embarkation day was messy and a long wait in a very hot room with few seats. finally getting called to board, we made on our onto the ship, but were not allowed to go directly to rooms, as they were not all ready yet, so we joined the hoards in the Buffet area. This would prove to be the first of many disappointing meals. When we found our rooms, they were nice, roomy and well-lit, but with smaller closet spaces than I had expected, and very basic needs in the bathroom. Our steward was very nice, and was accessible at all times thru the cruise, in fact, he was the one bright star on the trip. After the long,(as it was given in many, many languages) safety drill, we all met up in the dining room for the second of bad meals. I doubt I have ever seen such a display of boring-to-mediocre offerings on any cruise line. You had little to no choice but to buy drinks-even non-alcoholic types. There was orange juice (or grapefruit some mornings) tea, coffee and water for lunch and dinner, and everything else had to come thru the bar, even iced tea, which was canned! The one thing that I would label edible was the pasta with meat sauce, most everything else was just this side of passable. For an Italian cruise line, you would think pizza would be good, but the frisbees they offered were more like three-day old crust with a thin smear of sauce, thinly sprinkling of cheese, and your choice of either margarita style or sliced (and really greasy and awful) hot dogs......yes, hot dogs for sausage!I have eaten a lot of pizzas, even in Italy and they would probably chuck these things into the garbage, also. The soft serve ice cream machine was thinned down with water to make it go further, but also added chunks of ice to your dessert, salad dressings were watered down to serve more people, and the desserts were just plain bad. The staff in the MDR tried their best to serve, but are so over-worked it was hard for them to do a decent job. Courses were skipped, food forgotten, drinks never served and bread baskets not filled was pretty much the norm every night. And no buffet for dinner? Come on, it was the MDR, the pay-for-dining venue, or nothing. One night one of our people didn't wait formal dinner, and wandered up to the buffet where he spied hamburgers being cooked only to be told he wasn't allowed to have one, as it was for the kid's formal meal. Would one burger really short them that much?

The decor of the ship, I find loud and garish, nothing seems to match or have a scheme to it, it looks like random, brassy items shoved into a room together.

altogether a cruise that made us flee the ship at every port to seek out food and make me resolve to never set foot on a Costa ship again. Read more