Costa Cruises
Do you remember in "Alien II" when Sigourney Weaver finds a woman who has been imprisoned as an eternal breeder for the aliens? The woman's first words were "Kill Me."
That comment came to my mind on Day 5 of my sailing on the Cost Classica.
It's not that Costa is the worst experience one could ever have. But it is possible that it may be the worst experience one may have paid for.
Imagine a ship's restaurant that lacks carpeting or any other device to reduce loudness. Then imagine cramming in so many tables and chairs that at times the noise prevents you from understanding what someone is saying just two chairs away from you. Imagine waiters so poorly trained that they will commonly reach across your face to fill the glass of the person sitting next to you. On the other hand, with the chairs being jammed so close together perhaps they have no other way to reach that person.
Imagine a ship...of an ITALIAN cruise line no less...with fancy menus of 6-course dinners that result in endless processions of food that sometimes soars to mediocre, but more often is as tasty as frozen foods (but well thawed). Picture foods described as rice pilaf that consist of only plain rice. Have you ever tasted a New York steak a quarter-inch thick?
I commonly ordered dishes from all 6 courses knowing that if I kept trying, there could well be an edible dish served somewhere during each meal. Most often it was the ice cream.
Or you could go upstairs to the sumptuous buffet. Whoops, better hold that plan: Costa Classica's buffet room only has room for about 8 or 10 different foods.
To expedite on-board purchases, all guests are given ID cards with magnetic strips. Just think how handy those would have been if at the same time Costa remembered to magnetize those strips. But that was easily solved with everyone getting to stand in a line if they wanted to fix it during the cruise.
The stateroom was a different affair: It was clean and comfortable; the steward knowledgeable and attentive.
Shore excursions were yet another nightmare. How, you may wonder, can a cruise ship screw up shore excursions? Well, for starters how about sending a tour group on a tender to shore but sending them to the wrong port, and leaving them there? Or how about selling a 3.5 hour tour by train, without forewarning buyers that the "train" was really a tram...like they use in the parking lot at Disneyland...with the first car decorated to look like a locomotive? Perhaps not segregating groups by language and then giving a complete group the tour narrative in French? Driving the "train" along city streets, this portion of the 3.5 hour tour ran about 45 minutes. Then it became a walking tour. By 2 hours into the entire 3.5-hour tour, the tour guide said bye-bye and left. Complaints or refund requests to the Costa tour desk. "I'm sorry, there is nothing we can do."
This is not a complete list of all the disappointments experienced during our sailing with Costa. But just remember this:
You can't spell the word CATASTROPHE without using all the letters in COSTA.