When I saw a bargain cruise over the bank holiday weekend in August – I jumped at the opportunity. When I noticed that it was onboard Costa I was a little hesitant, wrongly as it turned out. I let my interest get the better of me and booked a two-night cruise from the Netherlands to the UK, with no ports of call it was the perfect opportunity to test the line.

I booked onboard the Costa Favolosa, which is a Concordia-Class ship. This cruise ship is a world apart from the Celestyal Olympia I had the recent opportunity to enjoy, you can read that review here. Entering service in July 2011 the ship cost 510 million euros and was constructed by Fincantieri in Marghera, Venice. Upon construction it was the largest ship ever built in Italy at 114,500 GT, with 1,506 cabins, carrying over 3,800 passengers. It is an evolution of the previous ships of the Concordia-Class as the aft pool has been redesigned, and opened up as a tiered deck area with overhanging hot tubs.

I had an inside cabin on deck 7, located forward which was perfect for getting around, most of the facilities onboard are on deck 3, 4, 5 and the top decks of the ship. The cabin was simple, Costa calls this ‘minimalist’ – but was perfect for the short cruise.

This is my first time cruising Costa, a decade ago I would have said no. Costa Favolosa was designed by Joe Farcus, known for his loud and distinct design style which he calls ‘Entertainment Architecture’. Costa Favolosa is one of the last ships to feature this design and it is most obvious in the public areas on the ships, specifically the Atrium. However, once I was immersed in this it wasn’t overly loud and actually, I found the ship quite attractive – I was expecting it to feel quite tacky.

There was so much going on onboard, for tasting opportunities to activities in the gym, shows in the theatre and with so much to do I mainly just chilled out on deck, I did use the gym which was a good size and I found the Sunset Lounge to be my favourite place to drink. One thing I would say about these ships, the focus is very internal so it is easy to forget you are at sea.

On this cruise, I was once again a solo cruiser, but Costa’s single supplement didn’t seem that ridiculous and I still got a good deal on the cruise. My main nervousness about being a solo cruiser is when it comes to the main meal, should I go to the main dining room or should I just use the buffet. I had found the buffet in the day to be quite a long process and also what do you do in an evening if you’ve not got a meal to look forward to. I decided to take the risk and go to the restaurant I had been allocated for the second sitting, on Costa Favolosa this was at 20:30, so would be my evenings entertainment. On both nights the meals were brilliant, and I had been sat with other English speaking solo cruisers who were really enjoyable to be around, so if you get the chance, do it.

Another learning curve for me was using Costa, I misfired by arranging the wrong drinks package as I just didn’t know how it worked, and generally I didn’t know just how the ship worked, it was easy enough to get used to after a couple of days but by then I was getting off.

My only real disappointment with the whole cruise was when it came to getting off, I had been given a letter the day before saying I could stay in my Cabin until 10am and my plan was to get off at this time and head to the train station to catch my train home. Annoyingly I was called while getting ready in my cabin at 8:35 and told I should already be off the ship so I bundled up all my belongings and scrambled off the ship, but I was perhaps a little too hasty and shouldn’t have rushed there seemed to be no urgency.

In conclusion I would recommend the cruise line, and the fabulous Costa Favolosa. Costa has some amazing deals on and I will probably book my next cruise with them.

How was your Costa Cruise? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks,
Liam 🙂