Anybody tried Costa?

[Iluvcruising2]

Has anybody tried Costa? What are the significant differences between Costa and Royal Caribbean?

 

Costa is also stepping up her presence in Singapore. I dropped by a Costa Cruises roadshow this afternoon. Never seen one in my life. They were trying to sell May 2013 short cruises out of Singapore (3 nights / 4 nights) on the Costa Atlantica.

 

They are even offering 'Kids Sail Free' promotion. With 2 full paying passengers, up to 2 kids will sail free, in one cabin.

 

Any thoughts would be most appreciated.

[kernow]

I know I'm probably in a minority on this board but I love Costa, we've sailed them twice, Med on Concordia and Dubai on Luminosa.

 

The main difference is the passenger make up and language, the vast majority of passengers are Italian and Italian is the first language followed by French, German, English and whoever else is onboard. We love the food, much more European in style, 5 or 6 courses every night including a pasta course and the main dining room open for lunch every day even in port.

 

The ships themselves are somewhere in the middle of loud Carnival decor and more sedate RCL, dining times are much later for the Italians and entertainment too goes on much later.

 

Staff are good, similar to RCL and they all seem to speak good English.

 

Even out of Singapore I would imagine they would still have an Italian slant, I don't think they do 'immersion' cruises', they seem proud to be Italian.

 

They always have loads of offers for kids, younger kids do not even have to pay the mandatory service charge, older teens pay half. One thing if you have kids, my son never liked the teen club, mainly because hardly anyone spoke English and the staff did everything in Italian.

 

Julie

[sky0000547]

Cruised in the med on the Costa Victoria and Costa Atlantica about decade ago. Can't complain on the services and the ships but most passengers are Italian and being English speaking, you kind of loose abit of enjoyment. The announcements are in multi lingual though.

[Sumisid]

Here in Europe, Costa has a reputation of being "cheap" and personally, I would never ever go on a cruise that offers "kids-sail-free".

 

When I checked all kinds of different options for our Western-Med-Cruise coming June, Costa somehow was not appealing to me at all, but maybe I'm just prejudiced because of what happened with Concordia.

[FLACRUISER99]

I've been on one in the Caribbean and it was pretty good. I would do another only because they do some pretty exotic cruises in Africa & the Far East.:cool:

[philip_g]

I would never ever go on a cruise that offers "kids-sail-free".

 

excellent point.

[kernow]

Here in Europe, Costa has a reputation of being "cheap" and personally, I would never ever go on a cruise that offers "kids-sail-free".

 

When I checked all kinds of different options for our Western-Med-Cruise coming June, Costa somehow was not appealing to me at all, but maybe I'm just prejudiced because of what happened with Concordia.

 

To be honest both of the cruises we took were in school holidays and the kids were never a problem, I've seen more problems on some RCL cruises.

 

As far as safety is concerned we never had any reason to feel unsafe, I think things could happen anywhere. Yes the captain was at fault but how do any of us know that any captain on any line follows all the correct procedures.

 

Julie

[George C]

We love the Costa Atlantica , did back to back cruises about 8 years ago on it, love the food, entertainment is not as good as RCCL, I think RCCL has the best entertainment of any lines.

[Jeff&Mel]

We have sailed twice on Costa- once on a Med cruise and also a Holy Land cruise (Egypt, Israel, Turkey and Greece). We wanted to try RCCL at that time but it was a $4000 price difference.

 

We LOVED it! The service was unbelievable. The decor was beautiful, the food was excellent.

 

We have not sailed another line. We will be sailing for the first time in 2 months on Royal Caribbean.

 

On our first Costa Cruise there was an American family who complained about EVERYTHING! The kept comparing it to RCCL and saying how much better Royal is.

 

I can't wait to see if RCCI is that much better.

[ejeffo]

RCI ships stay on top of the water.

[magronj]

We sailed on Costa 4 times. When it was Italian owned it was great. After it was bought by Carnival it went down hill fast.

The ships are gaudy and cheap looking. The public areas are loud and over run by rude Italian passengers.

 

We will never sail Costa again.

RCCL is much superior.

[Iluvcruising2]

I think we wouldn't sail on Costa out of Europe or USA. But out of Singapore? A different thought.

 

Most of the passengers on the short cruises out of Singapore would surely be Singaporean or from the immediate region like Malaysia and Indonesia. In terms of passenger mix, we would be ok.

[Iluvcruising2]

Here in Europe, Costa has a reputation of being "cheap" and personally, I would never ever go on a cruise that offers "kids-sail-free"..

 

Well, in this region, Royal Caribbean has offered Kids Sail Free promotions regularly, though in Royal's case, our kids still have to pay for the gratuities.

 

Our most recent cruise on the Legend was a Kids Sail Free promotion. :)

[Iluvcruising2]

We have sailed twice on Costa- once on a Med cruise and also a Holy Land cruise (Egypt, Israel, Turkey and Greece). We wanted to try RCCL at that time but it was a $4000 price difference.

 

We LOVED it! The service was unbelievable. The decor was beautiful, the food was excellent.

 

We have not sailed another line. We will be sailing for the first time in 2 months on Royal Caribbean.

 

On our first Costa Cruise there was an American family who complained about EVERYTHING! The kept comparing it to RCCL and saying how much better Royal is.

