Liz

I work for a travel agent so booked it through my work direct with Costa. We have cruised only twice before, once with Airtours on Carousel which was fantastic, and last year with Thomsons on Spirit. We didn't really enjoy the Spirit.

Costa is completely different. The ships really have the wow factor. If you look at their own website http://www.costacruises.co.uk you can get virtual tours of lots of rooms, decks etc. I have to say what we saw on those virtual tours is exactly what you see on the ship. It is a huge ship, 105,000 tonnes and a capacity of 3500 pax. We saw the Costa Fortuna last year in Naples when we were on the Spirit, we were actually berthed next to the Costa Fortuna and she made the Spirit look like a rowing boat!!!

I would definitely recommend however it may not be to everybody's taste. We were in the minority being English. The bulk of the pax were Italian and Spanish. You have to accept the Europeans for what they are and bite your tongue!!! In that they don't like to queue, they like to barge in, not wait for you to get out of the lift before they get in etc etc!!

Costa gets some bad reviews from US guests. I met 2 US guests who both complained about the language being Italian. I really had to bite my tongue to not say, well do you really think if the Italians cruised in the USA with an American company, the cruiseline should only speak Italian??? It really frustrates me that they complain about the language.

Anyway I will post my review soon. Any other questions feel free to ask.

PS You can get some excellent deals on Costa Cruises as well!!!