Wansbrough

On 10/6/2022 at 8:52 AM, kremerlorraine said:

It sometimes appears as an option to book in advance on MyCosta, but not for all cruises. On our recent cruise on the Fascinosa unlimited Internet access for 13 days cost 190 euros. Social packages (eg including WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram etc) were something like 90 euros. For a week the price for full unlimited access is 100 euros and for social media it's 50 euros. Per minute is 30 cents. There were no discounts on board on any of our last five cruises this year.

Yes, this is what we paid last July plus there was a €3 admin fee as well. I was able to log on and off from different devices which was a great help when doing my blog.

17 hours ago, BVILady said:

I usually research excursions on various sites (the advantages of being retired and having all this free time) and noticed that Costa Cruise lines excursions are really reasonable. For example Gibraltar and the rock is Euro 33.75, could not find it any cheaper on tripadvisor, viatar and so on. Saw on one Luxury liner the question whether a ship-excursion was worth $ 299.00 (forgot where to) what they will be charged extra and I was being charged on Costa less then $ 100.00. Besides not having to pay for the tour if at last minute the ship doesn't dock in the port I also have the peace of mind that if the tour is delayed the ship will wait for me. And being traveling solo the excursions with the ship are easier anyhow. Seeing so many cruisers aimlessly walking around here in the BVI in Road Town from one parking lot to the next because they figured to just wing it is a constant reminder for me to book excursions when on a cruise to SEE the places I am going to.

There are of course exceptions and I fully understand your reasons for preferring an organised ships tour. While the Costa tours maybe reasonably priced, we much prefer the smaller groups with a local guide who can move you around a lot quicker the 40 plus people having to load and off load from coaches every time you stop.

BTW, I admire anyone who cruises solo, so good on you. 👍🏼

4 hours ago, Aeroplex said:

By the way for Casablanca and Rabat I am not happy with the tours Costa offers. 
 

Therefore my plan is to organize my own tour for that day, full day to Casablanca and to Rabat with a local guide. 
 

Anyone interested ? 

You need to post this on a Roll Call, good luck with getting anyone else to join that let alone the tour. 😂

6 hours ago, Janet&Carl said:

We like MSC have had 10 cruises with them - their suite experience far surpasses Costa. 

 

Cruising in suite or MSC's YC holds no interest for us, I'd sooner take two cruises. 😉

On MSC if you are not YC then the product is less than mediocre. For the record we have sailed MSC 4 times and have a 3 nighter booked for next April, purely to take family away for a few days at a cheap price.

On 10/6/2022 at 9:24 AM, sealynx said:

I think there is more to it than just the Chinese market being closed as well as the lack of Russian passengers. Other companies in Europe, even part of the Carnival corp, are growing. MSC is growing big time, taking a large part of the Italian market, but also from almost any other European country. German market has also always been a big one, but is turning towards MSC, AIDA and Mein Schiff. Costa seems to have lost their game. They are the only of the big companies with still ships in lay up, even though plenty of ships have left the fleet completely. While other companies are not only investing in new tonnage, they also invest in new amenities. The new Costa ships are big, and new, but hardly innovative in regards to the passenger experience. Costa can't even keep open their buffer for more than a few hours on a row. It would be saddening, but I wouldn't be surprised if there wouldn't be a Costa Crociere in ten years time.

I think its sad and quite likely to happen. They do appear to be struggling somewhat so I guess the other brands will swallow up the remaining ships.

15 hours ago, Janet&Carl said:

I think their new rules regarding the loyalty status has also had an impact.  I know it did with us.  Although we have kept our next cruise which under the previous conditions would have seen us sail with Perla Oro.

 

It is now impossible for most to achieve any level of loyalty status with them - if  you book an inside you have to constantly travel more than a world cruise continuously to maintain status.   

 

We have returned back to MSC at least their status and benefits are achievable.

 

Although we reached Pearl some years ago under the old system we have continued to use them even after the first Costa Club reshuffle. We weren't happy with the new rules as it showed no loyalty to the loyal customers. On the other side of the coin, MSC let anyone match their status using other cruise lines points/levels.

Not a big fan of MSC, they are all fur coat and no knickers if you ask me. (British phrase meaning - have an impressive or sophisticated appearance which belies the fact that there is nothing to substantiate it.)

My, how Costa have let it slip over the last few years. We will be experiencing Toscana over Christmas and will be interested to compare these bigger ships and onboard expereince. Our two favourate ships, Atlantica and Mediterranea are just sat gathering dust. ☹☹

On 9/28/2022 at 4:25 PM, CruiseCriticAaron said:

We're back from Costa Toscana! Here's our rundown of hits and misses from the trip, and what North American passengers should know to make the most of their time on this great ship.

