I Survived a Week on Cruise Critic's WORST RATED Cruise Line

I've just disembarked a cruise on one of the biggest and most controversial cruise ships in the world where only four percent of the guests spoke English the ship I was cruising on was the Costas miralda built in 2019 and she actually has one of the lowest Cruise Critic ratings I've ever seen in addition to being the overall worst racing Cruise Line before I booked this cruise I read reviews that said things like this ship is not for English speakers people said that there was no entertainment somebody said that monkeys could do a better job than the crew and one review even said that the ship was anti-food a massive part of cruising for me is eating so I really hope that that wasn't the case when I saw a Costa Cruise for 279 pounds for the week that's around 330 dollars I knew that I just had to give this a go I wanted to find out for myself if the bad reviews were Justified and from the promotional videos that I'd seen the ship definitely looked exciting for 38 pounds per night I didn't go into this cruise with huge expectations the ship turned out to be so much better in some ways and so much worse than I could have imagined in other ways they this Cruise certainly was an adventure we embarked the ship in Barcelona and set sail for a seven night cruise cruising the Mediterranean embarkation itself was very easy and as soon as I stepped into that ship I started to realize what it would mean to be cruising on an Italian cruise line from Spain the majority of the guests around me were speaking Italian Spanish French German and I'd learned later in the cruise that guests were also speaking Portuguese Dutch and other languages too I hope that we wouldn't have any problems speaking to the staff in English and I hope that we would be able to understand the entertainment it would be annoying to be on a ship where we couldn't really take part in anything walking into this Central Coliseum area was incredible it felt so bright and light and modern and this is actually a performance area in the middle of the ship where they do acrobatic shows around the edges there were bars and a cafe so we would often sit here during the day I was really impressed when I walked into this space there was one big problem with this Coliseum area but I don't think that you'll guess it by looking at it I didn't have a clue at this point I headed straight to the drinks package desk on board to buy myself a soft drinks package I actually took a Costa Cruise on an older ship way back in 2018 and one of the biggest things I learned was that if I was to ever cruise with Costa again I would need a drinks package Costa cruises don't even include water in the main dining rooms as standard and I did not want to be counting my drinks for the rest of the cruise I decided to buy the soft drinks package for 27 Euros per day and this meant that I could have unlimited soda juice tea coffee mocktails anything non-alcoholic we embarked around lunch time and by now we were getting pretty hungry I was happy to find out that the main dining room was open for lunch but I was nervous as I'd read so many bad reviews about Costa's food one review described the food as Bland and another described it as occasionally decent it was here that I found one of my favorite things on the ship by the entrance to the restaurants in the buffet they have these hand washing machines that literally wash your hands for you you just put your hands in the water and the soap spins around and it stops when it is done normally cruise ships will have some hand sanitizer near the entrance to the restaurants or maybe a sink if you're lucky but I've never seen a machine like this before having a look at the menu I realized that lunch was four courses and the second was always a pasta dish the average Italian Eats 23 kilograms of pasta per year it's amazing how fast you can get used to eating pasta with every single meal but we certainly did it was very loud in the main dining room and there were lots of families with young children and teens people would be watching videos on their phones they'd be FaceTiming people who weren't on the cruise it definitely wasn't a traditional cruise ship dining experience but it felt very relaxed and we enjoyed the meal the food was very good at this point and I hope that it would be for the rest of the cruise I did wonder if the rest of the cruise would be as loud as this restaurant was but only time would tell I wasn't prepared but time would tell after this it was time to head to our cabins and I booked a balcony cabin way up on Deck 15 that actually looked down onto the Promenade deck I love cabins like this because I just love people watching from up here it is so much fun it is a legal requirement on every cruise that you do a safety drill when you Embark a ship Costa are a little different from most Cruise Lines because guests get on and off the cruise almost every day and that means that there are multiple mustard draws happening in some ways I do quite like it because it means that not everybody is doing the mustard draw at the same time but if you're not used to it it can be pretty confusing and a lot of the complaints that cost to get relate to this fact that people get on and off every single day one thing that confused me was that the cabin TV and the app seem to suggest that I should bring my life jacket to the master station it has been years and years and years since I've had to bring a life jacket this is Captain Hudson's life jacket not real Hudson's it's not going to fit you Hudson a massive thank you to everyone who's ordered one of these by the way we raised over twelve thousand dollars for Mercy Ships which is pretty cool all we had to do was watch a video on TV and then check in at our Master station after that we carried our life jackets back to the cabin and taking the jackets did feel a bit pointless but I'm glad that Costa are taking safety seriously it was actually an accident that happened on across the ship called the con Costa Concordia in 2012 that changed the rules around muster drills previous to that accident people had to do a drill within 24 hours but now you have to do it