Costa Classica some questions.

[Rocco2007]

Hi There.

My family and I have reserved Costa Classica for the Eastern Mediterranean for next June. And we have some questions I wish you can answer them.

We have read some great opinions :) and not very well opinions about this cruise line. I hope our opinion will be very good.:)

We have cruised before with Movenpick and NCL and love them.

I have read that english is not the first language onboard, but wanna know if spanish (our native language) is spoken and also have read that many passengers are european.

At NCL Sun service was really great, and I have read that is not the same on Costa, and how are meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner), service onboard?

Is the Shore excursions desk a good option? I have read they give not real information about the places.

I know that on Costa you find different cultures and that's great for us.

We chose an stateroom in the lowest level do you know how are those staterooms? bigger or just average.

How is the Costa Classica?

All our documents will be sent by e-mail but how I can have our luggage tags? Will the luggage tags be available at the port?

Any information or opinion about Costa Classica would be appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

[G.M.T.]

Rocco2007,

 

I have never been on the Costa Classica but have done the Eastern Mediterranean cruise - so here goes:

 

On Costa ships all annoucements and the daily program paper TODAY are in Italian, French, Spanish, German and English. Most of the passengers are usually European (very mixed bunch). As Spanish is your mother tonque you will have no problem as many of the crea are from Philippine and Peru.

 

I have found the food and service to be excellent on zwo of my cruises with Costa which left nothing to be desired, on the Costa Europa cruise we did the food was OK and the crew were very unhappy for whatever reason but this has not stopped us from sailing with Costa again and again.

 

For shore excursions, you can either book on line before you sail, on board there are the excursion desk, automatic excursion machine and I don't know if available on the Classica, that you can book excursion via the inter-active TV in your cabin.

 

With regards to the cabins here is a link:

 

http://www.cruisedeckplans.com/DP/Costa/classica.php

 

With ragrds to the Costa Classica I would suggest that you do a search on this forum.

 

Luggage lables will be available in the terminal at the port of departure, when you arrive there do NOT give up your luggage until you have put your cabin lables on them otherwise you will have a long wait before they are found and delivered to your cabin.

 

I hope this helps a bit, some of the information is only my views - so you will have to form your own opinions once you are on board.

 

As some people here say "Either you love Costa or you hate Costa".

 

Let us know how you get on.

 

Have a very good cruise.

 

Ron

[sugarbabe61]

We sailed on Costa Classica in Feb this year. She is an older ship and not as big and grand as the newer ship, however for us we preferred that. The cabins are extremely spacious. We had an outer cabin on Pisa deck (if I remember correctly) and it is certainly the biggest cabin we have ever had. In Oct we were on Costa Victoria and the cabin wasn't even big enough to fit one person in.

 

Alot of people commented on the fact that Costa Classica does not have the central staircase on an atrium, and some people didn't like how the stairs resembled your high school stairways!! However it really didn't bother us.

 

The language will be mainly Italian but you will get the announcements in Spanish as well and your "Today" newspaper will be in your native language.

 

The food was OK, nothing outstanding but yet nothing awful. We have done 3 Costa cruises and find the food the same on all of them.

 

You can read my review here:-

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=486837

 

Any other questions feel free to ask.

[caramelo]

Hola Rocco2007....Que tal!!!

 

OK, I´ll answer as this forum is in English.....I was on the Costa Classica in February last when we went to Dubai and the United Emirates........but I have lived in Spain for 24 years now, its funny as I am Irish, my husband is German.....but our common language together is Spanish. I personally loved the ship. I have been on several cruises.....big ships, small ships, basic ships and luxury ones....one just has to be realistic with what one expects knowing what price one has paid....in other words if you paid a cheap price for a 3 or 4 star ship then you should not expect to receive 5 stars!!!! To try and answer some of your questions, first you will have no problem with the Spanish language. There were many Spaniards aboard and dont forget Costa is an Italian company.........and Italian and Spanish are very similar. The daily newsletters we received in Spanish. Also we found the ship more appropriate for Spaniards as for other nationalities.....dinner times and partys and entertainment, the Costa Classica had a lot going in the sense....if you want it...if not you could also avoid it. For example, I have just come back from the Sapphire Princess which we really loved but Spanish people found night life very quiet....everyone was in bed by 11pm. This is not the case in the Costa.

