Just back from Costa Deliziosa TA Savona to Fort Lauderdale

Hello,

I would like to share our thoughts on our trans Atlantic cruise with Costa Deliziosa from 2 December until 21 December 2016.

A little about us: We are from The Netherlands, I am 35, he is 43, no kids, started cruising in 2010 and cruise 2-3 times a year.

I have attached 2 daily programs to this post, one from a sea day and one from the day in Casablanca.

Embarkation

We took a flight to Nice and came with the Costa transfer bus to Savona for embarkation. We were quite late in Savona, bus had to wait for delayed flight of other passengers and embarkation was quick and efficient. However what I found strange that Costa asked for a printed version of the ESTA. We did print this but it was not asked to bring in the paperwork I received from Costa. Lunch buffet closed 20 minutes after we embarked.

Stateroom and stateroom steward

Booked and received an inside stateroom, we were in #1314, a large square inside cabin with a queen bed and a sofa.

Stateroom steward, Carlos from Honduras was friendly an efficient, did a good job and was visible.

General state of the ship

Liked the layout of the ship. Public areas looked nice, were well kept and clean. This cannot be said for public restrooms. Clogged closets, no toilet paper, no hand towels, no soap. Not all the times but a lot of times at least 1 of mentioned things were not clean or missing.

Locker room, sports and sauna

Missed towels and sanitizer in the gym. Sauna was great, hot and well visited on this cruise. Of two showers in ladies locker room 1 had broken thermostat so only lukewarm shower. No bath gel in dispenser the first 3 days, others days I was missing towels, toilet paper...

Food and service in Main Dining Room

Were on 1st seating on embarkation day but we changed to late dining day after.

First night late dining we were on a French speaking table. The night after, already sitting there, we were told by waiter that we weren't sitting on the right table and he told us we should move to another table. He made us feel clumsy and awkward, not a nice experience.

For the whole cruise we had a large table just for us, which we liked. Service by Reymond and his assistant in evenings was good, fast and efficient. No wonder, later that cruise I found out that Reymond was in training to become a manager.

Lunches in MDR however were a disaster. No matter what you are seated with other people, no option for a "table for 2". What I really don't like is that they just fill up tables at lunch. That means that you are eating soup while others on same table are almost finished with there main course...

At lunch you can and will get the wrong dish, they forget about courses, drinks. For people at our table getting water and some ketchup for their young kids took 20 minutes! Needless to say that these poor, well behaved kids did not eat their hamburger...

Service is slow and servers seemed rushed, not friendly, no apologies for mistakes.

Breakfast in MDR is similar to lunch so went only 2 times. They only serve omelets, eggs etc. There is a buffet in MDR for other items. No refills for coffee, ask for it!

Most dishes were prepared well and came at the right temperature. We like pasta so we ate well. Do not expect a lot of meat, steaks etc.

We saw the Maitre'd almost every night... at the table next to us... and talking to and offering different dishes then on menu to the people from Austria who were sitting there. He never spoke to us...

Food and service Lido buffet

Food on Lido was good for breakfast and lunch. Lido dinner menu was very repetitive and had not the same selections as in MDR. For dinner only 2 stations were open so expect long lines.

At breakfast: if you ask for 1 egg sunny side up the worker points at already made omelets from buffet, I guess he wasn't ready yet to bake an egg for me...

A lot of times I found workers in buffet overworked, not interested or trying to do as little as possible. An example: saw female worker accidentally dropping cleaning cloth which fell under a table. She and male co-worker saw it, they looked at each other (so both knew) but never picked up the cloth. 15 min. later a supervisor came, saw the cloth and asked worker to pick it up which she did.

I also saw workers getting reprimanded in public by their supervisor.

In my opinion there are some serious service issues going on, I suspect these issues are fleet wide and not only present on Costa Deliziosa. Too little crew workers for tasks, not well trained crew and very hierarchic supervisors.

La merenda (tea time) in buffet was very well visited, long lines for fruit, cookies and small sandwiches. If you have food allergy: they will easily replace a salmon sandwich with roast beef sandwich...

They serve drinks in plastic cups on lido, fine for water, not so fine when drinking beer or wine.

Talking about water: It took us 2 weeks getting to know their "rituals" in terms of opening and closing water and coffee and tea stations, workers close stations in front of you and can't or won't tell which other station is still open.

Bars

In general service was OK and coffee and drinks well prepared. Had one incident though where a cocktail waitress kept us waiting for over 20 minutes and eventually ignored us, even standing next to us serving other guests.

Past Guest event

We got an invitation for the Costa Club past guest event with the captain. It was held on elegant night in theater after the show.

Got a glass of sparkling wine at the entrance. We sat in middle of theater and waited a long, long time for the second glass of wine so toasting with captain with an empty champagne glass... No wonder, there were only 3 workers present that had to serve the sparkling wine out of bottles for a well filled theater, finger food never came to us... so much for planning and organisation.

Guest Services

They call it "Hospitality Service Desk", an ambitious name. After 10 days or so I reported the service issues and complaints, most of them also mentioned above. First the lady from guest services asked me to mention these issues in the survey the send after the cruise. That sounded weird to me, these were serious issues that occurred and in my opinion need to be addressed while on the cruise not after you return. I insisted and made official complaints, gave several examples.

Next day I was called by the manager of guest services and she invited me for a meeting with the food and beverage manager. The meeting was in his office, guest service manager was also present but only on background nodding, not speaking. He asked me to talk further of the examples and told me he would talk with supervisors. I also mentioned my opinion it being a fleet wide problem (lack of crew, lack of training, hierarchy), he only smiled and then asked, quite sarcastic in my opinion, if I could also mention some positive things about this cruise and asked me if this was my first cruise. I almost fell of my chair... I invested time to come to the service desk, answering phone call and attending this meeting! Didn't want this to ruin my day so kept polite and finished conversation and returned to my room to dress for the evening.

