Just back from the 1/19 Mediterranea...

[redhotpepper]

We had a fantasic time with the exception of one child throwing up in the middle of the night on the cruise and one throwing up on the plane ride home. A little rotovirus for both kids and myself. Thank goodness for Immodium so we could make it home!

 

The weather is dreadful in the Northwest so the drive home from Portland took us 8 hours instead of the usual 3-1/2.

 

I will work on a review and get it posted, probably this weekend. There is so much work piled up on my desk, I was scared when I walked into my office!

 

Annie

[njs]

Hope you guys are doing ok - glad you had a good time~looking forward to your review when you feel better:)

[JSandage]

We just returned from the Jan 19 sailing on the Mediterranea too. Here are a few of my opinions about Costa.

We were with the Concerts at Sea group so having all those activities was a lot of fun. We did not attend any of the Costa shows nor did we participate in any of the Costa activities so I cannot comment on those things. We were in a Panorama Suite, the same cabin we were in the year before for the Concerts at Sea cruise in 2007.

Our cabin, #6175, was beautiful. The bed was very comfortable and there is more than enough closet and storage space. We didn't use half the drawers etc. Our room steward did an excellent job and our butler was there when we needed her but we did not really need her to do anything special for us other than make reservations at the Club Medussa Restaurant for 1 night.

Embarkation was very fast and we had no problems at all. We arrived in Ft Lauderdale at 1:00 and were in our cabin before 2:00.

The food and service in the dining room was not the greatest. In the entire week, we had a bar service waiter come to our table once, the rest of the dinners we would either bring our own drinks in with us or just drink water. On other cruises I had a difficult time narrowing down my selections for dinner, there were so many wonderful choices. On Costa some nights I had a difficult time finding something that sounded good. The food wasn't bad, it just wasn't fantastic. The service was very slow though, it usually took over 2 hours for dinner and we were rushing through dessert as they were trying to get set up for the late seating. We did not really care for the buffet either but I typically don't care for buffets anyway.. The hamburgers at the pool bars were great and the bar service everywhere else on the ship was just fine.

San Juan was our first port and we got there at 5:00 PM. By the time we got off the ship and walked in to town everything was closed. We wandered around and found a Hard Rock Cafe and hung out there awhile, then went to the casino and gambled a little, then went back to the ship.

St Thomas was next and we have been there before so didn't do an excursion, we walked around town for a few hours, had lunch there etc. It started raining pretty hard so we went back to the ship. There were 7 or 8 cruise ships in port that day so very crowded and we had to tender in, that took awhile.

La Romana was next and we did the zip line, I think it was called the Canopy line. That was a lot of fun. The bus ride was about 1 1/2 hours each way and we passed through some interesting little towns plus we saw some very poor Haitian villages where the sugar cane cutters live, pitiful...

Grand Turks was our last port and it is a beautiful island. The beach is right there at the pier and they have a new cruise terminal with lots of shopping etc. Margaritaville is right there too, everything a tourist desires. We did a trolley tour there which took us to the Queen's prison and also the lighthouse.

Our last full day was a sea day and again, we had many activities through Concerts at Sea so were busy most of the day. There were a lot of people wearing togas on Friday night, more than did it last year. It's a lot of fun and I recommend everyone participate in that. We bring our own togas and so did a lot of other people. The Roman Bacchanal on Friday night is a lot of fun, it's the talent night for passengers. Only 4 passengers participated on our cruise but it was still fun.

Disembarkation went fairly smooth. My only complaint was once you get your luggage and are heading out to your taxi or shuttle or whatever, they try to cram everyone through a small door, it was very congested and kind of silly.. We had to wait maybe 20 minutes for a cab, there just weren't any there.

 

All in all, we had a good time and any cruise is way better than a week of work.

[tweety33]

Thank you for taking the time for the review, every piece of info is always beneficial. I agree any cruise beats being at home.

[don0669]

JS....I was also on this cruise.....and boy your review was right on!!The service in the dinning room was some of the worst I've had on a cruise and the food was fair at best! Every night it was a battle to get someone to take our bar order. That being said the ship and our stateroom was beautiful and our cabin service was near perfect.

However,this was our first and most likely our last cruise on Costa....way to many negatives.

Hope this helps.

[strawbs1]

I'm with you 100%. My first Costa cruise. I really thought the food was godawful. HOWEVER, somehow they got my sea bass SO right at the a la carte restaurant. Absolutely perfect. But that was the only thing, foodwise, that was memorable.

 

The Concerts at Sea aspect, however, was flawless! What a fabulous time! Still, it's good that they're changing lines next year. Hopefully, MSC will be a better line.