Room service charges on COSTA. LOOK OUT!

[DFD1]

There is a thread on the COSTA board about newly instituted changes in the room service policy whereby those passengers not in suites pay a charge for food other than continental breakfast delivered to the room. It indicates that any hot food carries with it an additional charge.

 

The CC member posts on this thread indicate some surprise although apparantly the new policy has appeared in print someplace.

 

Do I not recall that COSTA and HAL are both owned by Carnival?.... LOL

[Two Ells]

Both Costa and HAL are owned by Carnival. Charges for room service may be HAL's next surprise "for the convenience of their passengers."

[RuthC]

I love room service breakfast when I have an early shore excursion, and especially on that last morning.

Since I'm in an inside this development would not be good for me.

I do hope HAL doesn't sink to this level. It's just another example of nickle and diming.

[JDee]

Also noticed that thread. In a way, it was not totally surprising based on some of their cruise fares.

 

Some months ago, Costa was offering 2-for-1 specials on verandahs, which would cost about the same or less than on the other main line cruises. I was tempted but didn't bite.

 

Princess has had a charge for OJ delivered to your cabin, not sure if at all times, or if free for breakfast. Seems like all lines have their own money making schemes.....

 

Happy cruising....

[sail7seas]

That is something that would be going ...........JUST TOO FAR!!!!

 

 

 

There are so many things on the ships we never make use of, don't care about and would not miss. Room Service included in our fare MATTERS to us. Take away Java Cafe, I don't care...if I want coffee, I'll go to Windstar. Take away movies in Wajang....okay, I can live with that. Eliminate most of the shows; I'll deal with it.

 

 

But, I WANT MY ROOM SERVICE BREAKFAST!!!!

[Two Ells]

HAL might make it a suite "perk" - free room service. We had our first miserable cruise on HAL last month - before then I was an advocate for HAL and even got a group together to cruise with them. I won't go into detail, but when we got back, I wrote to the corporate office and six weeks later got a very terse reply about one problem we encountered that caused illness and missed excursions . I can honestly say that the best part of the cruise was the ROOM SERVICE. While I was unable to ambulate, we even had dinner in our cabin and the food was hot - better than the dining room. The wonderful Indonesian waiters are so overworked now that they can't possibly get hot meals to all the people they have to wait on.

[bepsf]

It actually has more to do with the clientelle of Costa as opposed to that of HAL and the other Carnival brands.

 

Ever go to an Italian or Greek mama's house and before you can take your coat off she asks, "Are you hungry?" It's bad form in their culture not to have food at the ready in case someone drops by and happens to be hungry.

 

Well, they do the same thing on vacation. Good Mama's and wives will order vast quantities of room service food every day to have on hand "in case someone gets hungry". It may have made sense to do this back in the days before there was food available 24/7 in the Lido but not anymore. The Mama's keep dialing room service and the food largely then goes uneaten and wasted...

 

Since most of Costa's passengers are Italians, (Costa is an Italian Line, after all) multiply this by 500 or so times a day on a 7 day cruise - The waste (and cost) is phenomenal!!! It would be unfair to single out certain nationalities and charge them for room service, and Costa certainly couldn't charge for uneaten room service food - so this is how Costa hopes to cut down on the waste and expense.

 

Given the facts, this is hardly nickel and dime-ing.

 

I sincerely doubt that this will carry over to the other Carnival brands...

[jhannah]

Thanks for the words of reason, Brian. Costa is a totally different bird.

[Krazy Kruizers]

We can live without the movies - never went to one.

We can live without the Java Cafe - Neptune Lounge has a great coffee machine.

We can live without the shows - can't remember the last time we went to one.

Room service - haven't used it in quite some time except for hot appetizers in the afternoon.

[Orcrone]

I've only had inside and outside cabins before, never a verandah. Didn't seem like it would be much fun to eat inside the cabin. However, we have our first verandah booked for March, and I'm looking forward to breakfast on the verandah.

 

Now it's true that charging for items that used to be free is a way to offset the cruise fares which have not increased. However, when I go on vacation I don't want to think about what each thing will cost me, I'd just like to experience it without thinking of the incremental cost. Granted it's probably a small cost, but it all adds up, whether it's alcoholic drinks, sodas (used to be included), alternative restaurants, etc. I don't want to think "I'd like to have room service, but we've done it three times already, so I think I'll skip it today".

[JDee]

bepsf:

 

What you say may very well be true of the percentage of Italian nationals on Med cruises. However, I do not think that mix applies to the Costa Caribbean cruises. Have seen a few threads there asking about the pax nationality mixtures on the Carib cruises. The responses were overwhelmingly American and Canadian citizens being on board.

 

One of the reasons I didn't bite on those dirt cheap Carib cruises was of the many complaints that so many Europeans tend to be smokers. As it turns out, many who cruised said it was no worse than on any other main stream line, while others said much worse. Typical varying responses I suppose, same cruise, different opinions.

 

As for nickel & dime-ing, absolutely......

 

Happy holidays....

[Pincus]

NCL tried this about 5 years ago -- the trial lasted about three weeks!

[bepsf]

bepsf:

 

What you say may very well be true of the percentage of Italian nationals on Med cruises. However, I do not think that mix applies to the Costa Caribbean cruises. Have seen a few threads there asking about the pax nationality mixtures on the Carib cruises. The responses were overwhelmingly American and Canadian citizens being on board.

 

One of the reasons I didn't bite on those dirt cheap Carib cruises was of the many complaints that so many Europeans tend to be smokers. As it turns out, many who cruised said it was no worse than on any other main stream line, while others said much worse. Typical varying responses I suppose, same cruise, different opinions.

 

As for nickel & dime-ing, absolutely......

 

Happy holidays....

JDee -

I completely understand your point, however most Costa sailings are not in the Carib w/ American passengers - they have ships that are based in the Med year-round and their passenger compliments of course are predominantly European.

 

I don't think the line could reasonably make a policy that applied only to certain ships, sailings and itineraries - they need consistent rules so that their employees can work appropriately and so that their passengers will have similar experiences throughout the fleet.