Costa Fortuna Cruise Reviews - Reviews

We will do more Mediterranean trips by cruises, but Costa will not be on our list because our overall experience was not very good. Our main complaints are 1) the excursions were less than satisfactory, 2) the food and service of buffet was not as good as that of other cruise lines we traveled with, and 3) the ship was a bit old.

Actually, we enjoyed the trip. The cruise experience was very dissatisfying. The dining room was OK the food was very small portions and average at best. Our server Lee did an awesome job. Everyone that we encountered on the staff was courteous and kind, however, Most of the passengers, did not speak English and work exceptionally rude and discourteous. Having read other reviews we were not really expecting much from Costa. We thoroughly enjoyed the ports of call. The buffet was sorry. The entertainment was worse. This is the first time that I have cruised (16 cruise) where there was not coffee available in the buffet area. Oh, they had dispensers but there was not one time when I went for coffee that it was operating. Also, the only pizza they had to offer you had to pay for. It was marginal. The birthday hours were very limited. Overall, there were very few dining choices or options. If you have cruised other cruise lines in the past and you are cruising with Costa, go into it with the attitude that it is going to be way less than what you have been used to. We chose this particular cruise because of the itinerary and the price. We purchased a mini suite for a very reasonable price and it was fine. I will steward did an OK job. We had to ask for wash clause the first several days before he brought them without asking. Also, we had our do not disturb sign up one day and he knocked on the door wanting our shower curtain (830 in the morning) Telling us he would replace it later on in the day. We had not taken our showers yet, I told him that was unacceptable. Other than those two things he did a good job. It is highly unlikely that we will ever choose Costa it again.

Almost all our cruises have been on different cruise lines, and this was our first on Costa. Overall we were satisfied, but this line is the least desirable of all the ones we have been on.

I have read many reviews before taking this cruise and one of the biggest complaints was the food. We considered the food comparable to other cruises. There was definitely more of a leaning to Italian-type food, but there were always many selections. My wife does not care much for pasta and pizza, but found plenty of times she could choose her favorite main course, beef. Although it was not always on the dinner menu, you typically could find it at least once per day. Fish was also frequently available and there were also vegetarian options available. The desserts were very desirable and plenty to choose there too. The biggest complaint about food at our table was two-fold: apparently Costa has phased out the buffet option at dinner time. Therefore, to eat dinner you must go to the restaurant. That didn't matter to us, but I can see how it would matter to others. The second issue was that after breakfast (except for the one hour "tea-time"), the only coffee available had to be purchased from the bar as no ready-made coffee was at the buffet. In my view these are clearly cost-cutting and revenue-generating measures they have taken, and perhaps will settle well with the southern Europeans on board, but I don't see those steps flying with Americans. However, I do not know if this was a Costa-wide change or only for predominately European-attended cruises (ours was about 90% or so European).

The service was fine. Staff was courteous and helpful. We never had any problem with them.

The entertainment quality was mixed. One constant was that the volume was much too loud on all the shows.

This cruise had the least onboard activities I have ever seen on any cruise. There were things to do, but the depth of selection was low. We used the library, as we always do, but was the smallest we have seen.

We didn't do any excursions, but this itinerary was the best we have ever done. I would recommend that any cruiser who has never done this itinerary to get to it once in your lifetime, though not necessarily with Costa.

The ship was clean, but the layout design was at the weakest of the ships I have been on. First, there was no way to walk completely around the deck on any single level. We like to do this when going for a walk. Further, when moving from one end of the ship to another, you are forced to use deck 5 which forces you by the casino (maybe on purpose?) and through choke points that create traffic jams. We have been on higher capacity ships that have felt less crowded.

Embarkation and Disembarkation went smoothly, and the tender process was fine too.

Bottom line is we enjoyed our cruise, but would rather choose another cruise line for our future cruises.

My husband and I enjoyed the Costa Fortuna 14 day cruise to Iceland very much.  We just wanted to give a big thank you to the many staff members who graciously helped us out and were kind to us at all times.  We were the only Americans on board yet we had a marvelous time.  Thanks to our room captain Ari from room 1162.  Thanks to our Pizza captain who we enjoyed chatting with on stormy nights.  Thanks to Alma Lopez for always being so gracious. Thank you to our American-Greek speaking representative.  Thank you to the 9:00p.m. waiters who were always very professional.  Best wishes for many more exciting cruises!  Vicky and Tim Reidy

I will never cruise on Costa again.  The staff was unhelpful and rude.  Although they published that the aft pool was "adults only", it (and the entire ship)  was always full of screaming children.  Staff laughed and made no attempt to control this.   We never knew which elevators would be closed for the use of crew transporting luggage at every port, or which other elevators were open.  The ship was difficult to navigate compared to other lines.  The only dinner option was a 2-hour dining room visit at which we were rudely refused water without a 3 euro payment.  The safe could not be accessed by both myself and my friend - only one of us.  The drawer pulls were difficult with arthritic hands.  Now, I see pending charges on my credit card that should not be there.  My previous experiences with Royal Caribbean were excellent -  the opposite of Costa. 

I've been on several cruises with different companies and Costa is the worst experience I've ever had.

