Back from the Costa Atlantica

[zaro]

The "Today" magazine was available in 5 different languages - English, French, Italian, German and , if I remember correctly the 5th language was Spanish on the Costa Atlantica during the week of January 21st.

[kaphkoe]

Hi Ron, I have moved my reply from the other thread. Was getting fed up with it.

I hope the FC's (Friendly Canadians) don't mind!:D

 

Was a good game on Wednesday but as someone once said 'Football is a game played by 22 people, it lasts 90 minutes and at the end the Germans win!' Anyway, sorry that the Three Lions will not be taking part this summer.

 

As you can see in my signature DW and I will be sailing on the Transatlantica in April and the excitement slowly grows. I can see you have done the Transatlantic on the Mediterranea last year. Do you have a report hidden somewhere in the vast CC-archives?

 

Cheers,

Helmut

 

PS: Yes, open one for me as well!

[G.M.T.]

Hi Ron, I have moved my reply from the other thread. Was getting fed up with it.

I hope the FC's (Friendly Canadians) don't mind!:D

 

Was a good game on Wednesday but as someone once said 'Football is a game played by 22 people, it lasts 90 minutes and at the end the Germans win!' Anyway, sorry that the Three Lions will not be taking part this summer.

 

As you can see in my signature DW and I will be sailing on the Transatlantica in April and the excitement slowly grows. I can see you have done the Transatlantic on the Mediterranea last year. Do you have a report hidden somewhere in the vast CC-archives?

 

Cheers,

Helmut

 

PS: Yes, open one for me as well!

Helmut,

I have no problem with the move, although footbal teams are like Costa either you love them or hate them.:)

 

Ah the Three Lions, I'm used to them not making competitons, as a Brit we can always savour our past glories '66 and November 2001 5:1 in Munich.:D

 

I didn't do a Med review as I only found CC last Oct. We had a balcony for the first time, it turned out to be our best cruise to date. The ship, crew, food and ports of call were marvelous. Favourite port was St. John's Antiqua, being born and raised in Greenwich, London I grew up with the history of Nelson in my bllod - it was great to see his base in English Harbour.

 

Will you have a balcony cabin on the Atlantica?

 

As you see from this forum, either people love or hate Costa. I do not hate Costa so I must love her. The things I do not like about Costa are:

 

a) The Customer Service Desk on board (all three ships so far), always understaffed, it my request is for information most of the time I get the answers. If it was for something to be done,never had a satisfactory solution, so now I tend to ask the Cabin Steward who is the best person to approach if I have a specific problem.

 

b) Costa Germany, found them to be very unfriendly. When booking our Med cruise, I was told that the cruise was sold out when I said that it was still showing as being available by Costa UK they said that each country has an lotment of passengers. I told them I was a Brit - bu they would not budge. So I phone Costa in London, within 15 minutes I had booked the cruise and received great advice about which deck / cabin to choose.

 

c) The return journey Savona - Munich by bus, never again, we have never been able to catch our last train to Passau. Next time we will fly back to Munich.

 

From your signature, did your cruise for so long or were you working on the ship?

 

If you have any questions, just let me know.

 

Of course we all want a full review of your cruise when you get back.:eek:

 

Ron

[lucky retired]

I Zaro,

I am glad that you love your cruise and your commentaries are pleasants because we will leave next monday from La Romana .If i understood corectly the buses are directly near the plane do we have to pass custums and pick our luggages by ourselfs?that is a question that my travel agent could answer and transat too.Excuse my poor english no have chance to speak very often in Laval Québec

[zaro]

Hi Lucky Retired,

 

The buses will pick you up directly on the air field. You do not have to pass through customs. You will travel for about 20 minutes by bus and then will be registered to get on the ship. You DO NOT have to take care of your luggage. It will be taken from the plane and placed in front of your stateroom. Our luggage arrived about one hour after we did!

 

Bon voyage et bonne croisière. I am certain you will love the experience.

[moni79]

Thanks for your help!

 

I have yet another question -

 

When we arrive back to La Romana, the ship docks at noon. Our flight back home isn't scheduled to leave until 8:45pm.

 

Do we have to go straight to the airport and wait there all afternoon?

 

Im not sure if we have time to maybe check out Casa del Campo but what about our luggage?

[zaro]

Hi,

 

Can't really help you very much with this question as we left the ship for a week at the Iberostar Hacienda Dominicus. I do know that we had to be at the airport about 3 hours before our flight home. Our fllight actually left a half an hour early because everyone was on board and the pilot was ready to go! Wish I could have been of more help.

[Clarvey]

Moni79, please let us know how you enjoy your cruise after you return. We still have 7 weeks until it's our turn, for our first cruise.

 

Hi again, Zaro. When you first went on the ship, were you given a map of the layout so you could find your way around? Was there a currency exchange? Thanks again!

[Clarvey]

Moni79, please let us know how you enjoy your cruise after you return. We still have 7 weeks until it's our turn, for our first cruise.

