We have been on many cruises but never on Costa.
Costa cruises gets a bad rap from Americans on the cruise boards. Many people think that the staff are rude and post that they would never again sail on Costa. Just because of the many posts along those lines I would be really reluctant to go on them.
I do see the outstanding deals posted though on the line.
Would you be so kind as to critique the line (Costa) compared to the other mass market lines that cater to North Americans.
Sure, I'll try. I have been on Celebrity and Norwegian once each in the last 7 years for your reference.
We were really reluctant to book on Costa as well, given the reviews and comments regarding Costa on Cruisecritic.com. Many of the reviews/comments were justified, some not so much.
The price for us made it a worthwhile gamble. Under $1200 total for a balcony cabin for 4 of us for 7 nights. And no tipping was required for our 2 kids, so the tips totaled $150 or so.
I found the service very helpful and friendly overall. And non-intrusive. The high pressure repeated barrages from the alcoholic beverage servers on board was much more low key versus other lines I have been on. The first day they hit a little hard selling their drink packages, but after that, we were not asked to order anything more than a couple times a day. Those really wanting to get drunk might call this service "inattentive" or "indifferent", but I guess you just need to raise your hand and flag down a server and they will bring you something. We enjoyed the peace and quiet of not being asked about ordering drinks.
We never saw anyone being treated rudely.
The language barrier at times was a minor issue. But most of the crew spoke varying levels of English. I spoke with the Kids Program staff the most out of all the crew, and I occasionally was unable to communicate in English about anything beyond basic subjects due to the language barrier. Italian was their first language, except for the Peruvian chica, which I am assuming spoke Spanish as a first language. I switched to Spanish when talking with one of the staff and that seemed easier to communicate (my pidgen spanish was a little better than her pidgen english I guess!).
The biggest difference on Costa vs. other cruise lines is the meal times and entertainment times. Food was served somewhere continuously from 6:30 am until 1:30 am. There may have been a few days where breakfast stopped at 10:30 am and lunch didn't start till 11 am, can't recall for sure. Rather limited (vs US mass market lines) room service was available 24-7. We never ordered food room service, but did order juices, coffee, and hot chocolate a few times and had the fastest room service delivery times on any line (probably under 5 minutes).
But if you are used to almost 24x7 food options in a wide array of restaurants like Carnival or NCL has, then you will be disappointed with Costa. Any time of the day, you can always find SOMETHING to eat, but you can't find every variety of food all day. We had kids, and would have liked the burger joint by the pool to be open all day. It was only open something like 12-3:30 pm every day. Sometimes the kids didn't want what they were serving in the buffet restaurant and just wanted a burger and fries (we never ate in the formal dining room unfortunately). Ice cream availability was also a problem, as it seemed to be only available when the buffet restaurant was open (~12-4 pm, and 7:30-8:30 pm). Kids often like it whenever, so it was a little tough saying "eat cake instead, we will get ice cream later"
Another example of the meal schedule was that the dinner buffet was only open from 7:30 to 8:30 pm. Which means you better get there by 8:00 or so if you plan on making a second (or third) trip back to the buffet line to get more of something you really liked. Most days the buffet closed within a few minutes of 8:30. If you missed the hour of the buffet, there was always the pizza restaurant around the corner, but they only served 2 kinds - cheese and then a pizza du jour of some type (usually had meat on it of some kind). The fact that dinner didn't start till 7:30 was probably off-putting to Americans who are accustomed to eating around 6pm.
Formal dining was at 6:30 or 9, and supposedly you had to show up at your assigned seating time. We usually weren't ready to eat at 6:30, so we never made it into the formal dining room.
Many of the entertainment choices (like the main show each night) didn't start till 11:15 if you had the second dinner seating. Some were later. I heard a few Americans (and some Canadians!) saying they regretted not being able to enjoy these since they were past their bed times. We even heard an "OMG your kids are still up and it is almost midnight" one time.
I will say the food in the buffet restaurant was the best we have had on any cruise (or at buffet restaurants on land). Almost everything was cooked very well (ie "just right"). It didn't taste like you had pulled it out of a steam table tray. Part of that is because they replenish the trays with a little bit of food at a time, hence nothing was sitting there for hours. And no particular buffet line was open longer than 2 hours (1 hr for dinner), adding to the freshness.
Some of the buffet selections would be described as "weird" or bad by the stereotypical American. Raw meat (beef tartare), octopus, some of the salads, the sandwich meat and cheese choices, mayo on stuff we don't put it on, different pizza vs. Dominos or Pizza hut, pasta cooked differently with less sauce, and different sauce, etc etc etc. But there was enough generic roasts and meats and familiar veggies to make up for it I thought.
Back to the languages, if you are a stereotypical American who things everyone should speak perfect, unaccented English to them, then you will be disappointed. Ship announcements were done first in Italian, then usually in French, English, German, and Spanish (not necessarily in that order). Except for German, I could usually pick up the gist of the message in one of the other 4 languages. Most italian staff spoke those 4-5 languages with varying levels of proficiency. English was definitely not a first language of hardly anyone, but there were a few staff from England that I saw. The asian or latin american origin staff (housekeeping, food service mostly) spoke decent english and I imagine Italian, not sure what else. Sometimes the language barrier was an issue, but staff and crew could usually point you to someone who was more fluent to do translations if they were not fluent in English, for example.
But I actually liked the other languages spoken on board. It was interesting watching our daughters "make friends" with other children who spoke no English or very little. And letting our kids learn how they do things elsewhere like how our daughter learned the French girl kisses her friends on both cheeks to say "Hi". I translated a little (with what tiny bit of French I know) so they could talk.
Now, if you are a xenophobic American who doesn't like foreigners, you won't like this ship. At times it was a little frustrating not know which of the 4-5 languages you should pick to address someone.
Other than the food and entertainment schedule and the languages spoken, I don't know what all the negative comments regarding Costa are about. We had a blast and prefer Costa to Celebrity and NCL from what we have seen.
PS - I just realized I wrote quite an essay!
