Costa Magica Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Just returned from 7 days cruise from Savona, Italy. Our group of 20 people was bit disappointed with Costa cruise line. My friend and I booked 3 excursions ahead of time thinking that we will save some money on the conversion rate that was going up. Little that we know that there were only few English speaking passengers on board. 2 of the excursions were cancelled the morning of the event and one excursion had old guide who tried to navigate English and German at the same time but neither language was his native. But what disappointed us the most that the monies that we paid were not returned to our credit cards but rather added to our onboard credit which we never had a chance (or had a desire) to spend on the ship. Talking to representatives from the cruise line proved to be senseless. Also food was bad, especially in the morning buffet had very limited variety and not tasty at all. Our waiter was rude and not very welcoming as also most barmen on the ship. I guess they didnt like the fact that we all bought beverage packages and all the drinks we served were for free. Anyways, we wouldnt book Costa again (at least any time soon) but wanted to say Thank you to Tatiana and Mary at the excursion desk for their help getting us through and to stateroom cleaning people, they were all good for us. Also we loved all cities in Italy, Spain and Malta that we visited.

Food was the biggest disappointment on this cruise. Lost 3 pounds instead of gaining weight like everyone else says you do on a cruise. Smoking everywhere only enforced was at dinner time. Charged for everything. Paid over $6.00 for a bottle of water. Excursions were short.

I was very impressed with almost everything about this cruise...the itinery, the food, and especially the service. Originally, I was assigned the second seating for dinner. The restaurant not only re-arranged the seating promptly, but also arranged us to sit with other folks with similar interest. Another plus is that I can disembark in a different port and not at the original port where I embarked, thus saving me valuable vacation to explore other parts of Italy. It was an excellent cruise experience.

The ship and cabins are fine, but the food is terrible. Very bland with limited choices and small portions. There is even no buffet for dinner. We paid 20 euro per person extra for the "Special" dining room one night and it was just as bad!!! What an insult. This is my 9th cruise, I have taken many different cruise lines- Costa is hands down the worst.

Basically, this is nothing like Carnival and no where close to Royal Carribean. On a scale from 1 to 10 of all the different ships I've been on, Costa is a 1 !! I asked for shampoo and conditioner and was told to go to shop and buy it! I think that can give you an idea of how 'cheap' this company is. If you missed the dining room sit down meals, you can ONLY get 2 types of cardboard pizza at preset times. It's a joke but it's actually called buffet. I will never take another Costa cruise again. The only redeeming factor, was that we were able to eat on land every day.So we ate and drank at ports as much as we could and avoided the boat as much as possible. It really was that plain. The food in dining room was terrible. When you ask for towels they say I have to see if they give me more. The motto is cut costs and cheap!

Overall experience was very poor. From arrival in our cabin- which had a cancellation of our first day's excursion, which they admitted they knew for months but never notified us, and dinner, where our 3 kids were seated in a different dining room from us!!! It was all downhill from there...

Depending on what you are looking for, this cruise had pros and cons. We had great rroms for the price. I have always enjoyed the small touches that weren't on this cruise. That said, the rooms were great and cleaned well (just no creatively folowed towels, etc.). The shows were pretty good and the ship facilities were good (loved the sauna and steam rooms with windows to the outside). The biggest negative was the food. Across the board, the food just did not compare in quality or variety to others (Royal & Princess). In summary, the ports and rooms were great, the facilities and the activities were okay, and the food and finer points were just okay. All that said, how bad could it be? It's a cruise for goodness sake.

A floating diner. This is basically cruising for the lowest common denominator

The ship was the Magica of Costa Cruise Lines.It was very clean.Smoking allowed in designated areas but drifted into non smoking areas which was difficult to deal with.This was my 5th cruise and I was not impressed by staff.Robotic like.Not particularly personable/friendly.They got the job done but without a spark. Ports and excursions very good.Bike trip in Palma de Mallorca was an excellent experience.Guide experienced and helped make it a fun and informative tour.

I feel carnival should learn from Costa about entertainment and Cost should learnfrom carnival about serving variety of food.

i was impressed with the service and staff

I didn't care so much for the decor and things looked a little shabby as well.

The staff was very friendly, helpful and efficient. The ship was very clean and our cabin was always picked up and cleaned several times a day. Passengers were mostly european and they made people watching fun. The Italians especially are so exuberant about everything. The staff was proficient in communicating in several languages.

The ship itself is fine, the decor a little over the top, but the service and staff are just terrible. Don't make the mistake I did choosing Costa Cruiselines

They hit you at the end with a mandatory $20/day tip fee. And Drinks are very expensive, you can't bring your own on board

A fabulous value with great port stops...perhaps not enough time in a couple, but overall sufficient. Ship staff second to none - polite, neat, knowledgable, understandable (language) and most of all friendly.

Tehre is no wireless network in anywhere in the ship. No wireless internet as a result. You can only use the computers of the ship and cannot download any file from your messages. I had to change my room key 6 times and had to wait at the customers service desk for more than 2 hours totally. The electronic lock do not work properly.

I thought the ship was clean and well organized. I sometimes had ask questions about what was going on as there were only a few Americans on board. The food was ok you must remember this is a Europeon Cruise line. The ports of call were great. I challange anyone to find a better value for the money. The crew was friendly and curtious, and wanted to help as long as you were polite to them.

The ship is beautiful, the ammenities are very nice. The food is average. The ship's personnel are very respectful and patient with the exception of the Customer Service personnel who do not help solve problems; they just send to others places, and you go round and round. For example we had a problem with a pay per view movie, but we were unable to get a refund because the Customer service personnel just kept sending us in circles. We found out later they shoulld have sent us to somebody else.

There were so many things wrong with this cruise I couldn't even list them. Every American and Canadian we met on the ship said they were sorry they booked it and would never sail with Costa again. We certainly won't ever use them again and want everyone to know how horrible it was. Aside from everything else listed below, we had to listen to everything in 5 languages before we could hear it in English.