Costa Cruises, Costa Atlantica

First Costa cruise. My wife and I and have sailed with Carnival 4 times but i have to say this was our best cruise so far!! We had an excellent time, food was great, entertainment was first class. staff were friendly and informative. the cruise director was superb. Only complaint...no lobster!!

Travelling on the Costa Atlantica would be a good ship to go on for a first-time cruiser. With no previous experience on other ships or expectations, the trip would be acceptable and even pleasant for some. The good points about Atlantica is the relative ease and expediency of embarkation and disembarkation.

Everyone we met thought the entertainment was great. I found the performances polished and costumes impressive. The food was fair, but selection very limited. Desserts at the buffet was a variation on the same theme, but different flavors each day like lime, peach, chocolate,etc. The most popular food station was the ice cream machine. People flocked to it so often, one of them broke.

Aesthetically, the Atlantica is a beautiful ship and even though it is ten years old, the stained glass, polished wood, marble floors still are jaw-droppers. Overall, decks are spacious and well laid out. There are several pools, hot tubs, enough for everyone. Entertainment around poolside was rollicking and uplifting.

They spent much attention in building the spa and exercise area. Saunas and showers are elaborate. However, more emphasis should have been made in the planning of food areas. Buffet stations are small. There were too many mini stations which one had to travel in order to assemble a complete meal. No trays available so eating at the buffet was like going out to hunt for your food. Also, it is not pleasant eating and drinking on plasticware and cheap diner utensils. No frills like juice, except for breakfast. Forget about toast. It's cold. Forget about talking to the service people because they seem not to understand. If you ask for anything out of the ordinary like Tabasco sauce, expect a surly reaction or no reaction at all.

The diningroom was pleasant, however the 8:30 pm seating was not. It is far too late for anyone to be eating, as one never gets out of there until 10:00 pm. As it is the second seating, the waiters seem to have no need to rush. The alternative would be the buffet, but buffet does not open until 7:30 pm. I found the times for eating very stressful and unlike most ships, eating areas seem to have too many closing times and it was impossible to memorize who closed when and where so most of the time, if you were hungry, all that was available was the same salad bar, fruit salad, and old pizza. Tea was available 3:45.

On Atlantica, service was probably the worst feature of the entire cruise. Our safe did not work, and even though we told the cabin steward and later went to the front desk, the safe was not fixed until the night before last. We figured they came around, because questionnaires had been handed out on the ship's crew.

During the cruise, there were plumbing problems. The carpet before our room was wet from leaking pipes. One stateroom had wet carpets, and the people were not moved to another cabin. One night I set to take a shower and found brown water coming out of the shower head. My husband went to the public showers, only to have the water turned off on him, consequent scalding hot water when it was turned back on, and then brown water. They should warn people beforehand about these things before taking on repairs. They did do one plumbing repair during the night, and we were told about that.

I hear cruise ships have cut back on frills but Atlantica cut back on basic items like facecloths, soap, etc. There is a common shampoo dispenser inside the shower which I did not use. If you didn't bring your own conditioner or body lotion, you are out of luck. Some people were told there weren't enough facecloths to go around, so each morning you had to ask. Sometimes they came, sometimes not.

Being of a certain minority, getting cordial service at the front desk was met with discrimination. I know, because the people at our table got a totally different attitude when they went to the desk for a similar problem. As well, be prepared for different languages being spoken by both passengers and crew. Whenever information was given over the intercom, it was given in at least five different languages. Kudos for their international approach but it does get tiring.

Compared to other cruises, the port stays were several hours shorter than other lines. Pulling in at 12 and leaving at 5:30 doesn't give one much time for excursions. It seemed like stops to ports were token stops only.

St. Thomas was fine but Nassau is nothing but fumes and dirt, with 10,000 people all on main street as six cruise ships alighted docked at its piers.

This was our 12th cuise and the first and last on Costa. After boarding we find out that kids ruise free in the same cabin as parents. Needless to say there were well over 500 children on this cruise. Seems that could have been mentioned as we booked direct with Costa. The staff would be best described as surly. The food was average at best. The dining room service was so slow that dinner usually averaged over 2 hours.Even getting a glass of water at dinner involved begging. We have previously cruises woth RCL, Celebrity, NCL and Carnival. All of those are at least one step up from Costa.

Luckily we did meet some other Canadians and had a good time because of them - it was not because of anything Costa did. The smoking onboard is still prevalent ... and unpleasant ... We would never go on another Costa cruise - there are much better experiences out there for much less money.

The itinerary was great, the cruise was not.

I don't mean to trash the ship. It's kind of fun in a nutty, Vegas way, as many ships are. It's just that this is not really a cruise for North Americans and besides, you know what? The Canadians on board didn't even merit a lifeboat drill. It was held the day before we left.

We have been on several cruises and this was by far the best of the lot, we enjoyed every thing about it, the staff were great, food was fantastic, exspecially the buffets each night, service in the restaurants was second to none, we were treated brilliantly.

Will recommend this cruise to every one, this ship was fab.

