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Published: April 19th 2016
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As many of you know, this was our first cruise, and we weren't sure that it wouldn't be our last....
The experience did not begin well. The Istanbul leg of the cruise was cancelled due to fears of terrorism, and Bill had to work hard to get our tickets from Istanbul to Athens paid for by the cruise company (Costa). We found the website to be nearly useless, and could get little or no information about the ship and our cruise on-line, The day before departure, we tried to find out where the ship was docked and how to get there, with no success. I used a cruise-tracking website to find our ship in Athens, so we had a vague idea of where to go. We took a bus from the airport to the terminal area, and then walked with our luggage for about 30 minutes towards the giant yellow stack with the Costa "C" on it... Once there, our greeting was lukewarm, and no one helped us find our room or explained that that the keycards were in the room!
Things began to look up when we got to dinner. Each dinner had a regional Italian theme and
had five courses, including really good cheeses and a desserts. Back in our cabin, we were very happy to find it silent, clean, and large enough for the two of us to move around.
But there was still much weirdness: We had a $200 on-board credit each, and finally decided we might as well buy the drink package, since we needed water (NONE supplied, and you can't drink the cabin water...) and wanted to have wine with dinner. Turns out that the drink package only included glasses of water, not bottles!!!
Our passports were collected prior to arriving in Dubrovnik and not returned until 7:00pm on our first evening in Venice. We used our Costa Card to disembark in both Dubrovnik and Venice! But, we didn't get a stamp in our passports from Croatia...
The staff was generally competent, except for those at the information desk. You could only get a bottle of water and mixed drinks at the bar, not at dinner. There was no predictable pattern of when we had to give our card for drinks, when they just looked at it, and when they didn't even care.
The ship was very stable and
Our cabin on deck 9
There 14 decks...but really only decks 5-12 were used by passengers.. we felt few waves, even on the rougher sailings. Since the ship was only half full, there were always seats available and never any waiting to eat. The food was consistently excellent. The entertainment was generally a bit hokey, but the performances were solid, with some talented singers and dancers.
We received a copy of the ship's newspaper every evening with details about the next day's activities and events. There was a TV channel with all the ship's coordinates, speed, and the weather and seas. Another channel showed video from stern and bow.
Security was tight: Costa Cards scanned and saved photo compared with your actual face to get on and off the ship. All bags were scanned every time you returned, and you had to through a metal detector yourself.
Most of the passengers were European, with Spanish-speakers being in the majority. We had conversations with a few people, but generally kept to ourselves. Most passengers were European, with the majority being Spanish speakers. Many people were in small groups with friends or family.
The cruise company used people's fear of navigating in a foreign country to sell their over-priced shuttles, tours and transfers. The
most ridiculous one was on Mykonos, where the shuttle bus cost 12 Euros, and the water taxi (with a sign that could be seen from the ship) cost 2 Euros...the bus only went part way into town, while the water taxi went right into the port.... The situation in Dubrovnik was similar.
In summary, we loved the food, traveling while asleep in a comfortable bed, and seeing many places easily in a short time.
The constant proximity to so many people (about 950 passengers and 500 crew) was tiring, the style of organization was hard to follow at times, and lack of free wifi frustrating when planning for activities at the next stop.
So...I think we may take another cruise in the future, but no longer than 6 days, and hopefully on another half-empty ship!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Cruises mixed reviews
We don't take many cruises but ours have always been fantastic and they provided more than enough information. Holland America and Royal Caribbean are ones we have used.