kremerlorraine

Hi. I would avoid 2468 - we had a cabin near there last year and the noise of the rope equipment when the ship was docking (usually early morning) and leaving was unbearable.

On 6/10/2023 at 2:28 PM, BVILady said:

I am not loyal to any cruise line but have been on Costa 2023 World Cruise and am booked on 2024 World Cruise because I like their itinerary more then other cruise lines. And the price for solo cruiser is just right.

Hi BVI Lady

We are doing a couple of sectors of the 2024 world cruise - Chile to Singapore. Have you received the notification re. replacing New Zealand with more South Pacific islands? We aren't happy, and especially not about missing Hobart, Tasmania, because we've visited Samoa and Tonga before.

Can't find the prices for the rope garden or mini-golf, I'm afraid, but here are the menus. Can confirm that the Hot Pot is very good!

sb_en.pdfsushi_en.pdfhotpot_en-1.pdffiorentina_en.pdf

Here is the current La Cantina wine list. I'm not 100% sure that the most expensive wines by the glass are included, but the majority are (including Jaquart champagne). I also attach the bar list.

elite_en-25.pdf 

bar_list_standard-9.pdf

5 hours ago, alpencoolcruiser said:

Next up.. Deck 8 tour - The Buffet is here and so lots of people walk the deck (instead of walking the plank.. sorry for my weird sea humour) The infinity walk we started from here too - but that will be another video. We also catch most of the shows at the Colosseo from here.  I think the Colosseo is a super cool concept. Prefer it to stuffy auditoriums / theatres. What do you think ? 

 

For sitting comfortably and watching a show, the Colosseo is horrible, in my opinion. But each to his own.. !

4 hours ago, gerryuk said:

Costa is defiantly a Italian cruise line catering for Italians, MSC is far more European. I did Toscana from Barcelona to Dubai in November and have just returned on the return voyage back to Europe from Dubai. The vast majority of the customers are Italians, however there are plenty of English speakers on board and all the crew speak English. I have done Costa Fascinosia and the Diadema a number of times and again there are plenty of English speakers on board, but the vast majority are Italians.

Perhaps, before you booked you should have done some research on Costa. There will have been plenty of clues on these boards regarding the language on Costa ships. 

You say that they need to stop English speakers from booking their cruises, utter nonsense. Many English speakers who travel with Costa, travel for the Italian experience and many of them like myself are repeat customers. 

Gerry, I agree with you about liking to sail with Costa for the multicultural experience, but I can sympathise with CupKayke in relation to the South American experience, having just been on the Favolosa and Fortuna for week-long cruises out of Buenos Aires. 99% of the passengers were Spanish or Portuguese speaking. Announcements (apart from the safety ones) were in those languages only and the entertainment staff were all Argentinian or Brazilian. We managed because we speak some Spanish. However, the upside was that the Filipino, Indonesian and Indian crew were so delighted to be able to speak English to us that we got fantastic service in the restaurant and bars!

We are now almost at the end of the transatlantic on Fortuna from Buenos Aires and the experience has been much better. There is still a majority of South Americans, but many more Europeans and even a couple of dozen Brits. 

4 hours ago, Skipper Tim said:

The current Costa information I have is there is no need to be tested except for South American departures of over 15 days, e.g. to Europe. Ours is 16 days! It clearly says we will be denied boarding without a negative certificate from a pharmacist, doctor or clinic. This was confirmed by Costa Customer Service, Italy.

 

I have emailed both our hotel for the night before boarding and the port authority about getting a Covid test, neither have replied. Travelling to the other side of the planet with a prospect of being denied boarding is not sitting well with my constitution. 

Don't stress about it, Skipper! I'm sure your hotel will point you in the right direction. There seems to be a chain of pharmacies in Santos called Droga Raia that do the tests. You only need a rapid antigen so you'll have the results within an hour or so. I'm sorry but I don't remember seeing a testing facility in Santos cruise terminal (although there was certainly a big one in Rio).

4 hours ago, Skipper Tim said:

I have managed to sign my mother up for the Club but not myself. I will have to phone them (travelling tomorrow). 

 

Does the My Drinks Plus package cover all wines?

No, just the wines that are available by the glass costing up to 7 or 8 euros. There are some good ones in there.

You can sign up to the Club on arrival by going to the Customer Relations Manager.

14 hours ago, Skipper Tim said:

Many thanks. That wine list is incredible - more wines than many a wine merchant would have! Also good to hear about the live music. Enjoy the rest of your cruise. Tim.

