Last month we took the Costa Atlantia on a 10-day cruise out of Miami. I have been on a lot of cruise lines and this is the first I will never use again.

The people we had direct contact (waiter and room stewardess) were great. The rest of the staff, including the head waiter tended to ignore us. The food was just okay, nothing special, but I am getting used to that on cruise ships. Second seating was at 9:00 and often did not end until 11:00 pm. That is tough if you have an early excursion the next day.

The port calls were okay, but the timing left something to be desired. Like leaving Grand Turk at 2:00pm. The locals on the excursions were really good, but the Costa staff involved seemed lost and not helpful. Members of the excursion had to help out the Costa translator to correct that Roatan is 4 mile wide, and not 4 miles deep.

There were only about 300 English speaking passengers and at least half of the 2,600 passengers spoke Italian. Many announcements (when I could hear them) were only in Italian. My heart goes out to the passengers on the capsized ship that did not speak Italian.

Beach Hunter