The Boat

In continuing the report on our cruise over the holidays I thought I would do a little review of our ship. Maybe this will be helpful to others as I had a hard time finding reviews when I was booking the cruise.

Our cruise line was Costa, their subtitle is, "Cruising Italian Style". This cruise line definitely caters to European customers. I would guess that about 25% of the guests were American. The others were Italian, Dutch and French with a few Spanish speakers. It was definitely an experience in being a minority. Most of the announcements on the boat were made in four languages. Occasionally, however, they would make an announcement in only one or two of the languages. What was so important that the Dutch know, but not important enough to tell the Americans, I don't know.

The food was also very European. We could usually find things we liked but sometimes didn't recognize 30-40% of the things on the buffet. Scott teased me because toward the end of the cruise I had a major craving for chicken fingers and was going to order off of the children's menu so I could get some. The children's menu didn't have chicken fingers. That should tell you just how un-American the food was.



This was our first cruise so I don't know how other boats stack up. This is going to sound a little ridiculous but I was constantly amazed at how clean everything was! They were constantly cleaning the decks and wiping windows (we joked that they probably had someone assigned to follow Adam around and wipe his drool/snot/fingerprints off of everything).

This story illustrates my point. We were getting on the elevator and a staff member started running toward the elevator, so I held the door thinking he wanted to get on. No, he just wiped the fingerprints off of the inside of the door (the part you don't even see except when the doors are open), waved and moved on.


My biggest fear about taking Adam on a cruise is that he would fall off the boat(completely rational, right?). I asked several people who had been on cruises if the walls of each deck were solid or just railing. Well, our boat had both. This deck was just railing so, when we took Adam out, we held him the whole time. Even when we took the above pictures Dorothy was telling us, "Hold him tight!"


The pools on the ship left a lot to be desired. There were three pools and a "baby pool". The three regular pools were literally 10'x15' rectangles with the same depth, of about 3.5 feet, the whole length. There was a waterslide but it was only open at certain times. The "baby pool" was pretty lame, as evidenced by a dearth of other babies every time we went. Adam and Scott played a lot in the regular pools, that is, until we were asked to leave by a security guard. Apparently, they didn't want babies in diapers in the regular pools. I tried to explain that he was wearing a swim diaper and that it was no different than the other kids who were peeing in the pool. He wasn't swayed.


We spent a lot of time out on the decks just relaxing and enjoying the warm, moist air. I know I mentioned it before, but I have to comment on how fabulous my hair was while on the cruise. I didn't use an ounce of product and turned on my blow dryer one time. All I had to do was wash my hair and let it air dry and I was blessed with soft, bouncy ringlets.

All in all we liked the ship. Next time we would probably choose a cruise line that caters more to children and families. Stay tuned for my next post which will be titled "Toga, Toga!"