The wine available on the MyDrinks package is very limited and not great quality. Having said that, I'm not too fussy and am happy to drink it! If you are thinking of buying from the wine list, make sure to sign up for Costa Club before the cruise or on the first day on board. It gets you some decent discounts on a selection of bottles.

You don't need a test for a European cruise.

Water, tea, coffee and juice are available in the buffet at breakfast (typically 7-10 am, but sometimes extended to 11). Water and tea/coffee are available at lunchtime (12-2.30 or later on some port days); at snack time (4.30 - 5.30 pm); and at dinner (varies according to destination but usually 7.30 - 9 pm). There may also be a late night snack service.

Cabin service breakfast isn't free - 5 euros per person and continental breakfast only.

There is no free lobster.

You'll need to decide whether you can justify the £500 for MyDrinks. Personally I would go for it, because I like to have "real" coffee, a few cocktails, soft drinks and water and wine with dinner!

14 hours ago, Skipper Tim said:

A fascinating discussion, thanks to all the contributors. I read it because I have sailed on Cunard, Royal Caribbean and MSC, each twice, but I have the Costa Favolosa Brazil-Barcelona repo cruise, mentioned above, coming up in just over two weeks. For reference, I am English but have also lived in Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey - I am fairly international!

 

I did two classic trans-Atlantics, Southhampton - New York, on the QE2 and QM2. My take-home from those is that Cunard is a US-idea of what a British cruise line should be but I found it shockingly American - and not what I expected at all. I had to use US-English to communicate the simplest things to the staff and the menus were the classic things that Americans expect on a cruise. I felt like a fish out of water. 

 

Which brings me to Royal Caribbean. I knew to expect a US cruise experience and that is what I got in heaps. What I did not expect was the endless hard-sell and up-sell every moment of the day. I spoke to an English lady who said it was her 60th cruise with RCI and asked her how she coped with the endless sales pressure. She replied to say that she was now immune to it - 'desensitised'. How awful! 

 

MSC, I found both amusing and chaotic because of the mix of cultures of the guests. There was not a day that went by without incident due to cultures not understanding each other. I loved MSC's pizzas freshly made all day outside the buffet, just like those I had when I lived in Italy - so I will miss those on Costa. What I didn't like on MSC was, when going to the MDR for breakfast or lunch, being forced to sit with strangers in the order you arrived. If I asked for a table for 2, we were told to stand aside and wait - often for a long time. We preferred the buffet for this reason in the end. 

 

I will be taking my elderly mother on the Costa Favolosa. She has very high standards from her younger days when she worked in a very expensive restaurant. She will like the Italian theme but she won't tolerate tepid food on cold plates. They will be sent back. I fear for this. 

 

Neither of us have enjoyed any of the shows on any of the ships we have been on. We do however enjoy live music of practically any type, so I am hoping there will be some good live music on the Favolosa as an alternative to the show. 

 

We have separate 'inside guarantee' cabins (not yet allocated) therefore I can book a drinks package for myself but I doubt it would be worth it for her. However, nowhere can I find Costa's current drinks prices for wine in order to compare. Nor can I find the minibar prices. 

 

Hoping there are contributors to help us before our first Costa cruise. I should be able to add my own lines to this thread after it. 

club_en.pdf

This is the current wine list from the Fortuna, which we are on now (transatlantic Buenos Aires to Tarragona). Hope this has uploaded OK. We were on Favolosa for a week in February. There is plenty of live music from 6pm onwards (in the atrium, grand bar, wine bar and the bar at the back of the ship).

14 hours ago, Beezo said:

***PURE SPECULATION**

 

If I were to make a guess...I'd say Deliziosa.  This would give Carnival a total of six Spirit-class vessels, replacing a lot of the itinerary and homeport coverage previously held with the Fantasy-class vessels.

 

Elation is currently in dry dock - but I believe at her age she now needs to be in dry dock a minimum of every two years.

 

 

I hope not. Deliziosa is the only Panamax ship left so Costa would be unable to offer a "classic" RTW cruise going through the Panama Canal. 

We are on the Favolosa now. Yesterday evening as we were leaving Montevideo we were surprised to see (and hear!) the Fortuna sailing past as she should have been on her way north. Our restaurant supervisor said that she had a technical problem and was returning to Montevideo to get it fixed. I checked Vesselfinder this morning and, sure enough, she has been docked in Montevideo since last night. Must keep an eye on that...

14 hours ago, gerryuk said:

Are there any perks to booking a future cruise with Costa, whilst onboard one of their ships? I know some lines give obc. loyalty points and the like if you book a future cruise onboard, what about Costa? 