My boyfriend and I booked a last-minute Caribbean Cruise with Costa Atlantica the beginning of January 2006. My boyfriend and I enjoyed our time together - the Caribbean is always such a beautiful place to visit - but I had some concerns about the cruise itself.

I would suggest that you not recommend the Costa cruiseline for anyone wishing to go to the Caribbean. The cruiseship, Atlantica, was a beautiful one, I do concede that. The interiors were fashioned after famous Italian cafes and landmarks. I'm afraid, though, that even though the ship itself was beautiful I could not really enjoy my trip. I would like you to know that I am by nature a very easy-going person. However, certain aspects of this cruise really bothered me. The itinerary was a good one; we had no days at sea and visited a different island every day. However, the only day we stayed on the island until 11:30 pm was when we visited Guadeloupe, an island we were told was not very safe and one we should not be visiting after dark. We docked around 12pm and therefore had very little time to view the island because everyone came back on board around 5:00 or 6:00 pm. When we came back to ship there was very little to do. I love swimming pools and the Atlantica only had 3 very small pools. In addition, the pools and hot tubs were open from 8 am until 8 pm. Most days we got back from the islands and the excursions around 5:30-6:00pm and were not allowed to go into the pool areas. I spoke with other passengers and My boyfriend who had been on Carnival ships or Sunbird Ships and their pools did not close until after 10:00pm. That would give you enough time to lounge around and swim, especially if you hadn't had an opportunity to do so if you'd been touring the islands. The Atlantica had a gym but again, it was only open from 8 am until 8 pm. Very limited hours.

In addition, once you had boarded the ship, aside from having dinner there was nothing else you could do. Among 2500 people, only 100 of us spoke English and it was very difficult to socialize and meet people in the lounges and cafes. The crew also spoke very limited English. At first it was fine, but by the end of the cruise I found it very difficult. My concern is that I wanted to visit the Caribbean, not try and learn a few different languages just to be understood. The evening entertainment was of extremely bad quality as well. One night, they had the crew do performances. Most of them couldn't sing and the rest could barely remember their lines! Also, on a 7-day cruise, the entertainment and themes for the night were repeated twice. To sit through two nights of the same horrible performances was really too much. There was no variety at all and really, there was no point in doing anything after dinner. In the end, my boyfriend and I - and most other passengers, it seemed - went to bed very early. We sometimes stayed up to go to the midnight buffets but they weren't worth it. I think my biggest disappointment was the midnight chocolate buffet. It involved a few pastries (not made of chocolate) and a few skewers of fruit drizzled lightly with chocolate. For a chocolate lover, that is cruel! The fruit itself had started to go bad by that point. The pineapples served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day had turned brown by that point. It was quite disgusting.

I have heard that you do nothing but eat when you go on a cruise. I was also expecting that an Italian cruiseship would have AMAZING food. I was very disappointed. There were two restaurants, the Tiziano and the Club Atlantica, and a few buffets. My boyfriend and I tried the Club Atlantica because we wanted to have a romantic dinner together. We had to pay 20 Euro to reserve a table and we had high expectations of the food there because the restuarant was described as being 'fine dining'. Really, the food quality was no better than the rest of the ship. In addition, our server couldn't understand our orders (she could barely speak any English). She ordered dessert for us twice - normally, I would have been extremely happy because if there's anything I love, it's dessert. However, their desserts were HORRIBLE and I left the restaurant quite upset. The other restaurant and the other buffets weren't very good either. I ate the food because I HAD to eat but not because I enjoyed it. There was no variety in the food and the portion sizes were tiny. I know it's hard to cook for 2500 people but I've known people who rave about the food on their cruise ships and I don't think the Atlantica can compare, really. Also, if you went to have breakfast at the restaurant, they would not leave menus on the table and for several days I thought all I could have for breakfast were pastries and fruit. It wasn't until later that a passenger told us that there was actually a menu from which we could order food, i.e., scrambled eggs (that weren't runny and watery, as they were in the buffet) and french toast. Also, no one informed us that tea and coffee were free for breakfast at the restaurant. I found that deliberately keeping passengers misinformed like that extremely cheap.

My other concern was in regard to the fact that in order to get off or on the ship we needed to have our Costa cards AND passports with us at all times. I found that extremely dangerous because we were going on excursions and going to beaches where our possessions could have been stolen. On other cruiseships, I have been told, the Costa card has your picture attached, negating the need for the passports.

All in all, my trip with my boyfriend was a good one but I felt compelled to tell you about our experiences so other people don't have to go through the same issues we did. The cruise was a big disappointment for my boyfriend who has taken a few cruises to the Caribbean in the past. As for myself, I hope to be able to go on another cruise in the future and get a sense for a really good cruise that I can tell people about

I would not recommend the Costa Cruise Lines to anyone. If this would have been our first cruise we would never want to go on another cruise. The waiters and room stewards, and bartenders were great!! Passengers were very rude!!!

Price to value good. If travelling with older children, bring a friend. Food good, most staff very good, good servuce but not always consistent.