Next day, however, just after lunch a bottle of good prosecco, a plate of cookies with a postcard with written "enjoy the rest of your cruise" arrived, signed by the food and beverage manager.

We decided to indeed enjoy the bottle, along with the cruise and can only hope that my signals and those of other guests are picked up by Costa ships and headquarters.

I spoke to a lot of other guests from The Netherlands, Germany and USA and a lot of them found service below standards.

Would I cruise with Costa again?

We like to cruise often and select merely based on itinerary, travel period and price. I would cruise with them again but only if itinerary is better and prices are much lower than HAL, Carnival, NCL, Princess etc.

DagprogrammaCostaDeliziosa6eZeedag.pdf

DagprogrammaCostaDeliziosaCasablanca.pdf

Was not able to edit post so here are some other things I would like to mention:

Entertainment

Shows were good, they speak some English but most of the times they speak Italian or Spanish, glad I understand these languages.

Shows consist of singing, dancing, acrobats, illusionists, The Voice of the Sea and only one evening of this 20 days there was no show, an ABBA concert was showed on the screen in theater.

Animators were good and present, lively and upbeat. If you like (ballroom) dancing: this is your cruiseline! Lots of ballroom and latin dancing opportunities, music well sang and played.

Daily activities ok, 4 Italian lessons by Salvatore were great and included a certificate and prosecco toast on day 4! Was missing an "Exploration Guide" like on HAL cruises though... Only info on ports you get is how great the ship excursions are and how to buy them...

We saw the cruise director Max only 3 minutes a day during shows. Held his talk in 5, 6 languages after the show and after the first (Italian) half of theater was empty, day in day out. I speak multiple languages and noticed he did say different things in different languages. After a couple of days he skipped German and left it out for rest of the cruise.

Disembarkation

Received luggage tags day before departure in afternoon, no explanation on the color code (time slot). Was in room several times that evening but got Diario di bordo very late so only after 12 in the evening I found out that we were given a time slot wich was too late for our flight plans. Was already in pajamas so got dressed again and up to guest services to change.

They expected long waiting times as the whole ship including crew and staff had to go through immigration (entering USA). So glad that we skipped the "sit and wait in theater until it's your turn to debark" We were stubborn and took a peak at deck 3 (exit ship). We saw a disembarking group walking and walked behind them and off the ship we where :)

Outside was a long, very long line for immigration that took over 2 hours to get passport stamped. Costa hired US personnel (not the immigration officers) to lead the process and lines but they weren't the best...

Hi Sheila, Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts so openly! And for including the daily programs.

My wife and I will be on the Mediterranea in March, you mentioned there's not a lot of meat--but is there chicken and fish? I ask because we try to eat fairly low carb.

For breakfast on the buffet is there cheese, deli meats, yogurt?

Eric

Hi Sheila, Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts so openly! And for including the daily programs.

 

My wife and I will be on the Mediterranea in March, you mentioned there's not a lot of meat--but is there chicken and fish? I ask because we try to eat fairly low carb.

 

For breakfast on the buffet is there cheese, deli meats, yogurt?

 

Eric

Thanks Eric!

Chicken and fish are on the menu almost daily, does come with sauces and or cheese though. They are not quite willing to make changes in dishes. A ceasar salad no cheese no anchovies for example was not possible.

Breakfast is merely european style so plain, unsweetend yoghurt and lots of fruits available. Cheeses and cold cuts available. No boiled eggs in buffet only omelets and fried eggs there. Want a boiled egg, go to MDR :)

Greetings!

Thank you for your honest review. We were on the first Caribbean sailing after, you, and had slightly more worse experience than you. There are definitely some major service issues which I hope they manage to sort out some day. Until then, I dont think we will try Costa again - just stick with what we know, like RCCL and NCL.

What did you find with the music in the Grand Bar? On Pacifica and Diadema, the second group in the Grand Bar has been eliminated. The dance group I'm with in January is trying to find out if they've done the same thing on Deliziosa- it makes a difference to her music schedule, and her contact at Costa doesn't know/won't tell. (They replaced it with recorded music, which is fine in theory, but only a single one, and whoever put it together didn't know what they were doing.)

What did you find with the music in the Grand Bar? On Pacifica and Diadema, the second group in the Grand Bar has been eliminated. The dance group I'm with in January is trying to find out if they've done the same thing on Deliziosa- it makes a difference to her music schedule, and her contact at Costa doesn't know/won't tell. (They replaced it with recorded music, which is fine in theory, but only a single one, and whoever put it together didn't know what they were doing.)

Hello Dancer Bob,

I like ballroom dancing too!.

To give you an idea of their schedule in Grand Bar while on TA:

6:00pm recorded music

7:00-9:00pm live music on some evenings, on other evenings 7:00-8:15 when entertainment team had an event there.

10:00 - 11:30 live music, again on some evenings partly replaced by party from animation team (which means line dancing or games)

After 11:30 recorded music, still people dancing but not a lot going on in Grand Bar.

For the whole cruise only La Dolce Vita Band played live in Grand Bar.

Greetings!

Hello Dancer Bob,

 

I like ballroom dancing too!.

To give you an idea of their schedule in Grand Bar while on TA:

6:00pm recorded music

7:00-9:00pm live music on some evenings, on other evenings 7:00-8:15 when entertainment team had an event there.

10:00 - 11:30 live music, again on some evenings partly replaced by party from animation team (which means line dancing or games)

After 11:30 recorded music, still people dancing but not a lot going on in Grand Bar.

For the whole cruise only La Dolce Vita Band played live in Grand Bar.

 

Greetings!

There was also a guitarist that filled in at times in the Grand Bar.

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