6th European Cruise- first time on Costa- No dinner buffet! No ice cream!

We've traveled quite a lot of MSC, and although not perfect, our kids now 12 and 14 had sailed free. As an American, this was a key sales feature for us, from a cost perspective.

We decided to try Costa this time, and although we had a great trip, and it was nice to compare cruise lines, ships, and on-board logistics, there was a huge deal breaker for us for future Costa ships. The DINNER BUFFET was non-existent! With kids, we don't want to sit down for a 2 hour meal every night, occasionally we like to - 2-3x a trip but every night is just painful.

The restaurant meals were long, with very limited choices. My kids chose the kids- Cod meal every night, and some nights it was good some it was dry. We did the 4euro pizza, 3 nights- but that gets tiring. It was a huge let down. So there is supposedly an ice cream machine for free ice cream... NOPE, broken- behind a wall- "under maintenance". Some of the workers on the ship didn't even know it was even there, its been "under maintenance" for so long. Oh and right next to under maintenance machine- was a pay for ice cream vending machine.

They did have an ice cream social on the day at sea, and by the last 1/2 hour, there was no ice cream left. For some ice cream isn't a deal breaker, but its a disappointment for kids on vacation.

We found the food to be limited- lunch buffet, portions smaller in all respects, and buffet lines longer because they rope people in, to wait in the line , verse being able to just pop in and pick up a roll. We did notice the wait staff on Costa (Italy/Malta/Spain) had mostly Indian servers. One MSC we had more eastern European waitstaff. I did find the wait staff in the restaurant brusque, a bit impertinent and really not caring whether we liked something or not. When I did not like the dinner entree, they did not offer anything or comment on it.

Beautiful clean ship, boarding was much smoother than MSC, with the ID cards showing up in room verse the pictured version on MSC. We did find the boat had narrower spaces in the public area (lines). The safety drills were longer (as you can expect after Concordia), with 3 times being counted as we waited, and lined up in rows.

I found this board immensely helpful and wanted to give back to others like me that maybe don't post much but do a lot of reading.

You forgot to say which ship you were on......:confused:

Costa Fortuna

I'll agree that the lack of choices in the evening is by far the weakest part of Costa's product. What's going through the minds of the corporate suits in Genoa is beyond me. It's an especially big problem in North America because travel agents are generally completely ignorant. I consider it unethical to take your booking without saying "I know nothing about the product, I cannot offer advice". I know of one instance where a couple was told by a (telephone) agent that a buffet was available- anything to get their credit card number. For practical purposes, they had no recourse.

I've always managed to find one ice cream machine serviceable, but it's been a long time since I've been on the Fortuna.

Do we know if this is now the case on all Costa ships or just the Fortuna? We were on the NeoRomantica last fall and the buffet was open for dinner and the food was plentiful--especially the ice cream!

Do we know if this is now the case on all Costa ships or just the Fortuna? We were on the NeoRomantica last fall and the buffet was open for dinner and the food was plentiful--especially the ice cream!

Evening buffets are open on all Costa Neo Collection ships but not on the rest of the fleet.

Evening buffets are open on all Costa Neo Collection ships but not on the rest of the fleet.

Yet another stupid Carnival/Costa decision! All of their ships in the last 10 years or so, are carbon copies of CCL ships so I know they have the kitchen capacity to serve both MDR and buffet.

Which ships are in the neo collection?

Which ships are in the neo collection?

neoClassica

neoRomantica

neoRiviera

Do we know if this is now the case on all Costa ships or just the Fortuna? We were on the NeoRomantica last fall and the buffet was open for dinner and the food was plentiful--especially the ice cream!

The Mediterranea is exactly as described by OP (big disappointment!).