In my recent experience, it's just a 5% discount on the cabin price (not on any drinks package). Its combinable with any Costa Club discounts you may have.

On 1/16/2023 at 10:39 PM, the penguins said:

Scheduled Journey time: 2 hours 25 minutes.

Address of Bus Station is : Harbour Parade.

Distance from Cruise Terminal: 1 mile.

Taxi from Bus Station to Cruise Terminal: 7 minutes 

Taxi cost: £5.

 

On 1/20/2023 at 12:26 AM, phoenix_dream said:

They said it was GC regulations.  Is there proof otherwise that Celebrity was lying to us and was just cutting back?  If so please share.

We had the same experience in GC in early January on a Costa ship, so it's not a(nother) Celebrity cutback...

On 1/2/2023 at 5:54 PM, CupKayke said:

We will be sailing on Costa Fortuna in March.  Interesting. 

Us, too, from 18 March to 14 April. There are no cruises on her for sale after 14 April, so it may be her last-ever sailing for Costa. Could be an interesting wind-down experience!

Don't stress too much. We were unable to print out our boarding documentation and tickets for a cruise in October, so we just turned up at the cruise terminal with our confirmation document and they did it for us. They also hand-wrote the luggage tags on the spot.

On 11/10/2022 at 4:37 PM, the wandering two said:

Thanks for the reply. 

When I didn't get an automated confirmation of email, like I do from P&O,   I contacted customer relations in order to confirm the OBC email & they replied in a couple of hours. Maybe contact them next week. 

Can't think of what else to do other than resend the original request? 

I resent it marked "Urgent" and got a response the next day asking for an updated share certificate. Sent that back and got the OBC confirmation the same day. Sometimes just a little nudge does the trick...!

I've noticed that the Serena is back - you can book sailings in the Caribbean (from Pointe a Pitre) from December 2023, with a transatlantic back to Europe in March 2024.

It used to take about a week, but we've been waiting two and a half weeks for a response on a cruise departing on 2 December. From a French Costa fans Facebook site that I follow, I get the impression that quite a lot of people have rushed to buy shares as they are so cheap now, so maybe they are having to deal with a lot more requests than usual. Anyway, this has reminded me to chase them up!

On 10/6/2022 at 11:19 AM, Aeroplex said:

You cruised 5 times with Costa this year haha?^^

What can I say?! We like them and as long as we have Platinum/Gold status they will be our first choice. But the lack of variation in the itineraries is becoming a problem.

It sometimes appears as an option to book in advance on MyCosta, but not for all cruises. On our recent cruise on the Fascinosa unlimited Internet access for 13 days cost 190 euros. Social packages (eg including WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram etc) were something like 90 euros. For a week the price for full unlimited access is 100 euros and for social media it's 50 euros. Per minute is 30 cents. There were no discounts on board on any of our last five cruises this year.

A nice surprise on the Fascinosa yesterday - the Library was reopened! I don't know if it will be the same on the other ships (or indeed whether the newer ones even have a library) but we have always made full use of them, for borrowing books and for sitting somewhere quiet.

On 6/16/2022 at 6:57 PM, BVILady said:

That surprises me, last time I checked there hadn't really been a lot of availability on Deliziosa for the 2023 World Cruise and have not been aware of any segments either. I am sorry to hear your cruise was cancelled, hoping to do this one at a later date to cruise the Amazon and northern part of Brazil. I think HAL has a cruise to the Amazon but at a more expensive rate. So where is Magica going then, all her scheduled cruises had been already cancelled.

Your instinct was right - we've been told today that there is no availability on the 2023 WC. But they have offered two sectors on the 2024 WC, which we are interested in doing - probably Santiago de Chile - Sydney - Singapore. 

Still waiting for more information from our personal consultant (in the French market). We are on the Pacifica in the Caribbean until 15 January, so wouldn't be able to join from the beginning anyway. I'm not hopeful that they will find us a balcony cabin. They have sold segments of the world cruise in the past, but usually last minute. I'll check out HAL. The only other Amazon cruises I've found are with Regent Seven Seas and Seabourn - not what I'd call affordable!

We've just had the cancellation e-mail for our 50-day Luminosa cruise from Buenos Aires next February. They are offering two "segments" of the world cruise on Deliziosa instead, but the consultant I contacted today doesn't have any information as to what those segments are. Really disappointed to lose the opportunity to cruise the Amazon (at least at a reasonable price!)