We sold our house in Canada so that we could travel the world by cruise ships. Our intention is that we could see the world, and report to our followers about the great itineraries, and different ships that are available to travel the world.
This blog is about the Costa Smeralda, where we boarded it in mid October, 2023 in Barcelona. We will briefly cover what we loved, and what we didn’t love, and get to more specifics in some of our videos found on our YouTube channel.
BOARDING THE COSTA SMERALDA
We spent the previous night in Barcelona, in a hotel called Hotel Jazz. The Hotel is in the Gothic district and is a half hour walk to the cruise pier. On the embarkation day for our trip on Costa Smeralda, we had accidentally slept in, so it became a no-brainer to take a taxi directly to the Costa cruise terminal, which cost us 21 Euros, or $32 Canadian.
Our check in was unbelievably fast. This is probably due to the fact that Costa sends its passengers all of the instructions 10 days in advance through email. For example, you must check-in DAYS before, online. This would include filling out information such as your passport information, emergency information etc. Then, you MUST print out the boarding pass and bring it with you, or they will refuse your embarkation. *They ONLY accept the printed embarkation paperwork!
Once they verified that all of our paperwork was filled out correctly, they issued us an embarkation paper and our Costa Card (Hint: Bring a lanyard with a clear pouch to put your card into, as if you put a hole punch in it, the card will not work!)
In less than 5 minutes, we were processed, and boarding the ship, looking for our Balcony stateroom, 14205.
THE COSTA SMERALDA STATEROOM
The stateroom was a decent size overall. It had a queen size bed, 2 super small end tables on either side of the bed, a small desk with a chair, table and mirror, a TV, a lamp, and a huge chaise lounge that really served no purpose, other than for us to gather our collection of towel animals and to lay out the clothes that we were planning to change into. The bed was really hard, and uncomfortable, and the comforter was too heavy for the season, causing us to sweat and crank the air-conditioning.
For the most part, the rooms are pretty sound proofed, and if the balcony is kept completely shut, you won’t be able to hear the outside at all.
THE BATHROOM
The bathroom was a good size, and was well lit. There were a couple of weird things, such as the curtain that could be opened from the stateroom side, so that someone could surprise you and watch you shower or go to the washroom…, and the other thing was that the room did not offer any shampoo, conditioner or lotion like other cruise lines would. Other than that, there was enough space in the bathroom to move, and not feel claustrophobic.
THE BALCONY
Our stateroom was pretty standard, except for the size of the balcony. Our room was located in the centre of the ship, but there is a special angle, where we ended up with an ultra-large balcony! It was at least 16 feet deep, and you could see the ocean from all angles, depending upon where you were standing on the balcony.
Pros:
One of the benefits of having such a large balcony is that we had so much extra space. We had a large covered area, we had 2 chairs, a chaise lounge and a small table.
When there were fewer people on the ship, it was quite a nice place to hang out.. but that was not very often on this ship!
Cons:
Because our balcony was so large, we jutted out so far that we could see pretty much every single room and all of the people facing out toward the ocean. I imagine that we were pretty much on display for all to see as well.
The Costa ships allow smoking on the balconies, so we could always see and smell people smoking, and sometimes it would get a little overwhelming.
The Costa balcony is constructed in a way that all kinds of sound gathered within the walls of the balcony, so you could hear all sorts of conversations from the entire side of the ship.
OUR OBSERVATIONS OF THE COSTA SMERALDA
Overall, there were really good moments and then there were really frustrating moments on the Costa Smeralda. Please keep in mind that these are only OUR opinions, and also it is our opinion of coming from primarily north American ships.
1. The Costa Smeralda is really a ship geared toward families of all ages. There were more kids and babies than we have ever experienced on any ship. Ever. The ship has a ton of activities, menus, and clubs geared specifically to them, which of course encourages more families to come onto this ship. This is a definite pro for families, but a con as well because there is a lot of screaming, crying and more at all times of the day and night.
2. There are a lot of adult activities. This ship is really amazing for its entertainment, and there are activities which are specifically labeled “for adults only”
3. Water… it is REALLY difficult to get water on this ship! We even had a water plan that was only good for getting a glass of water during dinner. It was next to impossible to get water any other time. We ended up purchasing water off of the ship, so that we could have the amount of water that we are used to drinking while on the ship.
4. Coffee was also next to impossible to get unless you were going for breakfast, or if you showed up specifically for coffee time in the afternoon. Otherwise, it just is not available for free.
5. One big difference between a lot of the ships that we have been on, and the Costa Smeralda, is that they have people embarking and disembarking at every single port. The rotation of passengers is always different!
