Costa Mediterranea - 12/11-18

[demonR6]

I just returned from an Eastern Caribbean seven nighter on the Costa Mediterranea and as promised I will give a fair and informative review. I took a load of pictures and I will post some I think will help, I would be happy to share some of the other ship pictures if asked.

I will be as thorough as possible and address some of the concerns I had based on what I had read on here.

 

Parking - we stuck with the pier simply because the Park N Fly would be chaos on Sunday when all the ships are trying to disembark and absolutely everyone and their mother needs to get on a bus. Case in point there were no less than ELEVEN ships in port that morning. You do the math. more on the debarkation at the end. We were able to find a spot in covered parking across from Pier 19 where we departed from. I did not have even the slightest worry on whether the car was safe or not.

 

Embarkation - We pulled up and dropped off our luggage and a porter collected them and off they went. There were a good number of porters available and they were pleasant, greeted us with a hello etc etc. It was as organized as could be considering the amount of activity with everyone trying to drop off thier luggage. There were at least four Costa reps at the entrance to greet us and give us directions to where we needed to go. We arrived around 12:15 and it was not bad. The line to the agents that checked us in moved quickly and the agent had us checked in and on our way in under five minutes. The line through security took approximately five minutes as well. There were only two x-ray machines for embarkation, I am sure a couple more could have made it flow more smoothly but honestly it was not bad at all. The entire process from drop off to the ship itself was swift and orderly.

 

On-board - We were greeted by the crew as we boarded on deck two, the main lobby area and we were asked our stateroom number.. our stateroom, 7180 was not available yet so we were directed to deck 9 where the buffet was available to us. (Bonus as we were hungry) We were escorted to the elevator and one of the stewards was nice enough to get us an elevator and selected deck nine for us. Once on deck nine we wandered around and took pictures of course. We had lunch, it was an Italian buffet so we had something light to ensure no conflicts with dinner. There was a chef making made to order pasta so I took advantage of that, I also made myself a Caesar salad to accompany it. They also had pizza and some other items available as well. There were attendants available if you wanted soda or something to drink other than the standard water, tea or coffee or cold milk. By the way, that is what you can expect to find at any of the buffets unless it is breakfast, then you will find orange and grapefruit juice as well. After our lunch we wandered around the ship to get acclimated with the ship. We wandered for about 45 minutes then made our way to our stateroom on Prometeo, deck 7.

 

Stateroom - Our stateroom was located on deck 7 with both the deck above and below us with staterooms only as we did not want any chance of having anything above or below us making miserable for the next week. We had a large verandah forward which was perfectly situated in my opinion. The stateroom was roomy and appointed very nicely. Our stateroom attendant greeted us in the hallway and opened our door for us and went over the safe and some other instructions, she informed us that she would return to open the mini-bar at 1pm.. which she did. If there is any complaint at all about the ststeroom it would be the mattresses.. we both agreed that the mattresses are fairly hard so fair warning. Also for some reason we were not able to get cold water, cold was warm, hot was lava. Setting the shower to the 38c setting will be hot and lowering it to 20c did not seem to make much of an improvement. It did not bother us enough to complain, brushing our teeth with warm water took some getting used to but no big deal. There was enough room between the closet and drawers for both of our wardrobes. There were no extra pillows to be found but we were not concerned. The couch in the stateroom is a pul our so I am sure bedsheets and pillows would have been available if requested. The television did have the big three networks available, WB and CNNFN if my memory serves me.. there are also the shipboard channels with local offerings as well. Some of the shipboard activities, ie shopping, info sessions, excursion information was broadcast shortly after they took place. We did not order movies.. with all the activities and destinations I find it absurd to have to order pay-per-view.

 

The ship - We probably wandered every nook and cranny of the ship. I would classify the decor as Las Vegas like.. they maintain the various areas with a zeal that I admired. At any given hour (and we were up at all hours) there was someone cleaning in some inconspicuous place you would never think to check. There is a lot of chrome, glass and marble and there was never a time I saw fingerprints or smudges. True, there were some places on the chrome that had a ding here and there but they normally occurred in areas where luggage may have been the cuplrit. The fitness center has a very good selection of machines, with most of the treadmills facing out so you can see the ocean although they do draw the curtains in the evening. There is a whirlpool in the fitness center and a solarium as well. We did go to the Selva Disco on a few occasions and there was amazingly no more than a handul of people there. We only attended one show plus the Roman Bacchanal (toga party) in the theater so I cannot honestly comment on the entertainment. It was a very nice theatre though so take that for what it is worth. The pools and hot tub are beautiful.. the hot tubs do get crowded at times but not much can be done when you have 1600+ people on board.. there are only so many hot tubs you can squeeze on there right? The hot tub at the very rear on deck nine is the one we enjoyed most. We were actually in there having a ball as we left Isla Catalina. There is so much to the decor that I cannot begin to explain it all.. it is a beautiful ship and you have to see it for yourself as there is so much to soak in. I will attach some pics to give you and idea.

 

The staff - The crew is primarily European.. mostly Italian with some from Spain, the UK, Lithuania and Romania and a few Latin Americans as well. The bulk of the stateroom attendants and wait staff are from the Philippines. Everyone we spoke to understood English and communication was not a problem. We were always greeted while in the hallways or common areas with a smile and a hello. I personally rated the staff as excellent although they could not come close to Celebrity where practically anyone we encountered more than one for more than five seconds would know us by name the next time we ran into them.. then again, the Celebrity Zenith is a much smaller ship compared to the Costa Mediterranea. The activites staff was genuinelu happy to be there and very energetic especially the Italians which were completely wild. The Cruise Director, Paul, is a very likeable character. The Shopping Advisor, Richie, knows his stuff and his talks helped us out immensely. He was there as we prepared to step off at each port to offer last minute advice if necessary and we saw him at practically every shop we went to when we were out and about. On more than one occasion I heard people thank

him for helping them find a deal on something they were looking for when we were in a shop where he was at the time.

 

The cuisine - The main dining is very nice.. the food was not as good as I hoped it would be and the service was not nearly as good as anywhere else on board. I found that to be disappointing. We only ate in main dining twice and decided to seek dinner or lunch elsewhere. The pizza at the buffets is not what we are accustomed to from a Pizza Hut so I won't knock them on that.. face it, you cannot expect everything to be Americanized, this is after all an Italian ship. If I want Americanized I would have chosen Carnival. I would definitely recommend dining at Medusa at least once while you are there, both the food and the service are excellent. I was surprised how many empty seats there were for dinner each night. For $20pp it was well worth it. Hamburgers, hot dogs and french fries are available for lunch on the rear deck if you want to play it safe. Servers are roaming around if you need a soda or mixed drink. There were servers on the pool deck but not on the upper deck, deck 10.. where the bulk of the chairs are if you are going to get sun. On that topic, there are more than enough chairs on the upper decks to get sun..

I was surprised there was not more effort taken into having a few attendants wandering the upper decks selling bottled water as that would have been welcome.

 

to be continued..