 

https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/7113/

I think you written a fair review of what we recognise as a Costa expereince. The musters can be a bit hit and miss even in the days when we had to stand in line on the prom deck.

I don't recall reading what you thought of the MDR food?  We enjoy it and it really works for us as my wife is vegan and Costa have a seperate dedicated vegan menu in the MDR.

13 hours ago, CruiseCriticAaron said:

I'd estimate that Italians were the primary folks onboard, followed by French, German and Spanish-speaking passengers. It was a nice group of folks, even if we didn't all speak the same language.

Its one of the reason that we are attracted to Costa, just love the international onboard feel.

22 minutes ago, CruiseCriticAaron said:

One issue I will point out, for English-speaking passengers: I've had every excursion I pre-booked online cancelled due to lack of English-speaking participants. The only ones available are guideless tours and transfers. So it definitely pays to do your own research on what you can do in port, because you're going to be on your own a lot.

As long as we can communicate with the ones that matter (the crew) then it suits us perfectly not being able to speak with other passengers, we seldom take ships tours anyway as we prefer to do our own thing. One thing I will say about Costa is that they have great vibe onboard their ships.

Why do you feel the need to book a ships excursion? Google is a wonderful tool which can put you in touch with many local guides and company's.

23 hours ago, CruiseCriticAaron said:

Hi all -- Cruise Critic will be sailing aboard Costa Toscana on September 18, roundtrip from Savona, Italy. Feel free to ask us your questions here about the ship or the trip, and we'll do our best to answer!

Would you be the Aaron formally of From the Deck Chair?

It will very interesting to see what you make of Costa Toscana, we have booked her for a Christmas cruise this year and although not lovers of bigger ships we are excited by everything we have seen and heard so far. We had tried to get a Sea Terrace but sadly they were all gone by the time we got seriously interested enough to book.

The Costa Venezia will operate through early December. All cruises from Dec. 1 to mid April 2023 have been cancelled, according to a company statement, adding: "The product is the ideal offering for some nationalities that under the current scenario cannot have access to it."

We were booked on Venezia for 12 April 2023 which was cancelled. We have just rebooked for 1 April sailing so will be monitoring with interest..... There was also very limited cabin selections available on both sailings for UK agents to sell. Very strange set of circumstances.

Great start, looking forward to more posts,

Costa Pacifica....

and Costa Fortuna...........

Here a couple of wider angle photos of Deliziosa.

6 hours ago, MM2022 said:

Wansbrough - thanks for input in regards to the (non existing) minibar. Du you by any chance have any photos of the drinksmenu so I can figure out the differences between the the two drinks packages when it comes to wine (and cocktails)?

Hope this is of use. 😁🍻🍸🍹🥂🥃🍷

Costa Bar List Standard July 2022.pdf

Would this be the one?

Civita di Bagnoregio

https://www.costacruises.co.uk/excursions/01/01z6.html

7 hours ago, BVILady said:

a minibar (even though I have heard there is none on board Costa Firenze). This cannot be correct, every cruise-line has a fridge in their cabins which they stock with drinks - so a minibar. I would re-check that information.

 

There was a cupboard which looked as if it might be a fridge/minibar but I can assure you it wasn't, either in January or last month.

We have been on 4 MSC ships and 8 Costa and much prefer the latter. The bar service on MSC was lacking on all 4 cruises, the MDR was also poor compared to Costa.

My wife is vegan and Costa provide a full vegan menu where as MSC only offered two options throughout the menu.

MSC has some really beautiful ships but if there is poor service then they would not be one of the first cruise lines we would look at. We would rather take 2 cruises than one in MSC's Yacht Club.

Someone else said they enjoyed the mood on Costa and I would whole heartedly agree with that.

Having shown bias towards Costa, we are taking family on a 3 nighter aboard Grandiosa new year but purely because of the price and the fact its only 3 nights. 😉

On 8/12/2022 at 12:04 PM, Janet&Carl said:

 

 

Yes wine is included in the package.  There are several "brands" of white, red, rose and sparkling such as prosecco or brut that you can choose from.    The restaurants only serve soft drinks, wines and beers and do not have spirits which might explain why they mention that.  All of the Costa ships we have been on so far have had a "Wine Bar" as one of their lounges. They also serve wine in other bars but may not have the whole selection.

