8-Day Mediterranean Cruise Aboard COSTA FASCINOSA

Costa Cruises has been our favorite and conscious choice for the past few years. It's not like the situation suddenly changed. It changed gradually. But this summer was especially unpleasant.

First, the good news. The spa team was incredible. Incredibly polite, attentive and responsive. The restaurant menu was passable, though not as sophisticated as in previous years. We had an absolutely brilliant team of waiters; we always felt they cared for us. The cabin was clean, but when we looked for our dropped headphones on the floor, we found someone else's earplug under the bed. So, under the bed, they never cleaned it, and the ashtray was never emptied either. Special thanks to the crew for their politeness and businesslike discretion; it was very nice.

Now for the bad news. The buffet was open only for very limited hours, but the terrible smell on deck lingered constantly. The dishes were poorly washed, and the plastic cups smelled of food. The staff in that area were extremely unfriendly. Plus, their hours were so short that it was practically pointless. We personally avoided it. The tourist office was truly terrible. We bought four excursions in advance, however, two were cancelled. It was the last time we buy excursions.

One, in Malta, was cancelled. The employee pushed another, less interesting and cheaper one instead. He didn't tell us we could just get a refund.

The excursion to Lecce was cancelled. We had to replace it with a tedious and rather boring excursion to Matera. The guide clearly spoke poor English. We left her and simply walked around the city ourselves. You don't need a tour for that.

A scandal erupted on the boat in Kefalonia. First, the young guide, Valeria, was rude to our faces. Then, when we asked her to consider us clients, not her soldiers, she started yelling, drawing us and her manager, Cecilia, into the shouting.

We tried to point out that Valeria's demand that a disabled client stand alone while searching for her card in her bag was dangerous and offensive for her own convenience, but they simply shouted us down. The group laughed.

It was my birthday, and I'm still not sure I did the right thing by not taking legal action for discrimination, creating a dangerous situation and providing faulty services.

Finally, a third employee managed to smooth things over, but the birthday was steeped in bitterness and humiliation.

Will I use Costa again? Perhaps. We always book the best cabins, and they're still quite good. But we'll never buy excursions again, and in general, we'll be wary of paying in advance.

Is not our first cruise, we stayed in an interior cabin.

1. The buffet - there is a very large restaurant with a lot of serving spaces and all have the same food.

2. No pizza options in the buffet included. And it's an Italian company.

3. Animation team - the people from animation seemed very stressed by their coordinator. Not a good mood, a very bad mood among them, like a bad rehearsal and their coordinator seemed mean and had a lot of observations for them, in front of us, sometimes using a microphone.

4. The information offered in the room and in the app - it's very important to inform the passengers about the checkout hours, we didn't know the precise hour of check out. We received a lot of infos, a lot of papers, but nobody told us that we have to leave at 8 from our room. You can imagine that it was a very awkward situation in the morning, for both sides.

5. The fast food buffet - the same food that was free until 7 Pm,it is sold after 7 PM.

6. No spa options included in the price. Is November, the only indoor pool was very cold and after a day was emptied. The pool area - very cold. No sauna or other spa options included.

7. There is no water included after 7 pm. We had drinks included, but is strange that the water is not available for everyone.

I had sailed on Costa before and I wasn't too enthousiastc about this cruise not only for Costa but for the Caribbean cruise, because they're not my favourite ones but as the itinerary was good for me (it stopped at both Martinique and Guadeloupe, which I always wanted to visit), we took it.

The ship is old and it doesn't have a great lay out but it has lots of positive things: 3 swimming pools on different levels, lots of elevators in the center cruise which meant that we didn't have to wait too long, even coming back from the port, comfortable stateroom, etc. The itinerary appealed europeans..I would say that 70 % of the public was french and the rest, italian..there're weren't that many english speaking tourist. Even though the tourist change in 3 ports (Santo Domingo, Fort-de-France and Point-a-Pitre) everything was smooth, we always found a table at the Buffet, benches by the pool and room at the jacuzzi. There were some families with children butv they didn't bother. The itinerary was nice, with long stops (It was a 7 night cruise, only 1 sailing day), employees were friendly and what we liked the most, was the food !!!! I sailed on NCL, Celebrity, MSC and I have to admit that food was excellent although for the buffet, the service was limited. Maybe what they offer might be "too" mediterranean for an American, but as argentinean, I loved it. In all, great experience !!!