Costa Romantica

I would do it again in a heartbeat. My boyfriend and I (29 & 28 years old respectively) traveled on Costa Romantica in Spring 2008 and loved it. The ports were amazing. We took an organized tour in Tunisia (in both Tunis and Gabes), which I highly recommend. We did touring on our own in all other ports and got to see a lot. It is true that all announcements are in 6 different languages, but it's not really as bad as people make it to be. Most people were in their 50s and 60s, which also may be a disadvantage if you are a party person. Otherwise, I can't think of any reason a person wouldn't enjoy it.

Costa Romantica ship was too big to get into central Sankt Peterburg like (smaller) Fred. Olsen ships, so we went alongside in commercial docks & were told that without (very hard to get) Russian visas we'd have to stay on the ship. Tours were overbooked, so we couldn't do it on a group visa:-Something that we did OK on Fred.Olsen.

Costa are Italian, so naturally most passengers are Italians, with Britons & Americans in the minority.

People who think UK holidaymakers are rowdy lager-louts & Americans are loud, vulgar & uncultured slobs who need to learn from "cultured, civilised" continentals would've been re-educated by this cruise:-Italians made a lot of late-night (after 1am) noise, including children. So-called family orientated Italian parents couldn't wait to palm their children off to the ship's "nannies" who excercised no control over them;-Costa do the civilised British tradition of afternoon tea, but ruin it by reserving part of the restaurant for the Italian children who screamed, shouted & literally threw food at each other.

At classical music concerts the UK & US minority became the majority, very few Italians were interested, except for the children & they were only in there so they could use the half-empty theatre as a playground, no doubt they wanted a change from running around the corridors, bumping into passengers & their camera equipment.

Europhiles no doubt consider Italians stylish, but associate Yanks with "Rupert Bear" trousers & mullet hairstyles & the British with shell-suits & bare, flabby midriffs:-Yet the only people who complied with formal night dress codes were the British & American passengers.