Negative Costa reviews

[Capricruiser]

I don't believe I care anything about "cruise industry criteria" and "products." I cruise for a number of reasons including seeing new places, meeting new people, relaxation, etc. etc. What others think about everything and anything has no bearing on my personal enjoyment. I agree with Amomondo.

 

Mairi: The closest thing Italy has to a buffet restaurant is called a "tavola calda" (hot table) where food is displayed buffet style that you pick and carry your tray to a spartan table to eat it. They're found in the big cities and motorway rest stops for example.

[AmoMondo]

I don't believe I care anything about "cruise industry criteria" and "products." I cruise for a number of reasons including seeing new places, meeting new people, relaxation, etc. etc. What others think about everything and anything has no bearing on my personal enjoyment. I agree with Amomondo.

 

Mairi: The closest thing Italy has to a buffet restaurant is called a "tavola calda" (hot table) where food is displayed buffet style that you pick and carry your tray to a spartan table to eat it. They're found in the big cities and motorway rest stops for example.

 

Thanks for the clarification Chuck.

 

Thankfully for now cruise trail has not had his way, for if he did, all cruise lines would be an identical product and I suspect one not so much to your or my liking!

[cruisetrail]

Would be??

Most mass market cruise lines already offer better product (everything food) than Costa and they are not identical.:)

[Fred&Lily]

After cruising on six different cruise lines - at least 2 times on each line and all areas - Mediterranean, Caribbean - southern, eastern and western plus Alaska - plus travelling on various Greek, Spanish, Italian and Canadian overnight ferries etc... I've never found a ship that had bad food. Well maybe a couple of CCCP ships back in the 1970's. But certainly not had a bad meal on any modern era cruise line.

 

In fact, over the past 15 years or so cruise ships have increasingly been relying on International Catering and Hospitality Trade Shows for most of their dining menu ideas, suppliers and kitchen services. Hotels and many restaurant chains use the same facilities. Metro handles much of the European market and Costco does a huge amount of catering business in the US. There are dozens of these kitchen and catering companies working in the Miami and Ft. Lauderdale area doing everything from chopping and bagging salads to baking breads and dessert preparation. Well, breads and pastries are actually half baked then flash frozen and re-heated on board.

 

In my opinion, the issue is "sameness" among the cruise lines not "differences".

[aggieniu]

In MY experience, the food WAS of European food standard. In the MDR pasta was similar to, and as good as, pasta I've eaten in restaurants across Italy. The pieces of meat and fish were typical what I have eaten at weddings in England and Italy. I have not eaten in the savoy or Michelin starred restaurants but I am referring to hilton hotels and similar class of restaurants. I don't eat in the Ledbury or Fat Duck, so perhaps my idea of European standard is lower than yours? On MY Luminosa cruise (October 2013) the food was good to excellent and was definitely of typical European style I.e. In restaurants where you can eat for €30 starter main and house wine, I NEVER said the food was poor and excused it as European!! I wouldn't bother sailing a line where I thought the food was bad.

 

Because of all the poor reviews I read about Costa food before my cruise I was expecting the worse. I can report that my expectations were very much exceeded, I only had one disappointing dish....now I'm excited about the food on my upcoming celebrity cruises, which do have excellent reviews.

 

On the plus side, if you don't like the food you can lose weight!!

 

I have never been to Europe, but from recent my experience, food on Costco was only marginally better than the dining hall when I was in college.

 

Being European isn't an excuse to poor food quality and selection.

[Bill B]

The thing with cruise ship reviews is they are anecdotal 'snapshots in time' of a particular ship (and much of what is written is subjective).

 

While one can formulate a general picture of a cruise line by reading many reviews, one can't neccessarily extrapolate 'negatives' in any given review to the entire fleet over time.

 

In my limited experience with Costa (2 cruises), their buffets leave a lot to be desired when compared with Princess and HAL. However, this hasn't kept me from booking again...