When food was available, which was extremeley limited in it's hours, it was nearly uneatable. There were times when I wandered around the ship looking for something to eat other than what they called Pizza to be available. The food in the dining area was so aweful we couldn't eat it on some evenings.

We were really disappointed with our recent cruise on Costa Fortuna.  The ship was fine and the staff was very nice (mostly) but the other cruisers were extremely rude.  They say Americans are rude - well next to the passengers on this cruise we are absolutely the nicest people on earth.

This was our first time to Europe so the atmostphere on the boat really put a damper on our vacation.

We were also surprised to note that at dinner time, there is only the main dining room or the resturant that you have to pay for.  The buffet was not an option.  Also the only thing available late at night was pizza NOTHING ELSE!

I guess that's all I have to say about it except that Costa should not market to Americans.

The ship was very nice and all the staff very courteous and helpful. Staterooms were spacious and housekeeping staff kept them very clean and neat.

Crusie was Venice-Bari-Katakolon-Santorini-Rhodes-Dubrovnik-Venice; 7 days-8 nights. The service was excellent. the food was good. Variety of food and services were good. I recomment taking the drink package if you like to have a care free vacation. It allows you the coffees, sodas, and alcoholoic drinks without the hassle of the cost and service fees of each drink (about 20 Euros per per per day). The cleanliness and constant upkeep made our trip enjoyable. We upgraded to a outside balcony room. This was an excellent choice for my wife & I. It provided more room and the constant view of the sea ans ports.

Food, attentiveness of staff, decor, accessibility to English language were all poor. This cruise line can not compare to Princess, Holland America, or Royal Carribean.

The ship was large but had all of the conveniences you could want.

In general everything was ok - in all aspects. You can always find some pros,but it doesn't worth for this cruise

Everything was very nice orginized, but the cruiseline catering to south american clientel and sometimes its hard to comunicate in eglish, even on the tour excursions.

Nasty food, uncomfortable beds, rude out of line staff, and I could go on forever. Basically this ship is to rip people off and get everyone's money, if you go on this cruise, expect nothing more than the worst. The only good thing was the places we went. That's it.

The bigest ship I saw in my life

We had a great time on our cruise. The places were beautiful. The ship was huge and kept very clean. Staff, especially our cabin steward, were nice. Only wish was that we were alotted more time in some of the ports. Overall, really cherished experience.

We booked an oceanview room, and landed under the navigation deck. We were told we had to leave the curtains closed after dusk. Couldn't even leave them open at night because "the light would glare into the navigation deck". They would round on us every day to ensure we closed them. So why did we pay extra? The food was horrible. Shows were amazing. Every announcement was in 6 languages. No one could speak English. Our cabin steward threw away our belongings and we STILL, months later, have not gotten any compensation for it. ONCE, I have been offered a cruise credit, but I will never sail on this cruise ship again. It was a few bucks cheaper than going Carnival or Royal, but it is not worth it. If this your first cruise, you might enjoy it. If you have ever cruised before, you will be sadly disappointed. I was happy to get off the ship, get a good meal, and have an English conversation. PLUS, we went on spring break, and it was nearly 80% elderly/at least middle aged foreigners. Where are all the college students? And nearly forgot, the night life... Horrible. The DJ refused to play any decent, recent music. He only played music that was at least 10 years old, when we were the only ones in the club. There were 4 of us, and he wouldn't change the music and was the biggest tool of a DJ I've ever seen. Costa theirselves has also been quite rude on my dealings with my items that they threw away....

I am European, but lived in US for a long time. I did not want to believe negative reviews, but I was wrong. The ship is great and clean, the locations are awesome, but the food, food service and entertainment - all definitely needs improvement. The assigned restaurant sitting was rarely on time and they kept us waiting by the closed doors for at least 1/2 hour every time. Then English speaking diners were served after Italian speaking were served, so we often ended up being served desert when others were leaving. It was sort of funny, and we thought that maybe we just feel that way, however other English speaking felt the same. And the food itself looked like it was just unfrozen. This is not what you expect of Italian cuisine! Entertainment - with all the bravado about being Italian ship - most of the songs performed were very old American songs. We would so much more enjoyed contemporary Italian music. It is time to update the repertoire. Another annoying thing was that a lot of kids were present in all the pools on all decks and that kind of limited my enjoyment of that part of cruising. I have nothing against kids, but usually they are allowed only in one pool where they can splash and jump and go nuts if they want to. Rules were not enforced there at all. But with all said, the trip was fun and we loved dance lessons on the deck and all of the well organized activities. The activities coordinators were great. And great organized ship unboarding/boarding effort helped tremendously to enjoy our stops at all locations. Yes, and people were dressed much nicer than you would see on other cruises. That was definitely pleasant.

Overall the ship was pretty nice, but we had a suite room on the 8th deck rear corner with a huge balcony -- so we expected something nice.

Let me start by saying we had a great time. The ship was clean and well cared for. Our cabin was a good size and the cabin stewart was attentive. The food was just ok. What really sold us on this trip was the ports of call. Italy, Greece and Croatia. The down side was the rude Italians. They refuse to wait in line, constantly cut you off, and are not the least bit friendly. Even the crew was complaining. We were two of only about 60 Americans on the ship.