6. This ship is pretty huge, new and stable. It holds over 6500 passengers and 1650 crew. For the most part, we didn’t feel any motion at all on the ship.
7. The Costa Smeralda has a choppy layout that makes it feel small, even though the ship is really huge. In addition to this, the layout of each of the venues is pretty terrible. The sight lines in the theatres are bad; you have to walk through venues such as the dinner restaurant to get to another activity. More on this in a bit.
8. The prices of onboard clothing, tours, and more are reasonably priced. For example, you could purchase a nice ladies’ sweater for less than 10 Euros! We also purchase a couple of reasonably priced tours and bottles of wine while on the ship.
9. Many of the staff speak multiple languages. It doesn’t matter if you speak with someone in the Entertainment staff, the restaurant staff, the room stewards… everyone speaks more than one language. In fact, every single thing that happens on the ship is translated into 5 languages! English, Italian, French, German, and Spanish.
ENTERTAINMENT ON THE COSTA SMERALDA
Probably the most amazing part of this entire ship experience was the entertainment. There is so much to do, and the level of professionalism in all of the shows was just incredible. The only real unfortunate part of the entertainment was the venues themselves. There were just a handful of actual good seats in each venue, and you had to get to any of the venues SUPER EARLY if you planned on having a seat where you could see anything!
Day time activities included trivia, music quizzes, dance lessons, games and tournaments, creative classes, exercise activities, food tasting, coffee time, bingo … just to name a few.
We participated in a team game of random trivia with 3 other English speakers (Teams were divided into languages), and WON! All 5 of us received a prize of collecting a crepe from the specialty restaurant to redeem any time during our cruise! Each crepe is valued at 6 or more Euros, so the prize that was handed out was super generous compared to other cruise line prizes!
The evening shows on this ship was nothing short of spectacular. The dancing troupe had a special theme based show every single night, and in the other theatre the acrobats had a handful of different shows each night as well. On top of this, there were other specialty performers that had amazing shows, and the entertainment team which had their own shows too.
There were also shows and entertainment that featured the passengers such as “Voice of the Sea”, “Deal or No Deal”, and bingo!
The music, the sets, the shows, the costume changes, the energy in every single performance was unlike anything we have ever experienced. As a former head of performing arts in Toronto, Canada, I can undeniably say that every show was absolutely incredible and top notch.
THE PARTIES ON THE COSTA SMERALDA
Every day there was a different theme on the ship, therefore, there was always a posted “suggestion” of what to wear, so that you could really immerse yourself into the experience. Some of the themes included “Be Italian”, “The 70’s”, “Elegant”, “Rock”, You get the idea!
At night, the club would open and the theme would also correspond with the kind of music and vibe you would get!
We experienced the Silent Party (where you wore headphones and chose the DJ you wanted to listen to); the Italian night (where we danced all night to the most popular Italian music), and disco. There was so much energy in all of the clubs, and the entertainment staff was appropriately dressed in the theme and encouraged everyone to have a great time!
THE VEGAN FOOD ON THE COSTA SMERALDA
The Costa Smeralda has a dedicated vegan menu which changed every day. They actually had the same menu for lunch and dinner for the same day, but there were enough choices on the menu to try different things.
The food was really great. The portion sizes were perfect, and nothing was coated in oil or too much salt.
You could also order as much off of the menu that you wanted! We sampled all kinds of different food, and hope that you take a minute to look at the pictures of the food that we ate while on the ship.
TORI'S TIPS REGARDING THE COSTA SMERALDA
1. The Costa Club Card: This is a FREE club card that you just sign up for. Once you are a costa club member, you will save all kinds of money on different things! For example, we purchased a 3.5 hour “Ship Tour” that went from 59 Euros Each to 44 Euro Each with our Costa Club Card. The Club card will also save you on select bottles of wine, and it will also give you 10% off your next cruise booking!
2. Costa falls under the umbrella of Carnival Corporation, so if you book a ship on a COSTA cruise, you can get your shareholder’s perk!
3. The Internet is pretty expensive, so you can use the WiFi in most ports. We only had one “Sea day”, and survived without purchasing the internet. In fact, if we just used our own internet from Canada at the offered daily rate, it would have still been less expensive than the Costa package.
4. If you want to see a show, make sure that you get there EARLY.
IN SUMMARY
Of course, there is so much more that we can say about this ship, but we want to leave some element of surprise for you when you decide to book your own trip on the Costa Smeralda.
Overall, for the price (we paid less than $2000 US total for the two of us for 8 days), we feel like we really got our money’s worth from the food, entertainment, and the room.
The biggest downfalls, for us, were the HUGE crowds, the almost constant screaming and crying from the large number of babies and infants on the ship, and the lack of ease of getting water and coffee!
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