Costa Cruises, Costa Concordia Review

Overall Rating

Costa Concorida, Costa Cruises, is a clean tidy modern ship. Good balcony cabin. Firstly, Thoms Cook booked the ship first with flights to follow and foolishly we did not expect to have to be at Heathrow Airport by 5.30 a.m when other flights were available at around 10.30 a.m. that would have been perfect These were refused and am taking the matter up with Trading Standards. Having arrived some 7 hours before the ship was due to sail we were ushered into a cramped building as though they were organizing a refugee camp. This dreadful welcome got worse as we waited three hours before embarking. The cabin with balcony was excellent. However, that first evening meal in the main dining restaurant was mostly cool to cold. We complained and things did improve but the meals were never very good. We had to sit at the same table with the same people at the same time every night which is not as good as the variable arrangements with other cruises. The kitchen had problems keeping pace. One lunch took 2 hours as each course took over 30 minutes to arrive. Discovered the kitchen is on the deck below and waiters have to use a long escalator to reach the tables. This main restaurant is on two tiers very large noisy, crowded and uncomfortable - lacking in pleasing atmosphere. The buffet bars on the 9th deck served the same limited boring food of poor quality all the time often with far more stations for food and drink closed than open. For an Italian ship the coffee was surprisingly poor and stale. The crew lacked the usual joy in their work which seemed to be because they were very aware of grim faced managers who appeared to put them under the cosh. This was further endorsed with the end of cruise questionnaire which had consequences for crew contract renewals if the passengers did not mark up high enough. Conversely, we were told to mention a crew member by name as this helped contract renewal. Getting around this large ship was made more difficult due to poor less than adequate design of the signs and other aids usually found in other ships. Although some 800 English speaking passengers the entertainment did not cater enough for this group. The shows were also rather short. Some excellent artists did perform but often with sparse presentational support or build up. This was strange seeing as the ship has an excellent theatre with all the latest technology to add drama and excitement. The classical music was performed near to the horrid noise of the gaming machines. The excursions were spoiled by not engaging good quality guides. Some tours involved English and Italian resulting in very little English being spoken. The guides were not very professional in their presentation. The excursions were very expensive as were the drinks on board. Even a simple non-alcoholic fruit cocktail was of poor quality. The cruise ended with two days at sea which is something best avoided as it produces an anti-climax. Disembarking at the end of the cruise was chaotic with hundreds of people not knowing what was going on and exactly where to go. Overall this cruise lacked fineness had many avoidable irritations and would not happily recommend to a friend.