 

I can't wait to see if RCCI is that much better.

 

Which Royal ship?

[time4u2go]

RCI ships stay on top of the water.

 

Wow that's cold.

[Silvery Seas Cruiser]

Our Celebrity ship was docked beside a Costa ship just a couple of weeks ago in Sint Maartin. What I noticed was that about four-thirty PM, announcements began to be made about every fifteen minutes. The announcements were in Italian first and then in French. I didn't hear any announcements in English.

 

This could happen on any ship, but evidently someone pulled a fire alarm around four-thirty and it just went on and on. I guess the crew had to make every effort to be sure there wasn't really a fire. Of course, maybe it wasn't a stunt. Maybe there was a small fire. I can only speculate.

 

I wish I could remember the name of the exact Costa ship docked beside us.

[tbogie]

We cruised on the Costa Atlantica a couple of years ago out of Ft Lauderdale. The ship was identical to the Carnival Legend we had cruised the previous year. We had a great time and really enjoyed the ship. One of the highlights was toga night in the dining room. Would cruise them again if we were looking for a bargain. Wide variety of passengers and many activities were in multiple languages, ie... bingo in 7 languages.

[Iluvcruising2]

The Costa threads on these boards are really very quiet. Can hardly get any information. Not surprising, I suppose.

[APDMOM]

We were on Costa Atlantica. We try as many cruiselines as possible, if the price is right, and if they leave from FL when we can get away. That is juat to say that we are not loyal to just one cruiseline. RCCL used to be our favorite, but we enjoy different lines for different reasons.

 

The major differences we noticed were:

- Many languages of announcements. If you do not like the announcements, you will not like Costa. On our Atlantica cruise, even the muster drill was in different languages. pwesonally, I enjoyed the European feel and brushing up on my German.

 

- Many different cultures: There were many europeans and even Australians on our cruise. Once again, it changes the passenger feel. There was a lot more smoking than on any other cruise, which did not bother us, but may bother some.

 

- We LOVED the free room service cappuccino for breakfast! It was the best cappuccino I have ever had. I would book Costa again in a heartbeat.

 

- Dinner service was friendly, but very slow. Most dinners took about 2.5 hours.

 

If you want, you can click on my review below to get more info. The ship was absolutely beautiful! Same as Spirit class of Carnival.

 

Hope this is helpful :)

[Iluvcruising2]

We were on Costa Atlantica. We try as many cruiselines as possible, if the price is right, and if they leave from FL when we can get away. That is juat to say that we are not loyal to just one cruiseline. RCCL used to be our favorite, but we enjoy different lines for different reasons.

 

The major differences we noticed were:

- Many languages of announcements. If you do not like the announcements, you will not like Costa. On our Atlantica cruise, even the muster drill was in different languages. pwesonally, I enjoyed the European feel and brushing up on my German.

 

- Many different cultures: There were many europeans and even Australians on our cruise. Once again, it changes the passenger feel. There was a lot more smoking than on any other cruise, which did not bother us, but may bother some.

 

- We LOVED the free room service cappuccino for breakfast! It was the best cappuccino I have ever had. I would book Costa again in a heartbeat.

 

- Dinner service was friendly, but very slow. Most dinners took about 2.5 hours.

 

If you want, you can click on my review below to get more info. The ship was absolutely beautiful! Same as Spirit class of Carnival.

 

Hope this is helpful :)

 

Thanks for the comprehensive response.

 

Sounds like Costa is worth a try, assuming the price is right.

[kernow]

The Costa threads on these boards are really very quiet. Can hardly get any information. Not surprising, I suppose.

 

The Costa boards are always quiet, especially for ships that are not sailing out of the US.

On both of our cruises there were less than 100 English speaking passengers and no one on the roll calls.

 

If you decide to try Costa please come back and let us know how you get on. I'd be interested to know what their Asia cruises are like, we're definitely looking to cruise them again sometime.

 

Julie

[Iluvcruising2]

The Costa boards are always quiet, especially for ships that are not sailing out of the US.

On both of our cruises there were less than 100 English speaking passengers and no one on the roll calls.

 

If you decide to try Costa please come back and let us know how you get on. I'd be interested to know what their Asia cruises are like, we're definitely looking to cruise them again sometime.

 

Julie

 

If we ever sail with Costa, and that is still an if, you can probably expect a detailed picture review. :)

[Jeff&Mel]

I already posted but I forgot to mention something....

 

If you are opposed to public nudity you might not enjoy Costa. The both times that we cruised Costa there were women sunbathing and swimming topless.

 

Since we live in Europe this is the norm for us but some Americans do take offense.

[Jeff&Mel]

Which Royal ship?

 

We are sailing on the Adventure of the Seas in June for a Baltic cruise.

 

Very excited!!

 

We have heard great things about Royal Caribbean. I am really hoping it is worth the extra money :)

[Iluvcruising2]

We are sailing on the Adventure of the Seas in June for a Baltic cruise.

 

Very excited!!

 

We have heard great things about Royal Caribbean. I am really hoping it is worth the extra money :)

 

Oh. Unfortunately, the Adventure of the Seas would not have been revitalized by June this year. The revitalized ships are much better.