cruise and the first time we we

The cruise was good. The food was not great.