on that first day either before you sail away or right away as your sailing away you can't leave it wandering around the corridors and up and down the stairs made me realize just how brightly colored this ship was it was bright and pretty and there were so many different styles and lights everywhere each deck had its own color and on the stairs were these huge classical paintings every time I saw this one I thought this is what I look like when people try and tell me that cruising isn't fun this is the face that I pull on the stairs they had these signs which were so helpful and they were in Braille too which was awesome it's the little things like this that really make a difference and I wish every Cruise Line did this one of my favorite things about embarkation day is when you can finally run around the ship and explore after doing our safety drill we decided to check out the huge Promenade deck and all of the bars on board the bars and lounges they do have proper names but I ended up just giving them nicknames as the cruise went on for example this is called the masteryani bar I think that's how you say it mastroyan yeah that'll do I just ended up calling it The trivia bar because that is where we did trivia I also found a museum on board which was strange and it wasn't like the corner of a room had a few Museum exhibits in it it was a full-on museum and I think the fact that this cruise ship has a museum just shows how huge this ship is the Promenade deck was wide and it went all the way around the ship at the back there was a big bar but we never actually saw this one open during our cruise probably because it wasn't really the weather for sitting outside I did test out these chairs though and I had a look at the strange cabins that go straight onto the Promenade deck I have booked a cabin on a future Cruise just like this for research purposes it certainly is a controversial cabin but make sure you're subscribed so that you don't miss that video at the time of recording this the Costas miralda is the sixth biggest cruise ship in the world and she certainly felt like it on Deck 16 we found this massive huge indoor Dome with a pool and some very interesting Hot Tubs on the side I don't think I would really like to sit here with everybody looking at my bum but plenty of people seem to enjoy these they were always full in the evenings they would light it up with rainbow colors and they would also host parties here too there were a couple of bars here and this very impressive water feature I thought that was cool at this point I had no idea how the cultural differences between the UK and Italy would affect bedtimes and parties but a party in this Dome later would teach me a lot about how Italians party while we were looking around the Dome we decided that we would pick up a burger from the poolside Grill called The Salty Beach yes beach to me it sounds like an insult oh you salty Beach the grill is a specialty dining venue of sorts because you do have to pay for the food here the food in the buffet in the main dining room is included in the cruise fair so you don't ever have to pay extra for food but if you want to go to any of the other restaurants there is a charge it was only five euros for the burger the fries and the dessert and I would prefer to pay for something that was good then get something for free that was just not nice on my Costa Cruise back in 2018 the poolside grill food was not nice at all it was Stone Cold and it was the opposite of this amazing veggie burger that I had in the dome there were loads of seats on the side and I loved everything about this area it was comfortable usually quite quiet which is surprising considering it's so close to the pool and the views were amazing I have read a lot of the Costa cruises complaints and one of the biggest complaints is that food like this isn't included in the cruise fair but for the price that I paid for this Cruise I'm surprised that there was any food included at all any food I was treating as a bonus we ended the evening in a jazz bar watching the Amy Winehouse tribute act who was great and the service in the bars was always very good despite being such a big ship it didn't feel too busy and we could always get a seat anywhere we wanted well apart from the theater or the Coliseum but at this point I did not know that I hadn't found the theater yet I hadn't explored any of the big outside spaces I knew that we had a sea day in a couple of days which is when I would properly explore the ship it would be easy to spend seven days on the ship and not find some things there were certain things on this ship that I didn't find until day five and I was trying but I didn't find them till day five the next morning we headed to the buffet for breakfast this space was absolutely huge but was quite busy when we went around 9 30 that was probably because the buffet does close at 10 and then it is closed completely 10 to 12. the buffet opening times were very different to what I'm used to cruising with American and British cruise lines and it was later on this day that I would find out what Italians count as dinner time it's very different our first stop was in Majorca and our ship docked very far away from the town this is one of the downsides of cruising on big cruise ships but we had a lovely day walking into the city center all in all I think we walked for a little over four hours but there is a shuttle bus that you can buy directly from the cruise line or there's a local bus that goes from just outside the cruise port which I'm sure is quite a bit cheaper than taking the cruise lines bus when we got back to the ship it was what cost the cool afternoon snack time in the buffet I noticed the afternoon snack time went on until 5 30 which did seem quite odd to me because for me 5 30 is the ideal dinner time but on a Costa Cruise the buffet closes at half past five and it reopens at 8pm for dinner 8 P.M for dinner the average Italian dinner time is between 8 and 10 whereas Us in the UK apparently it's between six and eight I definitely prefer to eat at six I will eat at five if I can we were assigned early dining in the main dining room which thankfully was a little earlier at 