We feel we are a good judge of cruises this being our 26th, the Embarkation seem slow but we were on board by 2pm & I will say that this ship is well presented & our Cabin was good & the Public area's very good. My first surprise was the Cabin Steward asked us when he should come to our Cabin morning or evening, we have never been asked that before but we opted for the morning & that was it. No change of towels in the evening or a 'Turn Down' Service.

Unfortunately we suspect it was our waiters first week & he was unable to put the knives & forks on our table correctly & took an age. I did complain & the next night he was given extra help. The food was average I would say & not being a pasta lover this restricted my choice of dinner. One of my complaints was that on every other cruise that we have taken water is given to all seated guests at Dinner as a matter of course, NO, not on Costa ships YOU PAY for water. My other main complaints are that at 10.30am after the breakfast period ALL Coffee machines are closed down & you are then unable to get any hot drink at all, except water. Unless you PAY for a coffee/Tea etc. At 9.30pm all food outlets are closed down & you are not even able to get a biscuit or hot Coffee, unless ofcourse you go to one of the PAY outlets & get a pizza or burger!!!! One thing to watch out for & I missed in all the small print, is that the GRATUITIES/SERVICES ARE MANDATORY & so you are unable to amend even if the service is rubbish. The other thing to be warned about with Costa is that the Information Sheet that you get each day is very limited & does not give you sufficient information about the Port of Call. i.e. in Mykonos, Costa charge you 10 Euro per person for a 3 minute Bus ride into 'Town', which including my 5 yr old Granddaughter. I paid for the 6 tickets & the Bus drops you off about 200 yards from the town, not too far I hear you say. But as you got off the Ship in Port the Water Bus (which you walk past to get to the Costa Bus) costs 2 Euro's each & takes you to the middle of the town. No mention of that in the info sheet. Another observation shall I say is that this Ship has a large outdoor screen which on other ships I have been on, show Music Type video's etc.during the day or cartoons which transcend the language barrier, NO, not Costa all it showed during the day was adverts for their Services i.e. Photo Shop etc.

Costa with limited warning changed the Disembarkation Port from Venice to Trieste & because, they say, there was 'civil unrest' in the town & therefore not their choice to amend the Port (to avoid compensation claims). We were intending to get off the ship in Venice & get a taxi to the Airport, but as we were getting off in Trieste this necessitated us taking a 2 hour Bus journey back to the Venice Port & then trying to get a taxi through the 'Civil unrest', (as Costa put it) to the Airport for our flight home. My fear was, we may miss the flight so we were forced to purchase Transfers. Costa then charged us 30 Euros each (including 5 yr old) for a Transfer from Trieste to the Venice Airport. No sorry I will NOT being going with Costa ever again.