Terrible

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 8

Review summary

I have cruised many times, but this was by far the worst. The only reason we ended up going on this cruise despite the bad reviews was, my uncle booked this from Germany for our group consisting of 12 people, ranging in age from 14-78. The 14 year old loved the teen entertainment, he made lots of Italian friends (which seemed to be the nationality of most of the teens on the cruise). Here is the good: 1. Nice rooms but tighter than other cruise lines ( we had a ocean view cabin ) 2. Nice ship/clean 3. Excellent wait staff, in particular the bartenders, we are not big drinkers, but the drink package turned out to be a must on this cruise - you get unlimited water and sparkling water as well. The bad: 1. Food was terrible, very few choices, not tasty at all, along the lines of a TV dinner - this was in the dining room. The lunch buffet had 3 main stations all served the same food (every day), there was a hamburger and hot dog station as well- kids said hamburgers were not good - I never had one, so can't say... Other cruise ships have a variety of foods at each station-not Costa 2. Staff at buffet seemed not happy - I think Costa works their people to death - on other cruises the staff always seemed happy ( one night we were coming back to our room and one of their male staff members was sobbing in the hallway ) 3. While the state room attendant was friendly - the cleaning lacked attention - only once did we get a towel animal?!?! I am sure he had no time they appeared understaff - a money saving tactic by Costa 4. There was a heat wave in Europe while we were there and AC was marginal at best 5. Most days we got into ports after noon, and had 4-6 hours in port, other cruises I have taken we would arrive in port before or just after breakfast, not with Costa. We were told that may be to Costa's attempt to conserve fuel by going slower and saving on port fees by arriving after noon - makes sense 6. One of the worst were all the kids - love kids - but I don't think it's cool to try to enjoy a dinner and have kids scream non stop and parents doing NOTHING to discipline - as I stated before there were a lot of Italians on the cruise and they are loud. Also, nightly we observed 2, 3 and 4 year old on the dance floor at the bars dancing at 11PM or even later, their parents thought this was cute, but REALLY - there are kids clubs on board - USE them. 7. Internet terrible - we bought a 3 hour package, used about an hour and tried to log on the next day and time was gone - apparently when you think you have logged out - there is another step to logging out that is not apparent in the process, so be careful. 8. no laundry room as on American ships, thought we could deal but due to heat wave changed clothes more than we thought we would and ran out - their Costa run laundry service is very expensive. Overall - this was the worst cruise ever, we went in not expected a lot so we wouldn't be disappointed, and also the 14 year old being free seemed like a good deal, but with kids being free, this ship was overrun with kids - I will pay more next time...

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Children's Programs

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom