Costa Europa Arabian Gulf Cruise - Jan 2008 |
| Reviewed By: Sampson, Bury on 19th Mar 2008 |
| Cruise Line: Costa Cruises |
Times cruised before: 0 |
| Cruise Ship: Costa Europa |
Sailed:
January,
2008 |
| Destination: Dubai |
Age: 65+ |
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Having had our Kenya safari holiday cancelled because of the troubles there following the December 2007 election, my wife and I booked a last minute 7 night cruise on the Costa Europa, one of the Italian Costa Cruises boats.
This was our first ever cruise, so we were a bit concerned when we read a review saying that the food was awful, apart from the fresh pasta, but by then we had burned our boats, as it were! Embarking on the first night in Dubai, this prediction seemed to be borne out by the extremely dreary and fairly tasteless buffet meal, so the only way was up after that – and it was. The evening meals in the Orion restaurant were tasty, varied, and nicely presented, with 3 choices on each of the 5 courses. The dress code was smart casual in this restaurant, with 2 evenings being ‘dressy’ – nice frocks for the ladies and jackets and ties for the men. The staff in the restaurant – mostly Filipino – were excellent, with a good sense of humour. In fact, most of the staff on the boat were Filipino, and were equally nice.
The breakfast and lunches we had were buffets, though you could have a served meal at lunchtime in the Orion. Breakfasts were like any hotel buffet anywhere, with the usual hot choices and a chef cooking omelettes or eggs to order. OK, but nothing special. The lunches were better, with a good range of salads and hot choices – and fresh pasta cooked to order. However, the food was pleasant, rather than wonderful, so one was not tempted to overeat – good for the waistline!
Our cabin was an outside one, with a double bed, adequate wardrobe space, a decent sized bathroom, dressing table/stool and a minibar. Fine, except that there was no sofa or armchair, which some other cabins had. The result was that there was no real comfort in the room for reading or relaxing, except on the bed. This rather supported my idea that all one does in the cabin is sleep, so I think the extra £100 each we paid for an outside cabin was wasted. In fact, this £200 in total would almost have paid our drinks/tips bill at the end of the holiday.
The boat itself was quite large, taking around 1400 passengers and 600 crew, so there was a lot of walking to do! There were plenty of quiet lounges, a small gym, a casino, some shops, and plenty of bars. On the sun deck there was a pool and a hot tub/Jacuzzi, and there was always room in both. Aquarobics took place in the pool each morning, after some stretching exercises – not that we took part. Having said that, we saw little evidence that the animation team arranged much during the day.
Given that there was a mix of Italian, German, French, British and Spanish passengers, the evening entertainment had to be more visual than verbal. Thus it was generally singing and dancing, which was generally OK, but became quite repetitive. Also, hearing everything in 5 languages became a real pain, so one tended to turn off!
The boat spent one night in Dubai (which we have visited before) at either end of the cruise. The other ports of call were Muscat (Oman), Al Fujeirah, Abu Dhabi and Bahrein. Of these, Al Fujeirah was a real dump and Abu Dhabi was the smartest, with the others being somewhere in between. Each day there were excursions, but we and another couple on our table did our own thing, with walking and taxis – a lot cheaper, but maybe we missed out on some local information. Of course, I had done some research beforehand, and each evening we were given a sheet about the next day’s destination – history, places to see, etc. However, the information was brief, the maps provided were pretty useless, and there were no onboard lectures about our ports of call. An older couple on our table went on an excursion each day (making sure to avoid those that visited shopping malls!) and generally gave them good marks.
As ‘cruise virgins’, we asked the other 3 couples on our table what they thought. The already-mentioned older couple had been on several Costa cruises, as well as other lines, and felt that Costa were in the midrange. Another couple had mostly been with Thomson, and said the Costa Europa was much bigger than the Thomson boats; generally they preferred Thomson, partly because of the single language on board. The final couple had been a number of times with P&O, and said the P&O boats were much smarter, but that the Costa food was better – very surprising!
For ourselves, we had heard that one either loves or hates cruising – a bit like skiing, but we found that we were somewhere in the middle. We would cruise again, and would cruise again on Costa, depending on itinerary, but we would certainly not say that cruising is the only way to travel. That may change after we have been to Alaska this summer, though!
Arnold, Bury
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| Quality of Food |  |
| Main restaurant evenings dinners were very good. | | Entertainment | |
| International audience, so mostly singing & dancing. | | Shore Excursions | |
| We did our own thing each day. Particularly enjoyed the dhow cruise in Dubai. | | Staff |  |
| Our wine waiter, a charming Filipino lady. | | Children's Facilities | n/a |
| | Onboard Activities | |
| There was enough, but the animation team did not seem to take time to let one know what was going on. | | Cabins | |
| No easy chair in our cabin - just a dressing table chair, so no real comfort. | | Overall Rating | |
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