 

Hi again, Zaro. When you first went on the ship, were you given a map of the layout so you could find your way around? Was there a currency exchange? Thanks again!

[zaro]

Hello,

 

We weren't given a map but there are maps posted on every deck - within a day you will know your way around, no problem.

Yes, there was a currency exchange on Deck 2.

I'm jealous of you - I hope to be looking forward to another cruise some day soon.

[Clarvey]

Another question. Did your Costa card have your picture on it, and was that the only ID you needed for getting off and on the ship when in port?

Thanks.

[zaro]

Hi Again,

 

No picture on my Costa Card- just my name. I also had to have my passport for getting on and off the ship.

[kaphkoe]

Hi Ron,

 

Will you have a balcony cabin on the Atlantica?

 

Yes, and it will even be an aft wrap-around PS:D

 

c) The return journey Savona - Munich by bus, never again, we have never been able to catch our last train to Passau. Next time we will fly back to Munich.

 

We booked the bus as well, will see how it goes. We don't live far from where the bus will drop us off.

BTW, how long took the journey from Savona to Munich? Did it leave right after debarkation?

On the other hand, I have also read that travelling by plane does not necessarely save you much time. The flights booked by the Air/Sea programms are not always the earliest and most direct avaialable.

 

From your signature, did your cruise for so long or were you working on the ship?

 

Yes, I have been working on Royal Viking Line in my younger days.The TransAtlantica will be my third cruise as passenger. There are some caribbean ports on this cruise which I haven't visited before (not to mention DW), so we are really getting excited.

 

If you have any questions, just let me know.

 

Will come back to that. Thanks.

Helmut

[G.M.T.]

Helmut,

 

I envy you on your Transatlantic cruise WITH suite.:mad:

 

The bus normally leaves between 10:00 and 11:00 am from Savona, depending when the bus arrives and if all disembarking passengers find the bus quickly enough. Disembarcation for the bus passengers is normally about 09:00 am. We have done the return bus journey now 3 times, twice via Schweiz/Bregenz took 9,5 and 11 hours and once via Innsbruck whicj took 14 hours.

 

If our next Costa cruise is start/finish in Savona we have thought about driving down and take it easy - why rush we are on holiday.

 

Have a good cruise.

Ron

[cruisingnurse99]

Zaro thanks for all the helpful info, I'm going on the Atlantica April 7 !!

More questions for you if you can stand anymore:

Did you need Euro cash for slots in the casino or do you use your ship card ?

Did you go ashore in Guadeloupe at night since your docked till midnight ? I read it wasn't safe.

What time did you arrive back in La Romana ?

Were there many theme parties ? Toga night ? Dress as the italian flag ? Deck party ? etc

Lobster tail or prime rib at dinner ?

Many UK passengers ? I think they're a riot.

 

Thanks for any help, Cheers Kel

[zaro]

I'll try to answer some of your questions. We exchanged our US dollars for tokens right in the casino. This can also be done with the ship card but the service charge is higher or so I seem to remember. We didn't do Guadeloupe at night - did a lovely taxi tour during the day. Like you, I wasn't anxious to be there at night because in the "Today" magazine we were warned -"We recommend you not go ashore with jewellery and to be careful with your bags, cameras and video cameras." This note only appeared in the magazine for this port.

We were off the boat at La Romana about 2 or 3 p.m. with no problems at all.

Sorry, I didn't notice any lobster tails or prime rib on the menus. No toga parties, etc. but still lots of action on the boat.

The passengers we met on the boat were mostly from France and Italy, lots of French Canadians and a few from the UK. It was an interesting mix of cultures.

I sincerely hope you enjoy the cruise as much as we did (it was our first, but hopefully, not our last).

 

Zaro

[moni79]

I just arrived back from my Costa Atlantica trip at midnight (i left a brief review in a new post)

 

I can try to help answer some of your questions as well:

 

1) Like Zaro mentioned - you can convert US$ at the casino for tokens and/or euros. You can also charge up to $500 euros per day on your Costa Card for the casino. a service charge applies.

 

2) We didnt leave the dock in Guadeloupe, so im not sure how safe it is. A few ppl ventured into the city on their own during the day, however like Zaro mentioned, there was a posting in the Today regarding jewellery etc. The area did not look very safe if that is any consolation.

 

3) We arrived back in La Romana at noon. We had to be checked out of our room at 2pm, and our disembarkation meeting was at 5pm.

 

4) Didnt notice any theme parties, but we did not attend any of the shows or anything.

 

5) No lobster dinner, but there was prime rib. I was not pleased by the food at all. (i had the prime rib, it wasnt too bad but ive had much better)

 

6) Much like Zaro mentioned, it was the same type of clientelle on my cruise as well. Only a few UKers. Mainly French, followed by Italians.

[cruisingnurse99]

Silly question, did they have help yourself soft ice cream like they have on Carnival ?

 

Anyone have any ideas on what to do in Guadeloupe, I want to do a tour but not with the ship ?