For Costa Classic, we received everything in Spanish, our documents....and everyday over the loadspeakers any messages were read out in at least 4 different languages. Also see some of my photos of the ship on this link:

http://travel.webshots.com/album/561316421mGrmJi

Also, if you have any further questions, you can contact me in Spanish to my email:

karenmcf85@yahoo.es

Para cualquier duda mas, puedes enviarme un email a la direccion arriba. Un saludo :)

[Rocco2007]

Thanks for all your answers. Have been very useful.

Caramelo thanks for your post and in case I have any other question I'll contact you by email in spanish.

Thanks.

[staceyv2000]

Hi There.

My family and I have reserved Costa Classica for the Eastern Mediterranean for next June. And we have some questions I wish you can answer them.

We have read some great opinions :) and not very well opinions about this cruise line. I hope our opinion will be very good.:)

We have cruised before with Movenpick and NCL and love them.

I have read that english is not the first language onboard, but wanna know if spanish (our native language) is spoken and also have read that many passengers are european.

At NCL Sun service was really great, and I have read that is not the same on Costa, and how are meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner), service onboard?

Is the Shore excursions desk a good option? I have read they give not real information about the places.

I know that on Costa you find different cultures and that's great for us.

We chose an stateroom in the lowest level do you know how are those staterooms? bigger or just average.

How is the Costa Classica?

All our documents will be sent by e-mail but how I can have our luggage tags? Will the luggage tags be available at the port?

Any information or opinion about Costa Classica would be appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

I hope you guys will have a wonderdul time. Please let me know if you like everything about his cruiseline. I'm so glad to come across this thead of replies. I will be going on my honeymoon in August and we were thinking about eastern mediterranean cruise . Our agent suggested this cruise line so any suggestions whether we should use this cruise line or pick another one will be greatly appreciated. We want a nice spacious open cabin with windows if possible, excellent food and great service since this will be our honeymoon. If any of you thinks that there are other cruise lines that are better, please let us know. We will really to have a wonderful time and since we will be spending a lot of our time on the cruise ship, we want to make sure that it's a nice one. Thanks ahead for all your help.

[staceyv2000]

I hope you guys will have a wonderdul time. Please let me know if you like everything about his cruiseline. I'm so glad to come across this thead of replies. I will be going on my honeymoon in August and we were thinking about eastern mediterranean cruise . Our agent suggested this cruise line so any suggestions whether we should use this cruise line or pick another one will be greatly appreciated. We want a nice spacious open cabin with windows if possible, excellent food and great service since this will be our honeymoon. If any of you thinks that there are other cruise lines that are better, please let us know. We will really to have a wonderful time and since we will be spending a lot of our time on the cruise ship, we want to make sure that it's a nice one. Thanks ahead for all your help.

[pujro]

Hi All,

We just booked Classica in the Far East for 2009, any Classica info/reviews would be of great help. First time in the Far East also, so any tips in that area equally useful!

Thanks

[PersistenzaretiniKa]

i've been on classica 3 times. forst time i went in greece if i remeber corfectly and the other tow times i've been around baltic in 2006 and iceland cape north fjords and scotland in 2007. tags for suitecases should arrive with the ticket. u'll find a lot of different people on board. many italians baut also spanishes. spansih is one of the official languages on boaard and many of the entertainers are from caribbean isles or from sout h america in general ( argentina and so on) also a lot of the waiters and barmen are from spanish speaking areas. classica is one of the most appreciated ships of the fleet here in italy, she convey very well our taste and our style. i like her very much. usualy i travel in the inside staterooms, it could be that u can hear alot of noises if your deck is very low. actually i like thes enoises because they make me feel like if i was a part of the ship. ;). the ship is a bit old ( 1991 if i remeber correctly) but i0m sure u'll have fun. food is good even if i'd warmly suggest u to avoid cakes heheheh. anyway the food is usually good, even if , u'll certainly find somethin u won't like , but i think it's normal. tour desk works perfectly, costa is really well organized for shore excursions and u'll find a lot of spanish speaking passengers. i'm sure u'll find the cruise on classica a good experience. have fun!! greetings from italy!