6 45 our time was right in the middle of the UK average so I don't know if they put me there because I'm British or it may be something that I requested pre-cruise I can't remember I was cruising with my family but because we'd made two separate bookings we were assigned two different tables for dinner we went to the main dining room and very politely asked the person at the front if we could be seated together and that was not a problem at all the staff were very friendly they were very helpful and we were given a table for that evening and told that we would be reassigned a table for tomorrow night onwards it was at this meal that I realized just how incredible the staff were they would chat to us in English then move on to the next table and speak Spanish then French then Italian it was mind-blowing to me and I have so much respect for people who can speak multiple languages I did sometimes see the other guests getting frustrated or sometimes actually being quite rude when the waiter didn't understand their very complex or confusing question the other guests also let their kids run around the restaurant the entire time which didn't affect me personally but multiple times the waiters nearly tripped over the kids and waiters on a cruise ship can often be carrying 8 or 10 meals on one hand so that's very very dangerous and I think we should be protecting the waiters dinner was four courses and the menus were viewable on our phones they do still have the paper versions of menus if guests need them but if you can look at them on your phone it's definitely preferred which does makes sense we found it really easy to scan the QR code on our phones and I really liked being able to look at the menu before I went to the restaurant it was available earlier in the day that way if I saw something and I thought I don't really fancy that I won't do it the Costa app was pretty good and it actually didn't crash at all we could see the daily schedule on the app we could check our onboard spend and we could message each other for free which was amazing normally when you're on a cruise and you sail out to sea and you don't have your phone connection you'd have to leave notes or you'd have to phone their cabin's phone but being able to send messages within the Costa app that just say things like I'm going to the buffet for churros that was really really useful you create your own username and you can set your account to either be private or public I left mine as public and I did get friend requests from a few random people I tried to get them to say something interesting that I could put on the internet but they weren't very good at that the food was good and I have put together a post of every single thing I ate on this cruise and all of the menus if you interested don't look at this if you are hungry but if you want to see just how much pasta I ate this is the post after dinner we decided to watch the acrobatics show in the main Coliseum and it was around now that we started to notice a problem we arrived 45 minutes early and we were just about able to get a decent seat on the top level the show was amazing but it was clear that you had to arrive and sit very early if you did want to see anything I was determined that at some point during this cruise I would get a seat on the bottom level but I thought that I may have to get there an hour or more to get a seat like that I did find a bizarre little hack later to watch the shows from a good seat without waiting but it probably isn't what you're thinking about the dancers and the acrobats were fantastic and the shows didn't really use much spoken words so language wasn't a problem they had amazing costumes they even had a car at one point there were a lot of seats that were facing straight at pillars where you would get less than five percent of a view which made me laugh why did they even put these pillars here they also had these sections in the middle that kind of curved out I don't know why they did that and that just meant whenever we sat in these sections we'd have everybody's kids sat in front of us so even if you're in the front row you're not guaranteed to see anything if you're not okay with kids and babies I'll tell you right now this is not the cruise line for you I have never never ever seen so many babies in one place most of them were pretty well behaved but we did have a problem with one baby later in the cruise well not so much a problem with the baby that would be mean but a problem with the adults who were supposed to be looking after the baby I hope that the theater would have a better design but I was absolutely not prepared for the reality I did go see a show in the theater the next day but I actually left early because I just couldn't see anything normally when people design theaters they put seats opposite the stage I think that's kind of a bare minimum of theater design but on this ship they decided to put a huge staircase opposite the theater and a bar the stage did come up and out of the middle for some shows but that means that almost all of the seats are facing sideways and there are very very few seats where you can see everything this space is used as a nightclub which is why the stairs and why the bar is there but it made it feel like using it as a theater was kind of an afterthought because it's just bizarre when we sat in the second row at the top level we could only see the singer when they were at the back of the stage and I watched most of this show through somebody else's phone one thing I did really like though is that on a Costa Cruise you can film the shows and everybody on Acosta cruise is filming everything for me as a cruise YouTuber it was fantastic normally I try and be as subtle as I can so people don't get annoyed by me filming but on this cruise I would just join the line of everybody who was filming whatever it was we were watching I woke up late the next day I thought it was time to properly explore the outside spaces because there was still so much of this ship that I've not seen at the back of the ship we came across this Pirate game happening and I braved the glass walkway which is 65 meters above sea level when I walked off the walkway a couple