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costa cruises hidden costs |
| Reviewed By: pymm, machynlleth on 16th Aug 2008 |
| Cruise Line: Costa Cruises |
Times cruised before: 10+ |
| Cruise Ship: Costa Concordia |
Sailed:
July,
2008 |
| Destination: Mediterranean |
Age: 36-45 |
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My husband and i cruised on the costa concordia in July, my first impression was wow! The ship itself was massive, the cabin bigger that i have been used to and spotlessly clean. We booked a balcony cabin and were very pleased with it. The shows i thought were quite good but the entertainment during the day was rather amateurish and aimed towards the Italian's. We were told when we booked the cruise with victoria travel,(by a rep that had supposedly been on this cruise ship ) that we could opt to tip personally which we prefer to do, we were also sent a brochure saying gratuities were discretionary, i was told to inform the reception that I would like to tip staff personally. when I did this I was told that the gratuities were compulsory and would be added to my bill at the end of the cruise ,so realise that your cruise is 42 euro's per person dearer than you've already paid. I feel i was misled and misinformed. I was also not told about the compulsary 15% surcharge on all drinks. We opted for the x1 drinks package ( not all inclusive, only inclusive while the restaurant is open-12 till 1-30/2pm and 7pm until the end of your sitting)and whilst i found this good value for money during the evening mealtimes, the waiters during lunchtime would often completely ignore you once they realise you had one of these cards because they were not getting commission on the drinks. The staff in the restaurant were wonderful so we ended up tipping twice, because i felt that the individual staff should not miss out because of Costa's policies. Finally, we were given the wrong colour luggage tags on the last day of our cruise. When we left the ship we were told that all the transport to Rome airport had left. We were reassured that alternate transport would be arranged. We expressed our concern many times about how we thought the next bus would be too late, we were told not to worry as they would 'look after us'. Check in time was 3.15 and we arrived at 4.15, but they took us to the wrong terminal. When we finally checked in we were told we made in time by just four minutes. As you can imagine the stress and upset was indescribable. We finally arrived back in Manchester only to find they had lost our luggage, which we finally got back 2 days later. overall wonderful ship and cruise, but victoria travel staff just seem to need to sell the holiday and don't volunteer the true final cost.
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