Costa Luminosa Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Great time with upbeat animation crew! Beautiful ports of call. The shows were awesome!

Overall and EXCELLENT Cruise! Excursions were very interesting & historic!! Would we take it again? .... Absolutely YES!!!

Our suite was lovely. Service was excellent. My husband loves Italian food, I love Italian music. I enjoy the European style, they change silverware between each course. Going suite class there are no hidden expenses. We thought is was a great value.

Best cruise we have taken. Ports interesting and convient.

The ship itself was nice, clean, couple pools and 4 hot tubs accommodated everyone. Very large ship, a lot of bars. Few complaints: the food is below average and buffet style, very repetitive, no change, for breakfast( my favorite and most important meal), if you want typical eggs pancakes sausage bacon, have to pay addionally for that and even that was below average. Same as lunch and dinner, buffet wasn’t good at all. WiFi cost money, no Internet cafe for free. I went with 2 friends, the cleaning service did a good job cleaning, we were not aware we were charge $10 each day, all 3 of us. $70/per to clean our room? For that price we would of cleaned it ourselves if we knew.. We also felt very uninformed on this cruise, I personally feel Costa suck with marketing and making their customers aware of all the options they have to offer. Probably would never cruise with Costa again.

The Costa boarding process in Venice was terrible. There was a massive amount of people standing in a warehouse waiting for their group number to be called. There were simply not enough Costa employees. We waited in line for 1 1/2 hours. On our first night we were told by our waiter that he could not serve us an alcoholic drink. We had to retrieve our own drinks from a bar on the ship. I found it less than funny that the bar next to the dining room was closed during dinner. We were also unclear why you could only get black coffee after dinner since this same dining room serves breakfast with coffee, cream and sugar. We have been on 7 cruises (this was our first Costa) and we have never seen so many people fighting over so few seats on the 9th deck. One day we actually had to take our lunch plates back to our cabin after circling the deck for 20 minutes. Forget going to the Hospitality Desk to get an a straight answer to any questions. After being told 3 different times to return to the desk for assistance I asked to speak to a Supervisor and was told they wouldn't come out to speak with me. The desk staff would not even give me their name. We had a great vacation. Our room steward Mark was great, our waiter Saber was also very good. Our excursions were all fun and I felt a good value. We learned valuable lessons for selecting future cruises in Europe.

The cruise was a good experience, but mainly because of the beautiful ports we visited. Our favorite port was Olympia, Greece. We will cruise again, but unfortunately not with Costa cruise line.

I will not be using Costa again, I don't feel like it is the right cruise line for our family. We loved the ports and some of the staff was very friendly but unfortunately, the ones that were not outnumber them.

I have been in several cruises: Royal Carribean, NCL, Celebrity, Carnival. This was our 1st European cruise. Overall, we were quite disappointed as the visits to most of the port of calls were short, the excursions catered to people who didn't have mobility problems. It would have been nice to have excursions with little physical activities to accomodate all guests. As an African American couple, we felt disrespected quite often. For example, we walked in one of the shops and the clerks continued to follow me around. I am quite blessed to have the resources to pay for this cruise and I was well able to buy anything in any of the shops. Costa could benefit from cultural diversity training. I do not plan on cruising with Costa in the future and would not recommend this cruise line.

Very disappointed over all. I had high hopes for delicious Italian meals on board, but unfortunately, the food was mediocre at best. That's about a positive a statement I can give. With exception for room stewards, ship Staff treats guests like they're a nuisance. Very discourteous and slow to react to customer basic needs. I sincerely hope that not all Costa ships are like this one, because if they are then it will be my last and will let everyone I know about it. I doubt Costa management cares at all what I or any of their passengers think.

I loved the evening dining and the activities. The cruises would have been better if we could have spent more time in the port cities. The hospitality desk did their best to help us know how to get around at the destinations, but they had never been there themselves and knew only what they could pull off the internet. It would be great if the staff had first hand knowledge of the destinations. None of the staff did except the cruise director.

Nice ship, great ports.  Horrible service.  Costa is far below other major cruise lines.  This is by far the stingyest cruise line when it comes to, well..., everything.   Stingy with the food.  Poor selection and very limited hours to eat.   For example, the dinner buffet only runs from 7:30 to 9:00.  That's a ridiculous hour and a half to eat, of which you'll spend half the time line, 15 minutes trying to find a table, and just a few minutes to eat.  There aren't nearly enough tables to accomodate the passengers.  Coffee is only offered 2 hours a day 7am to 9am.  Then it's piss warm water the rest of the day.  The ice machines were not working most of the time.  Non-Europeans will have to pay for water in the dining room.   There is NO FREE FOOD after 9pm on this ship.   Ports were nice, but shamefully short.  The ships docs from were only 4 and 5 hours, docking at 7 or 8 am.  You know what's open at 7am in a port city?  Nothing.  The ship went to great lengths to make sure they fed you as little as possible and gave you as little for your money as they could.  NOT the cruise for those that enjoy food as one of the best parts of cruising.  Entertainment limited, service was meager.  A somber, unfriendly crew that is unhelpful.   Forget about Costa.  They just don't get why people cruise.   They take your money, have THE WORST port docking times, that convienently make you miss one or two meals since their food service hours are so limited.     NEVER AGAIN with Costa.  Not even an option as a cruise line.  Write them off.  

