Costa Firenze Blog

[Wansbrough]

 

I am back onboard Costa Firenze and blogging if anyone wants to check it out. 

 

https://www.wansbroughs-cruise-blog.me.uk/

[foodsvcmgr]

Please let us know if you learn any new details of when this ship and Venezia join the new Costa By Carnival operation next year.

Very curious about what Costa features will remain.

Thanks.

[Dancer Bob]

As I posted on the Luminosa thread, Costa expects these ships to be completely Carnival, staff on Carnival contracts, etc, not a Costa experience.

[Wansbrough]

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.

 

[CupKayke]

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?  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 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.   

 

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

 

- Do you happen to have a picture of the room service menu?

 

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. 

 

Thanks again!

-Kay

[Wansbrough]

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

 

[Dancer Bob]

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.

[BVILady]

Cupkayke:

 

"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."

 

for times between flight arrival ad boarding and after disembarkation and flights I have used Dayuse for Hotels. www.dayuse.com - there are also similar websites. Best time to book a dayuse Hotel is 7 days prior or less, when hotels do have a better insight on departure and arrival time of their regular bookings.

[Wansbrough]

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.

[Boqueron]

Thank you for your very informative and entertaining blog. I'll be celebrating my wife's birthday and our Ruby Wedding on the Firenze next month, along with 10 of our friends and so I'm just trying to glean bits of information about the various ports and life on the ship before we go, so that we have an idea of how to use our time. Your trip had the same itinerary as ours, so I found it very helpful. We're not taking up the My Explorations deal of 129 € for three trips as we want to do our own thing, probably much cheaper and with more freedom. I do like the idea of your visit to the Catacombs in Palermo on a tuktuk, whether I can convince the rest of our party that they would find them really interesting remains to be seen 😄 Anyway, thanks again