Welcome to George Ellis's review of the Costa Cruises, Costa Romantica. ReviewThatCruise.com is first for Costa Romantica Reviews & Costa Romantica ship reviews.
This is an old(er) ship (1993) - and it looks rather \'tatty\'.
Although we stayed in the Grand Suite, it was all rather 3 star (not 5 star). When it rained, the water came into our suite in sheets. The suite was under the pool area and you could hear them scraping the deck chairs across the floor day and night. Yes, we had a butler, who was ever so obliging, and this is the only \'saving grace\' on this rather mediocre experience.
The dining room food was very, very hit or miss (more miss, than hit). We were well served, but it\'s very hard to make up for the fact that most of the food was borderline inedible.
The ship features a rather gruesome canteen with hoards of passengers with lots of loud children throwing food at each other, and not enough places to sit down. The staff do make an effort, but there\'s not a whole lot one can do with the scrum of trying to eat in this \'student hall\'.
The entertainment was simply awful, quite often vulgar, and tasteless (at one point, two dancers pretended to carry out a sex act to a Madonna song, which was distressing as I was there with my 9-yr-old daughter and my elderly parents).
The cruise shows were amateur, with very little talent, (games in which passengers tried to break balloons by banging their private parts against each in an attempt to burst the balloon - or where they simulated a sexual act with a large skillet and ladle). (The lady would hold the skillet against her private parts, and the man would hook the ladle onto his belt and then attempt to \'ting\' the skillet by thrusting forward).
We were unsure of what was worse - the fact that the cruise ship would debase itself with this sort of \'entertainment\' or that the audience was hysterically enthralled! The passengers just loved it. They thought the whole episode was hilarious. To be fair, the mostly Latin American and Filipino staff was appalled and embarrassed.
The two \'gala\' evenings - were everything except chic - especially since 90% of the passengers didn\'t bother to dress up (let alone put on a tuxedo).
If there is a problem with an excursion, even if it is the fault of the ship, they will hound you for payment. This company is not client centric.
Costa Romantica is a very \'down-market\' experience. If your standards are moderate to high, we urge you to look at another property (and probably not on the Costa line).
Positives
We had a private butler, who tried very hard to make our stay comfortable.
Negatives
They are so, so many, I wouldn\'t know where to start. Please read the review.
