Just Back From Costa Atlantica 1/30/05

[apc0204]

Hi Everyone,

 

I just got off the Costa Atlantica and would like to share my thoughts and comments with this board.

 

As a cruise agency owner I have heard good and bad about Costa. I have been on over 50 cruises and never have cruised with Costa until my rep made me an offer I could not refuse!

 

My wife and I have a one year old girl and we have always taken her with us, this was her fifth cruise, her priors where on HAL which is our favorite line namely because of the warm and friendly staff.

 

Embarkation was simple we got to the pier about 11am and one of the Costa reps saw that we had a stroller and directed us to the terminal. We were onboard by 11:30.

 

The ship is absolutely stunning and incredibly neat and tidy. The staff throughout the cruise was excellent. We had a cat 9 balcony on deck six aft which was very spacious and our cabin steward Rebecca was excellent.

 

The food was very good and much better than anticipated. We found the pizza and Pastas and Italian dishes such as eggplant etc to be very good. We were disappointed with the room service menu for breakfast and lunch so we never used room service as we always went to the buffet and they had plenty of options.

 

They do not charge for room service but they do have a menu with special order items that they charge you for (champagne breakfast etc).

 

There were always plenty of deck chairs and the ship was at full capacity, we noticed crowds the most in the photo gallery and in the atrium before dinner but nothing out of the ordinary for a ship this size.

 

We bought a wine package for $92 which was a steal it was 6 bottles of wine and 10 big bottles of spring water. As I mentioned before we now cruise with our little girl so nightlife is really non existent for us. They did offer some really great entertainment at night from the Italian Street Festival, International night where they had different European Countries represented in each of the lounges (one was Turkey with belly dancers, the others were Greece, Spain, etc).

 

After dinner we would walk around the ship for a while then usually put our daugther to sleep by 9 and turn on the monitor and sit on the balcony and drink some wine!

 

I am not going to go into detail about the ports as we cruise mainly for the ship as the destination itself and you can find many great reviews on each port on this site.

 

Disembarkation was a breeze we walked off the ship by 9am as we had a flight home at 11:25.

 

We really enjoyed the European Flair on Costa and would recommend it to anyone! If anyone has any specific questions feel free to email me.

 

Anthony

[Cruise4Andy]

Anthony:

 

Glad you enjoyed your cruise! We are (unfortunately) also back from the Mediterranea, which sailed at the same time as yours. We had also an outstanding experience!!! (Full review is already written and submitted, so it should be posted here within the next few days!)

 

Welcome to the Costa Lovers Club!

 

 

Andy

[Chaparral97]

Welcome back! We sail This Sunday.

 

How was that aft PS? We are in the other corner #5295. Hope you took some pics.

[CruisinMatt]

Yes Andy, give us the details now on that suite!! I can't wait for the review!

[letzgocruzin]

Hey, Cruise4Andy...When is your cruise review going to be here? I have been waiting to get your take on the Med. cruise, as we will be taking the same one in March, and I have lots of questions.

[Cruise4Andy]

CC seemed to have misplaced my review which I submitted... so I posted it now here in the forum... hopefully that is all right....

 

 

Look for the new thread!