of other guests said what I think is well done to me in a different language and they gave me a little clap it is amazing how much you can communicate with people when you don't speak the same language everyone kind of assumed that no one else would understand them so you'd use a lot of sign language and stuff it worked on the top there's also this other amazing Skywalk where you can look down at the sports court and the slides I loved everything about the outside spaces and wandering around it felt as though it just went on forever and ever when you're inside this kind of ship you sort of forget about the scale but when you're on the top deck you realize how huge this ship is the daily schedule was actually pretty busy with games and live music and trivia and we were given an English version of the schedule in our cabin every day the music was almost always in English and you could definitely attend every event speaking only English being an English speaker only sometimes it was a bit tricky to take part in trivia some trivias were much easier than others sometimes they would be you know name this person name this song those ones we could all kind of do regardless of language but sometimes they would have a really long wordy question and the poor person doing it would have to read it out in about six different languages again very very impressed with the crew you would expect on such a big cruise ship where the cruise fair was so low that there would be minimal staff but that was not the case at all the crew were always so friendly and we chatted to more crew on this Cruise than we normally would I think some of them like the fact that we spoke English and they were kind of practicing their English with us but I've been on cruises that cost double or triple the price where the service was much much worse than it was on this Costa Cruise it really was good and it took me by surprise Costa seemed to have quite a good system set up where one person would take the order and someone else would make the order and bring the drink everything was kind of put into a tablet so there was no delay there with the drinks they would often bring snacks and nuts to but of course I did have to pick out these green bits I do not like them don't worry though I didn't put these back we would often hear the crew talking to each other in English and it felt like English was kind of the go-to language if two groups of guests didn't speak the same language we did experience this in a funny way when we visited Marseille later in the Crews were a group of French guests pushed in front of a group of Italian guests I'm not going to repeat what one group said to the other but they said it in English so that everybody knew just how annoyed they were in Marseille there is a free shuttle bus that takes Cruise guests into the city center from just outside the port Costa charged 19 Euros for the shuttle bus per person so there's a massive saving to be had there if you can walk outside the port and you don't mind waiting of course the free shuttle bus can be very busy and this is why people were pushing and shoving but for me it was absolutely worth it to save the money on a Costa Cruise Peppa Pig speaks Italian which was fun and we bumped into Peppa Pig a couple of times Without Really Trying to the kids seemed like they were really having a fantastic time and Costa quite often do kids sale for free promotions so as long as you have adult sailing in the cabin the kids go for free and Costa actually count a child as being up to age 17 which is fantastic some Cruise Lines one to 13 you're an adult some Cruise Lines once you're 10 you're counted as an adult but on Costa if you're 17 you're still a child code which makes sense it was around now that I received a call in my cabin it was from our English speaking representative Shannon inviting us to the Loyalty show in the theater this was only my second cruise with Costa but that was enough to get into the Loyalty club and being a member of that club gave me discounts on so many things across the ship I usually say that Cruise Line loyalty is pretty pointless but cost to have a really good system there I saved 50 when I bought some postcards in the gift shop and I saved more money when I bought a specialty pizza later in the cruise having an English-speaking representative on board was so helpful and Shannon was fantastic at any point we could go and ask her questions we could phone her and she was always there for us she was always around the ship checking with the English speakers that our cruise was going well I'll fly home from this Cruise wasn't until the evening but Shannon told us that we could stay on the ship until 4pm which is absolutely amazing on most cruises you have to be off the ship at 10 A.M 11 A.M if you're lucky but 4 P.M that's incredible that is another one of the benefits of the fact the cost to have guests getting on and off every day there weren't loads of us getting off in Barcelona so having us hanging around the ship for the day not such a big deal at the Loyalty show they awarded prizes to some guests and we had a musical performance by pianist and singer Matthew Lee who was great there was actually one person who got a prize who had taken 175 cruises with Costa 175 cruises not 175 nights 175 cruises with Costa as soon as the show finished we rushed to our cabin to get change for dinner it was here that I found a note saying what my new table was it was formal night so I did put on a dress but Costa's dress codes are very very relaxed it's more of a suggestion than a dress code and you will see people wearing the weirdest and the most wonderful things even on formal night there are no daytime dress codes at all and the only thing is that guests have to wear shoes and a t-shirt when visiting the buffet it doesn't actually say that guests need to wear shorts or trousers but I would hope that that one is a given at this point I hadn't seen much in the way of parties that Costa cruises are famous for and that's because I definitely could not be described as a night owl and most of the parties started at midnight or well after I'd gone to bed anyway I was determined that at some point during