 

 

Well summed up.

On our recent cruise and as a red drinker, there were 3 different variety's to choose from, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and a rather nice Nero d'Avola. There may have been one other but my memory is clear on it. All available at bars around the ship.

On 8/6/2022 at 11:12 PM, Dancer Bob said:

Only on some ships. Definitely not on Firenze and Venezia, but they are being transferred to Carnival. Toscana, insufficient data. I'm booked on Diadema next year, dance floors probably as good as you'll find anywhere. Older ships are almost as good. Deliziosa is also pretty good, and a smaller ship.

Costa used to have a very broad range of music catering to many tastes. With the low passenger counts recently, there have been cutbacks to music. They tried this a few years ago, it only lasted a couple weeks becuse so many passengers were unhappy. It remains to be seen if the corporate suits in Genoa will try this again.

 

Although Firenze doesn't have the Grand Ballroom like most of the other ships, it does have Lounge Viareggio which on our last cruise did accommodate ballroom style dancing. 

22 hours ago, Dancer Bob said:

If the deck plan in the Deck 4 elevator lobby is accurate, then about half of Deck 4 is casino. That does include the card room, which has casino signs and a gate to close it off, and I have no doubt will be commandeered for high-stakes card games whenever the casino thinks they can get away with it. It also includes the extra room on the port side which doesn't show well in the photos.

The photos do give a good impression of the numbers of customers in the casino, shops, and restaurants. I tolerate drunks and gamblers because they subsidise my cruise. That pretty clearly wasn't happening.

Even a quarter full, the most comfortable areas seemed quite crowded. Given that Firenze and Venezia are being moved to the US market and will sail as Carnival ships, a lot more people than me must have negative impressions.

 I think you are getting a little carried away with sizes, my perception of half is a little different to yours. I would say it takes up around about 20% of deck 4 which is a long way from 50%. The photos were taken on a port day around lunchtime (1:20PM) when it wasn't open so I'm not sure how it would give a good impression of numbers? Every time we passed through in the evening there were plenty of people there at the tables.

What I do agree with you is the Boutique areas, a lot of space but not many browsing let alone purchasing. Each to their own and such is our enjoyment of the ship we have decided to give Venezia a go next April.

The ship had 3000 onboard when we disembarked and it never felt crowded at all with the exception of the rear pool area which we avoided.

23 hours ago, CupKayke said:

Hello!  Just read your Costa Firenze blog and enjoyed it. Thanks for the information.   I plan to read more of your Costa blogs from the past.  

 

Just a couple of questions...

 

 - Was your ship sail time on Embarkation Day 7pm?  If so... you weren't allowed to embark until 4:30pm?  Correct. We were given an embarkation time which is the result of Covid restrictions. The embarkation works really well and was very slick as everyone arrives at different timeslots.

This is a bit concerning for us as we've never sailed on a ship that left past 4pm.  Next year, in March with Costa, we have an overnight flight from Miami to Argentina and we arrive in Argentina at 4:50am on embarkation day.... with a 7pm sail time.....and of course no embarkation time at this point.  No wonder I didn't see an airport transfer available.  This is going to be a tricky situation for us that I will have to figure out. I'm sure it will all fall into place.

 

 - I see you are wearing life jackets at muster?  Costa is requiring this?  Seems strange considering COVID and none of the other lines require this wearing of a life jacket.   There are two types of muster currently being used, on both of our recent cruises we did the old fashioned way. Dubai with masks on and then recently in Barcelona without masks. There were instructions to watch a video either on the cabin TV or the Costa App but this didn't work and for some reason they used old faithful.

 

 - Curious if you were in a suite or a regular balcony?  I couldn't tell by the map and the room number.   It was a standard balcony.

 

- Do you happen to have a picture of the room service menu? I think this was on the app as opposed to a paper version, its not a service we tend to use so can't comment any more

 

Also, thank you... you've been a wealth of information.  I feel better about booking Costa.  Frankly, after you posted the daily activities, I feel a bit excited. 

Which ship are you sailing on?

 

Thanks again!

-Kay

On 3/31/2022 at 10:44 AM, Dancer Bob said:

I am NOT impressed with the Firenze. Built for the Chinese market, huge casino, surrounded by expensive restaurants and shops, not much else. Everything is QR code, you have to haul around a computer all day. You need the Costa app- unless "not available for your device", in which case major aggravation. Worst Costa ship I have ever been on, hardly better than an American ship.

The huge casino which in my opinion is no bigger than any others on Costa. If anything its probably smaller than most.