I have heard that you do nothing but eat when you go on a cruise. I was also expecting that an Italian cruiseship would have AMAZING food. I was very disappointed. There were two restaurants, the Tiziano and the Club Atlantica, and a few buffets. My boyfriend and I tried the Club Atlantica because we wanted to have a romantic dinner together. We had to pay 20 Euro to reserve a table and we had high expectations of the food there because the restuarant was described as being 'fine dining'. Really, the food quality was no better than the rest of the ship. In addition, our server couldn't understand our orders (she could barely speak any English). She ordered dessert for us twice - normally, I would have been extremely happy because if there's anything I love, it's dessert. However, their desserts were HORRIBLE and I left the restaurant quite upset. The other restaurant and the other buffets weren't very good either. I ate the food because I HAD to eat but not because I enjoyed it. There was no variety in the food and the portion sizes were tiny. I know it's hard to cook for 2500 people but I've known people who rave about the food on their cruiseships and I don't think the Atlantica can compare, really. Also, if you went to have breakfast at the restaurant, they would not leave menus on the table and for several days I thought all I could have for breakfast were pastries and fruit. It wasn't until later that a passenger told us that there was actually a menu from which we could order food, i.e., scrambled eggs (that weren't runny and watery, as they were in the buffet) and french toast. Also, no one informed us that tea and coffee were free for breakfast at the restaurant. I found that deliberately keeping passengers misinformed like that extremely cheap.
My other concern was in regard to the fact that in order to get off or on the ship we needed to have our Costa cards AND passports with us at all times. I found that extremely dangerous because we were going on excursions and going to beaches where our possessions could have been stolen. On other cruiseships, I have been told, the Costa card has your picture attached, negating the need for the passports.
All in all, my trip with my boyfriend was a good one but I felt compelled to tell you about our experiences so other people don't have to go through the same issues we did. The cruise was a big disappointment for my boyfriend who has taken a few cruises to the Caribbean in the past. As for myself, I hope to be able to go on another cruise in the future and get a sense for a really good cruise that I can tell people about.
