Costa Cruise on Atlantica - Thanksgiving week 2009

Central America Caribbean
November 29th 2009

Published: November 29th 2009

Day 1 - Saturday - Costa Atlantica

We arrived at pier 19 (Port Everglades-Ft. Lauderdale) around 1:30 p.m. in Port Everglades. The garage appeared full as we kept going up and up the different levels. Finally, we found a space near an elevator and we parked. We snapped this picture from the garage.

We headed down to the ship realizing that we should have dropped off the luggage beforehand. Oh well, not too much of a problem, but next time we will remember that it would be best to drop off the luggage so we won’t have to lug it all the way to the terminal. It was bumpy in certain places.

I had packed a bottle of wine in my carry on - on a tip. Unfortunately, the tip was a scam by the bus driver at our friend’s hotel who said Costa was allowing people to carry on alcohol. We believe this was a scam of the bus driver who was probably getting tips from people who stayed at the hotel who would have had the guy stop at the liquor store (getting a bigger tip for the inconvenience on the free bus service). I

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Skyway car St. Thomas USVI

did know that I shouldn’t do this, but I took the chance. Live and learn.

Going through security, I of course got flagged and had to turn in my bottle of wine. Meanwhile, my parents got through with no problems and went well ahead of us. As we boarded the ship our picture was taken first by the photographer and then by security for our sail and sign card. Since we hadn’t taken a Costa cruise before we didn’t know that our sail and sign card was in our room. Since my parents had gone on ahead they were well in line at guest services only to be told that their sail and sign cards were in their rooms and then had to be brought down to be activated. We got out of line and then went to our rooms. Later, Robert went down and activated our cards.

We choose rooms with portholes this time and we were very happy with them. We were in room 1220 and my parents were in 1222. These rooms are located on Floor 1 which is the lowest deck for the cruise patrons and they are located pretty close to the

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middle of the ship. The elevator we used most often was the same one for the atrium area and the exit out for the shore excursions, was located right around the corner. The rooms are pretty standard, with a safe, fridge, 3 closet cabinets and four drawers. We never had any problems with it being hot in the room whereas many other people with balconies had some trouble with their AC in the rooms.

Day 2 & 3 - Sunday & Monday
The first couple days were spent at sea. There were many things to do though to occupy our time. The TV didn’t have many channels to choose from while at sea but when we got to St. Thomas, which was our first stop; there were more channels to choose from on TV. One of these being a Denver station. The food on the ship was plentiful to say the least. We ate our dinner in the dining room every night and mostly breakfast and lunch were eaten on the 9th Floor - Ginger & Fred deck. The breakfast and lunch served in the dinning room was open seating and you would be placed with other people. This

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is a good way to meet new people if that’s what you want. Personally, I just prefer to eat with the people in my immediate group. Although it is nice to meet other people.

Day 3 - Tuesday
We arrived in St. Thomas and took a “trolley-like” taxi to the town ($4.00 ea) then we walked back to the ship on the pedestrian walkway. The town is not very far from the ship dock and is a nice walk. Hackneys are everywhere trying to sell you a ride somewhere. We also took the gondola sky ride to Paradise Point which was very nice. There are excellent views of the bay and of our cruise ship from Paradise Point. There is a restaurant and bar up there along with some little shops. There is also a nature trail.

Every night at dinner we would have a couple bottles of wine on our table since we bought the X1 package. The X1 package really paid for itself because all the draft beer and wine at your lunch and dinner are included in the flat fee price which was bought before the cruise. It’s not a much publicized item and it

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had to be purchased 14 days before taking off on the cruise. We booked ours after the date because we explained to the Costa agent on the phone that we couldn’t get the online site to recognize our log in info. Tech support had to reset our online registration because when we booked through our travel agent the form asked for the middle name and the middle name is not used on the Costa online site.

Day 4 - Wednesday
Today we are in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We took a tour which was booked on the ship. Since the tour didn’t leave until 12:45 we explored on our own in the morning. First we boarded the free trolley which took us all around the old city. It was good to do and we could get a feel of the city. The trolley is located very near the dock and is easy to find. It has about 14 or more stops. After making the round on the trolley we started walking around the island on the west side which had many interesting points of interest. We ended our self tour at Don Q’s where we had a free drink.

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The drink was so good! It was a frozen drink which had orange, grapefruit and strawberry in it. I’ll have to research that recipe when I get back home. The guy there only told me the ingredients very quickly - it wasn’t from a mix. I believe he used the “crystal” rum. I think I really like that rum!

Our city tour was good too. We went to Old San Juan and New San Juan. The Fort Cristobal was very interesting with many great photo shots. Two people from our group didn’t make it back on time so they were left there. That’s a good tour operator who stays on schedule - we liked that. My friends who were with us on the cruise hadn’t booked their tour in advance. They actually got the better deal by using one of the individual tour operators located right outside the dock. They used “Roger” who had an air-conditioned mini bus and gave them a great tour of both Old and New San Juan for $10.00 each whereby we paid $32.00 each for ours. Our tour operator was good and I’m not complaining, but I would recommend not booking beforehand might be

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View of ship from Paradise Point in St Thomas USVI

the better way to go for the San Juan tour, to save a little bit of money.

In the evening was toga night. We all dressed up in our togas and attended the Roman show after our dinner. It was a lot of fun. I finally met up with someone I had met on the Costa facebook site. Two nights ago we also met someone else that my friend met on facebook too. It’s fun to meet people that way!

Day 5 - Thursday - Thanksgiving Day
We arrived in Grand Turk today. Grand Turk is an island where you can shop for souvenirs and swim in the beach or the pool. We walked around some but there was nothing that interested us here.

Day 6 -Friday, A day at sea
Today we are at sea and we spent the day relaxing. Our dinner this evening was very good and the show in the evening was another good one where they saluted the staff and some of the staff entertained as well.

Summary - All the shows on this cruise were very good and the costumes were magnificent. The food was good although we did have

K&R at Paradise Point

Paradise Point - St Thomas USVI

one meal (steak & prawns) which was not to our liking. The prawns were very good but the steak was very tough. We could have ordered something else but choose not to because with the 7 course dinner we were pretty full anyway. For the most part the food was excellent both in the restaurant and on the deck 9 buffets. Many people complained about the rolls being too hard. We just choose not to eat them and have the yummy breadsticks instead.

There were many foreign people on this cruise, so with the announcements, they were always done in at least 4 languages. It was amazing how many languages the crew knew. There were also many older people (over 60) on this cruise. There weren’t that many children on the ship compared to the overall amount of people.

I heard some complaints from a couple of women about how slow the dinner service was - OMG - I just rolled my eyes to them because what was their hurry anyway? We enjoyed the leisurly service so we could talk with our friends - ours was never too slow. And they have to get you out in a

Cityscape of San Juan

Cityscape of San Juan as we enter the port

certain amount of time so I really don’t know what some of their complaints were about.

For us, the cruise was very enjoyable and we would do this cruise again.

Additional photos below

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