this Cruise though I would go to a proper Costa party we visited Palermo in Italy and Palermo is one of those places where you do really have to be determined when you leave the ship in the port area we were asked if we wanted a taxi at least 15 times and we were also asked if we wanted to do bus tours Train Tours even tours by horse I do find it odd that they bother asking me if I want a taxi when I've already said no to 13 identical taxis but they are persistent I'll give them that I just keep my head down politely say no thank you and keep walking we also visited which is the port for Rome it is a long way from Rome so we decided to stay in the port it has taken me years and years on this channel to be able to say the word trivia here is me five years ago trying to say it each other one complaint I see about Costa a lot is that they don't have any included Pizza in the cruise there but they did have these little pizzas are often in snack time and if you order a few of those that's the same as getting a full-size Pizza they're just bite-sized they also had churrosa afternoon tea time which was amazing and we had those most days the buffet is all served by the crew it is not self-service and I can't imagine how many languages they have to learn the names for the food in you must have to know what a bread roll is called in 10 different languages and even if you know what it's called in England we call this like six or seven different things so very confusing they didn't have table service in the buffet but they did have sections on both sides where you could get a drink we just showed the person working there our cruise cards and they would pour one for us usually it was a Coke Zero because although the ship is a Pepsi ship they have Coke and Pepsi and you never know which one you're gonna get it was around now that I discovered a hack of sorts for the Colosseum during the day they actually used this space to rehearse and because it was just a rehearsal we could wander up and always get a great seat we saw a lot of shows like this and although it was a bit weird seeing people kind of half in costume and half in their regular clothes I loved it at this point I was still determined though that I would see a real show from the bottom level and I did manage it later in the video I'll tell you how long I waited for that and whether it was worth the number we did try and watch The Voice in the Colosseum one night but we arrived about 30 minutes before showtime and there was no way that we could see the judges and the singers we ended up moving to the edges and just watching the show on the TV screens because they do broadcast the shows to TVs all around the ship and also into the cabins it wasn't as good of course but it was better than nothing I knew that there was still a lot of the ship that I hadn't seen and I wanted to find the specialty pizza restaurant we did manage to find it and I have to say our meal wasn't as good as it could have been just because there was a baby sat under our table the entire time throwing their toys all over the floor and crying the parents of the baby were in the restaurant too they were seated quite far away but they didn't seem to even look when the baby crawled out of the restaurant I did feel bad for the waiters who were basically babysitting this child they were the ones who were making sure that it didn't get hurt and that was a bit odd to me but it is what it is and the pizza was great so that was good we visited Savona which is Costa's HomePort and we went to see a fortress that was built in 1542. the 40s was actually used the prison and we wandered back by the beach and through the town which was lovely in the evening I arrived in the Coliseum one hour early for the show and I was able to get a seat in the second row on the bottom level we were actually able to move to the front row because the people who had reserved those they're reserved for people with highest loyalty saters but they didn't show up so when they removed that rope we ran round and we did get a seat in the front row for a proper show the show was fantastic and seeing the performers from the bottom level definitely is the best way because then you really get an idea of how high up these people are I will say though that because I'd already been sitting here for an hour before the show started I had such a numb bum by the end and I also knew I couldn't just go to the toilet because somebody would absolutely steal my seat but it was worth it the show was fantastic how how they do this I have no idea but I'm very very impressed speaking of toilets the public toilets on board the Costas marauda are the best that I've ever seen I know that does sound odd but have a look at this one each one was a different color and the doors to get out of the toilets was contactless which was amazing it's just contactless from the main room out into the corridor it's not from each store so don't worry that you're going to be sat there and then accidentally move and open the door they have normal locks in the straws I did manage to stay up one night and I went to the white party in my white dress there were so many babies on people's shoulders and kids are sleeping buggies on the side that was really strange for me to see because when I was that age I would have been in bed at about seven definitely not partying at 1am but it is so fun to cruise with people who do things differently from the way that you do it wouldn't be fun just to cruise with myself over and over again the Dome was an amazing venue for a party although the sound did travel down to my cabin that was on Deck 15. having a balcony cabin was a real treat and I did make the most out of it I watched most stalins and say outs from here which was just incredible to find out why this cabin was the weirdest cruise ship cabin I've ever had watched this video next you can see here in this picture what is weird but I don't think you'll notice it I didn't for a while so watch this video and I will show you

Channel: Emma Cruises

Views: 551,403

Keywords: cruise, cruise tips, emma cruises

Id: vjxs455H_60

Length: 25min 58sec (1558 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 18 2023