Costa Fortuna Info

[lee8553]

Hi, my friend & I are looking at booking a Baltic cruise next year & a few are coming up on Costa Fortuna.
Neither of us has ever been on a cruise with Costa & they seem a bit marmite, either great reviews or really bad ones, I believe the ship has had a refit so I ignored a lot of the older ones that complained about it's condition.

I've previously sailed on 'European' lines, CMV; P+O; MSC & as well as NCL, (I believe the nearest comparison is probably MSC, but I could be wrong), my friend however has only sailed NCL once (& a Nile cruise), & I think it may be the price which is giving her a little concern, as it is a fair bit lower than other lines.  
It's my understanding that they have a more traditional theme, i.e. set meal times etc & I am aware of the all announcements in many languages, but should there be any other aspects of which we should be aware?

All & any information (good & bad) from previous cruises would be of great help.

Thanking you in anticipation.😷

[ejincali]

No one chiming in here, so I will...We liked Costa, and our cruise did offer anytime dining.  Food is Italian style, so you get a separate pasta course.  We liked the crew, all friendly and many entertaining and all speak English.  Passengers likely to be mostly non-English speakers.  However, there will be an English speaking host (ours was from Manchester, UK) who can help you to meet other English speakers if you would like to be sociable.  We've taken NCL a number of times, Costa is different, but still enjoyable--just need to have an open mind and be aware that you will not hear much English on the ship from the passengers.  Agreed, they tend to be lower price for both the cruise and drinks packages--I think its a good value.

[drsel]

On 12/25/2020 at 7:24 PM, lee8553 said:

Hi, my friend & I are looking at booking a Baltic cruise next year & a few are coming up on Costa Fortuna. Should there be any other aspects of which we should be aware?

All & any information (good & bad) from previous cruises would be of great help.

Thanking you in anticipation.😷

I agree with the previous poster wholeheartedly.

Additional information--

1) Costa will charge you for drinking water in the main dining room for lunch and dinner

2) Although an Italian cruise line, any and every Pizza is chargeable, including a basic margherita pizza.

3) Costa prices used to be much lower than the competition but now they have increased prices across the board after covid and I don't think it's great value for money anymore.

MSC is now much lower priced than Costa and offers much better value.

4) Costa has some unique alcohol packages in addition to the normal unlimited alcohol packages.

Eg) you can buy a certain number of glasses of 🍺 draught beer.

5) they have plenty of dance classes and poolside games and the occasional cooking class and craft class.

6) Costa is similar to MSC, but MSC is much better, ( shows entertainment, activities and food).

MSc also has the newest ships and some really grand ones.

7) Less than 3% of the passengers are native English speakers, but all the crew can speak and understand English well

8. 😎 Pranzo and Cena package, with which you can have unlimited beer and wine for 2 hours during lunch and dinner may be good value.

9) there is a mandatory 10 euros per person per day service charge.  😎

Edited January 3, 2021 by drsel

[drsel]

overall I personally feel that you should book Costa only if you're getting a price less than $100 per person per night including all port fees and taxes and the mandatory service charge of 10 euros per person per day.

Costa is a 3 star cruise and nowhere in the league of Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Princess, not even close to Carnival, Norwegian and MSC

[lee8553]

Thanks for your response, I would prefer MSC myself, as I've cruised with them before, but they don't have what we want at the right time.  RCI is a viable options, but once we figure in the drinks package the price really shoots up.