Costa Serena

[gill556]

We got off the Costa Serena last Friday and I will try to be as fair as possible. We were upset that having stayed loyal to Costa when we lost our cruise on Concordia we then discovered they reduced the price to £199 which was not only an insult to us but resulted in large numbers of families with multiple kids and hundreds of 14 and 15 year old teenagers who were on school trips with no visible adults in charge. I will stress they were very well behaved. There were 2,900 pax on board which was still 1,000 under capacity but where they would have put any more I don't know, as 2 mornings at breakfast there were literally no chairs to sit on anywhere and when walking around with a cup of coffee the restaurant manager shouted that I might spill some, I asked him where we were supposed to sit and he told me it was all our fault for coming at the same time. We were told by our agent that our cabin was designed for the disabled so would be bigger than most. Well that was a joke. You couldn't get a wheelchair in if you tried. It was obvious that this was for a single disabled person as the doors were extra wide and we had a wet room instead of a normal shower. There was a single headboard on the left hand wall however a 6ft bed was attached to the other wall with a 50 mm gap on one side with the dressing table at the bottom and a little more on the other side but the mini bar was in the space. The only way my husband could get in to bed was to climb in from the bottom and to switch off the light or TV you had to get out of bed, not very suitable for someone who is disabled, no bedside cabinets. The wardrobe was divided in two, one half was shelves, the other contained 6 coat hangers which is all there was room for, fortunately I had taken extra and my clothes were hung on the bathroom door handle.I did wonder how the room got cleaned due to the restrictive space, well I found out on the last day while checking under the bed only to discover a pair of ladies shoes and worn tights which most definitely did not belong to me so obviously no proper clean was done.Apart from soap no toiletries were provided unless you asked for them, shampoo had to be kept on the floor of the shower as there were no shelves.The cabin was situated opposite the lifts, next door to the pool machinery room and underneath the swimming pool deck which they seemed to clean at 3.00am every morning. As far as I know there were only 5 English on board which didn't bother us as there were lots of Spanish but did worry the young English couple we met who had just booked at the reduced price, fortunately they met a Russian couple who spoke English. The ship was fantastic, we loved the decor and really couldn't fault anything. The theatre was also lovely and the shows were not too bad, we went most nights however it was very irritating constantly having young children kicking the back of our seats.I did object to being constantly told to applause, this I do if it is worth it, my choice not theirs. The dining room again was lovely, we couldn't fault anything other than the huge amount of pushchairs and kids running round, the staff were wonderful and the food was better than I expected although no such thing as crab, lobster, escargos etc. like most cruises.To our disappointment there were no actual formal nights, my husbands evening suit stayed in the wardrobe, on the second one there was more effort made but the younger generation thought it was ok to wear jeans and t-shirts. One night on the way to dinner there was an almighty bang and the lift we were in stopped before jerking and continuing, we thought the ship had hit something. Shortly after entering the dining room a trolley went hurtling down outside near the lifts upsetting a bucket of water, then boxes of wine started falling from the shelves on to the floor near where I was sat and then I shouted to my husband to grab his glass of wine as it was about to upset. Suddenly everything went back to normal but no explanation. Our only gripe was the times you could eat 6.45pm (far too early for us) or 9.30pm (far too late) I really don't want to go to bed on a full stomach as most mornings we had to be up for tours by 6.00am. Twice we had to make up 2 hours during the night, once because they wanted to avoid bad weather and the other was something to do with machinery. Another night while in our cabin, all the lights went out, I opened the door to allow light in from the passage but those went out too and we were in complete darkness, fortunately it was not for long but a bit scary and again no explanation. Fortunately we had no need to contact the doctor but I did wonder why there was a charge to see him when we had already taken out the insurance, we also had European Health Cards and Spanish health cards. It did concern me that we had no copy of our insurance documents as we were just given a number to phone if needed. We were given an emergency drill and told that 7 short blasts followed by a long one meant that we had to return to our cabin, pick up our lifejackets and go to our muster station. Well on the 2nd day it happened so off we went to get our lifejackets, there were crew with theirs on by our cabin and they put a notice on our door to say we had been evacuated. We arrive at our station to be asked why we were there as it was only for people who had boarded that day. Why do they not announce that? How are we supposed to know if it is genuine or not?

Did we enjoy our cruise? Yes definitely, primarily because we visited some fantastic new places, the ship was wonderful, we had fantastic staff,but what we didn't enjoy is the huge amount of kids who were cruising for free and made the entire experience like a Butlin's Holiday Camp. Sadly this was the first and last time we will be cruising with Costa. For those of you that want a cheap last minute deal then grab a bargain while you can but for me when I have paid a full price I do expect a better class of passenger. Sorry if I sound a snob because I am not but my holiday means a lot and I don't think there was anyone but us that were over the age of 55 years. If I want to cruise in a kindergarten then I will book with a kindergarten, I don't expect to find kids playing football outside the lifts or using the lifts as a play area going from floor to floor, neither do I expect the dance floors to be used as children's playgrounds. We had discussed certain things with our English speaking host who said that we had not been treated well and that he would get us some sort of upgrade or onboard credit etc. Consider they had empty cabins for the 1,000 pax they didn't have, but the answer was to go down the legal route with our travel agent. My daughter and family go on several cruises a year, QM2 translantic at New Year, Mediterranean in June and 16 days Asia booked for November and she said depending on our report they might try Cost next. My 2 grandsons 16 and 18 years old has been brought up on cruising so I can only say that Costa have lost out not only now but with future generations of my family.

Finally for anyone that has cruised with Costa at massively reduced prices to fill cabins you may read this and think what are they moaning about? we had a fantastic time, of course you did and we would have said the same at those prices.

[CtheW0rld]

at least you gave costa a try. thanks for your report. i saw a news item the other day the costa has the 'kids cruise free' special going again. this is the result.

 

i would certainly look at one of the less child-friendly lines like holland america line (much older demographic).

[johnreynolds556]

That's all well and good giving "kids go free" but for those booking and that is the majority of true cruisers, that is a kick in the teeth. Especially when those little lovelys are encouraged to get under everyone's feet by their doting parents.

 

COSTA you have got it all wrong.

[johnreynolds556]

One of the most frustrating things I found with costa, (and believe me I have spent hours looking) was they do not have a e-mail address for customer services? You have to write snail mail, hasn't anyone told them this is the 21st century.