Costa Cruises, Costa Concordia

I have to say, this was the worst vacation of my life and unfortunately it had to be on our honeymoon. We had an outside cabin and when we first arrived, the noise within the cabin was very loud. I complained and they said there was something wrong but not able to fix it or change our cabin, but come back tomorrow to see if we have anything. I kept going back, 5 times, but not able to change. We bought a drink package, J2, that included all drinks under 7 euros. But we kept getting charged for everything. I went down once or twice a day to have them correct it, but they still had difficulty. They close the accounts out every 3 days so you don't know what you were charged for if you don't check. The food was less than acceptable, they recycled it every night. The client service line is always long and so many people upset all the time.

For our first Costa Concordia cruise this was a gem. Very straight forward, practiced organisation. Friendly staff, very concious of our needs. Informal and not intimidating in any way.

The decor while not suited to all tastes was fantastic and colourful. most of the staff especially the cabin staff and restaurant staff were very friendly and remembered who you were, the cabins were cleaned twice a day and never disturbed you unless it was important and never when you hung the do not disturb sign on your door, our cabin was clean within an hour of leaving it for dinner etc. The shows every night were fairly good, nothing spectacular but its prob not easy to get performers to come on a cruise ship!

The ship did not have too many bad points, the internet though i must mention seemed terribly slow and expensive, a few times i spent 3 euro and the webpage crashed and i got nowhere. The ship being so huge was hard to navigate the first few days, we had a map but some floors you couldnt get all the way along and had to go up then down, this wasnt too bad but some more directions on the ship would have been better. there seemed always to be a line at customer service no matter when you went, and some of the supposed english speaking staff did not really seem to understand what we were saying, but most of them spoke 4-5 languages each so i guess we cant be too fussy when all we speak is english! there seemed to be very limited shopping, especially for womens clothing, it was winter and i couldnt even buy a pair of gloves onboard!

Costa Cruises, Costa Concordia overall was a pleasurable experience, had read a few bad reviews but was pleasantly suprised by the overall quality of the cruise,

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.

The Costa Concordia is fantastic, we bought the drinks package a week before we went and recommend it - it saved us a lot of money on our drinks.

The food was amazing. The service was excellent. Food was plentifull. It was very clean ship ,every room was spotless

they are forever cleaning. This is a Italian ship not English , so i was not surprised when they spoke Italian ,then other Languages to follow. The shows were good, plenty of good seats.

The only bad point i found , was the ship is so big we kept getting lost. After about 3 days we found our way to the restaurant without any problem. We were fit after all the walking up and down to find where we was going . It was very funny because everybody was in the same boat, we kept passing them by helping each other because they too were lost.

If you can't afford it DON'T GO!!! I expect the alcoholic drinks are very expensive so guests don't get too drunk and fall overboard. If you begrudge the high price don't buy them and if you feel you HAVE to then perhaps you have a problem.

The only time the staff on the boat was nice was when they were trying to sell you something. Once the staff member found out that no you did not want an Amber necklace for the 34th time that day they at least gave you a break for 30 minutes before trying to sell you something else.

I can not stress enough how much I would recommend against this cruise line.

First time on such a big ship and last! I We boarded not knowing anybody and we departed not knowing anybody! The weather was very nice and the original cost of the cruise was quite cheap but we prefer much smaller and cosier ship where you can say at the end that you have been cruising!

Good points ports of call. Bad points service was bad - cruise staff was not helpful and down right rude. food was mediocre. Entertainment mediocre. Smoking on board was obnoxious - couldn't attend exercise classes because the smoking was so prevalent. They nickel and dimed us to death. Lack of information was pitiful. Would not recommend this cruise, especially to Americans - they definitely cater to the Europeans.

I would never recommend a Costa cruise to anyone I liked.