CABINS:  Our balcony cabin was spacious nicely furnished and our attendant was friendly and efficient. 

FOOD: Buffet was a good standard, plenty of variety, excellent fish.  Our dinner waiters were friendly and we looked forward to seeing them and our dinner guests who were, Welsh, English and Scottish.

ENTERTAINMENT: The entertainment in the theatre was mixed, good and bad, but the music in the bars around the ship was very good, especially in the bar before dinner. My husband enjoys playing poker but although the staff and manager in the Casino were friendly the Italians playing were not. 

DRINKS:  We preordered the Wine Drinks Package on the telephone before the cruise and that turned out to be excellent value, I would certainly recommend doing that.

COSTA CRUISES:  We have cruised with a few cruise lines but this was our first Costa.  We chose this one because of the itinerary - Dubai, and India.  Overal rating 3 for some aspects and perhaps 4 for others.  Basically I would say you get what you pay for - we had an excellent deal.  The issue that many of the staff do not speak English could be a problem for some people. Also the "Italian Style" e.g putting clothes on both loungers and chairs all day leaving no space for anyone else. (Not a problem for as we ptrefered to wait until later in the day to sunbathe.

We would take another Costa Cruise if the itinarary was suitable but it would not be my first choice.  Mainly because of the language problems and cultural differences.  We have been on many American ships and love the mix of people on board - all countries, langages and cultures.  The difference there being that everyone is interested in everyone else and we really enjoy that aspect of a cruise.  We found that this was not the case on Costa unfortunately. I would however recommend that people try it out for themselves.