1-You will not be told that NOTHING IS FREE AFTER PAYING YOUR TICKET.

pay for juice  , milk for you or your children , ice cream , hamburger , hotdogs ...etc.

Even room service is for 5 $ a person and very limited options.

you will loose the fun of a typical cruse

2- unhappy employees , their tips already will be collected by the ship at the end whether they will be nice to you or not . God knows whether they will be given any of it or " included in their salary "

 3- Quality of food was not good , and the same menu every day .

Excellent accommodations, food and service.  Lots of sights to see and visit in the ports of call, and tour guides are recommended.  Enjoyed this trip to the fullest. 

We got a good price for this cruise and overall it was a good experience. There were a few hiccups, but as Americans we went in knowing this would be an Italian cruise skewing to older guests. So that helped set our expectations.

The excursions were mostly great. The Piu Gusto beverage package was a great value for us. But we're younger (26-28yo) and were able to drink more. The food was hit or miss, especially in the full-service dining room. The buffet seemed to offer better selection and taste which was unexpected.

Club Luminosa dining room was a waste. Service overall was good, except an issue with an excursion/spa situation.

We were happy to get a room upgrade and had a balcony room which was great.

Overall I think we would use Costa again just for the value. Even if on the ship there were some puzzling upcharge situations.

The ship did not have a "general" store on board for toiletries and incidentals that we forgot or needed.  The stores that they did have onboard could have had better hours.  It was hard to hear announcements in our room.  The dining room had a great variety of choices overnight to choose from.  It was nice having 2 nights on the boat while docked in Stockholm.

This was our first cruise in a long time - we really enjoyed it.  The staff was very friendly and they understood English.  The staterooms were very comfortable and well-kept.  We slept well!  We had perfect weather and calm seas! The ship had many activities for our family of four to choose from and the nightly shows were outstanding.  The food was varied and phenomenal at all meals.  We loved the multiple courses at dinner! I am perplexed at the low reviews on the food.  I will say a couple of tips - wait until you are on the boat to decide if you want to purchase a drink package. There are more options offered after you are underway.  (Without a package, you do have to pay for drinks - specifically, soda at lunch and all drinks at dinner.) We did get a drink package and thoroughly enjoyed trying all the different coffees, the chocolate bar, and the alcoholic drinks.  Also wait until on board to decide on excursions because more options are offered on board than on the web.  But, even so, the cruise excursions are expensive, compared to what you can arrange on your own at the ports. As to internet, plan on not having it.  The ship provides it but for a fee that you won't want to pay.  Finally, if you take a Christmas cruise, be aware that where ever you stop on 25 Dec, the monuments you want to see will likely be closed.  So, for example, we docked in Athens on 25 Dec and the Acropolis was closed.

Embarkation and disembarkation was great.  I was unable to get coffee after dinner (without a charge) and they were going to charge me for regular water at dinner.  I've never known a cruise line to do that.  I'm not sure my sheets were changed once during our entire cruise.  I thought the buffet was pretty sparse compared to all other cruise lines.  I didn't like the fact that they charged for room service.  I felt like they were nickel and dimming me on the cruise.  I highly doubt that we will ever do another Costa cruise.  

1) We could not connect to anyone in Costa, Europe to find out about ability to board ship later than a 4 hr window they gave us. Caused me lot to make it happen just to find people were boarding late night also. In US people were just reading whats on web site.

2) Make web site more flashy, it looks avg as per US std but cruise line is very good and much beter

3) Staff would not do anything to go overboard even if things are wrong. Served us meat twice in a week even when said vegetarian and even then they would not try to make it better by going overboard or asking how can we do it better.

4) Golf simulator is expensive to use even though not very accurate, so try to make a better pkg for that as lot of people will use it for right price. I ahve seen only 2 guys using it over period of 7 days.

1. They showed a misleading itinerary when I booked the cruise. It said that the ship would come back to Stockholm at 9 am the day before disembark. But in fact it arrived at 4 pm. We had planned to take that day to visit some places Stockholm but it totally didn't work. I complained to their custom service on the ship and they told me the schedule time coming back to Stockholm is 3:30 pm. They said that schedule was posted in their website. That is totally a lie.

2. Poor service. If you have meals in the buffet area, don't expect the waiters or waitress will do anything for you except just cleaning your table.

3. Their buffet lunch or dinner only opens for 2 to 2.5 hours. You won't have any food outside that window unless you pay for it.

4. The check-in process was long and  lacked of instructions. They checked your passports for 4 times before entering the ship but nothing else was done. But you had to go to your room to get the ship card and needed to link your credit card to your ship card by yourself via their kiosks after onboarding.