Cruise review of Costa Deliziosa

We just disembarked from our 2 week Mediterranean cruise on board the Costa Deliziosa and we want give you a complete review of every aspect of our Costa cruise! We will assign a score out of ten at each aspect of the cruise!

The Ship

Let’s start our Cruise review of Costa Deliziosa from the first impression of our ship:

The Deliziosa was launched in 2009, it is 294m long.
It has a capacity of 2826 passengers and 908 crew members.
The ship has 12 passenger decks. Decks 2 and 3 are the main decks for indoor lounges, restaurants, shops, casinos and the theatre. Deck 9 is the main outdoor deck with 2 pools, the buffet, the spa, the gym, and the beauty salon.
Overall the ship looks good, flows well and it is quite easy to navigate.

The decor is good even though it has a bit of a retro feeling. On deck 2 mid-ship there is the main atrium with the panoramic elevators that run all the way to deck 10.

The ship is in very good conditions and we feel that it deserve a 8 out of ten.

The Cabin

We booked a balcony cabin and overall we have to say the cabin was fine. The decor is very simple. The space is good and well optimised. The amount of closet space is good for 2 passengers. The couch was not very useful, but it made for good storage.

The size of the balcony was really nice, it was big enough for two big chairs and a table and people could easily tan or eat on the balcony.

One minor defect in the cabin was the lack of electrical plugs. In fact, there were only two plugs, one European and one American.

The bathroom was fine, not the smallest we have seen but not the biggest either. The best way to describe the cabin is that it’s simple with no frills.

That said our score for the cabin is a 7 out of ten.

By the way if you want to know more on how we pick a cabin on a cruise you can read the following article.

The Restaurants

The ship has a very large main dining room, that is used for breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack (called merenda in Italian), and dinner. It also has a buffet, on deck 9, that is used for breakfast, lunch, and Merenda. The main dining room has two seatings for dinner one at 7:00 pm and at 9:30 pm.

Next to the buffet on deck 9, there is the Hamburgeria, a grill joint that serves burgers, fries, and hot dogs for lunch.

There is a club restaurant on deck 10 mid-ship that is for suite passengers and for the Perla Diamante passengers (these are highest-tier loyalty guests). Also for €30.00 per person, regular passengers can eat at the Club restaurant.

On deck 2 aft there is the Samsara restaurant. This is a specialty restaurant with a cover charge of €25.00. The restaurant specialises in Asian-Italian fusion with a big variety of seafood dishes. The samsara is open for Dinner.

At night an area of the buffet becomes the pizza place. There is a cover charge that starts at €5.00 for a simple pizza and a soda and it can go up to €25 euros for gourmet pizzas, sodas, and desserts. The pizza restaurant is open till very late at night.

Also at night, the Hamburgeria turns into a street food joint with a cover charge.

Lastly on deck 3 front of the ship, you can find the Gelato place that also sells freshly made crepes and smoothies, chocolate, and a wide selection of freshly made cakes.

In our opinions the restaurants are great and appropriate for the ship so we will vote them a solid 10 out of ten.

The Food

We continue our Costa Deliziosa Cruise Review by talking about the food. We have to admit, food on Costa is the best we had so far on a cruise ship! It is tasty, perfectly presented, perfectly seasoned! The menu is quite good with a great variety of dishes with a very strong Italian influence.

Every night there is a special section of destination food from the Michelin star Italian chef Bruno Barbieri. In our case, we had a few greek dishes to pick from every night. The menu always has a good selection of seafood dishes and vegetarian dishes.

There is also a section of staples that never change on the menu that include pasta and tomato sauce, Tagliatelle Bolognese, filet with bearnaise sauce and grilled salmon. Lastly, there is a kid menu always available with dishes like chicken nuggets, hot dogs, chicken and beef burgers, schnitzel with fries, etc from which even adults can pick.

Desserts are absolutely amazing! Tasty and beautifully presented!

Because we are at the highest loyalty level on Costa, Perla Diamante, we were assigned to the Club restaurant. Now, the club has the same selection of food of the main dining restaurant with few other gourmet dishes only available. Also at the club restaurant, I asked for Pizza from the pizzeria and they brought it to me. The pizza was absolutely delicious, totally comparable to a good pizza you can find in many pizza restaurants in Italy – but I did have to pay a little extra for it.

We also tried the buffet for lunch and Merenda and the burger joint for lunch. The food was always really good even in these venues.

Lastly, there are several dishes, that are always available at any restaurant, for a fee these include caviar, tomahawk steak, linguini with lobster, truffle ravioli, etc. We can not give you our opinion on the Samsara restaurant because we did not try it. But, I’m sure it was delicious!

The food also scores a 10 out of ten no doubt there!

Restaurant and bar service

The service at bars and restaurants was quite good. Especially at the club restaurant, the service was impeccable. We always had at least 2 servers fussing over us.

We tried the service at many bars around the ship and it was always great. Bartenders were always smiling, friendly and happy to help. On some very rare occasions we had some language issues, but nothing too bad.

Due to Covid there were some very strange protocols in place for example you can not have service at the pool, you had to go to the bar while indoor you could not get any drinks at the bar you had to order at the table….bizarre!

We did not try any other restaurant other than the buffet and the service there was efficient but basic like any other buffet.

Given that we had to get up to get drinks at the outdoor bars instead of waiting at the table for service, that was just a little strange to me. We will give a 9 out of ten for the bar and restaurants service!

Entertainment

Let’s continue our Costa Deliziosa cruise review with the on board entertainment. We have to admit the entertainment team was fantastic! They really did their best to keep people amused the whole time. Even though they had to do their best with the tough health protocols in place. In fact dancing was not allowed and all the dance clubs on board were closed.

The entertainment team was able to come up with a lot of fun games indoors and outdoors. Pool games. All sorts of trivia games. Also starting at 6 pm most bars had live music with singers or bands. Costa also partnered with Kinder for family activities for kids and parents together to keep kids active.

The shows at the theatre were quite good with a lot of dancing, acrobatic dancing, and singing. Costa also has The Voice at Sea a singing competition for passengers that mimic the same show on TV. Passengers loved this show and it was one of the most attended.

Time to vote on the entertainment that’s a solid 9 anchors out of 10.

Excursions

Costa has a very strict protocol for excursions. In fact they did not allow passengers out on their own at all. Not even for the fully vaccinated passengers. We knew about this in advance but many fellow passengers didn’t and we heard many people complaining about this.

Further, it was common knowledge that other ships was allowing their guests to tour the ports on their own. Also, another big thing that made no sense to anybody was the fact that most excursions were only half a day. This was especially annoying for the beach for which we were not allowed to stay the whole day, rather we could only stay a few hours. We couldn’t even pay for longer. Also, it seemed that the people at the excursions reservation office were very disorganised.

We had a few mishaps with booking, canceling and rebooking excursions and that was quite annoying. One thing regarding excursions that was positive was the fact that they seem cheaper than other cruise lines. Costa also offers a package that includes 5 excursions that can be picked from a list and all the one that is not on the list have 25% off.

This said our vote for excursion is a 4 out 10… yeah we are sorry about that.

Fortunately this was not our first Mediterranean cruise and we were familiar with some of the ports we hit. You can read more about our 21 days mediterranean cruise in the following article!

Pools and sun decks

Next area of our Cruise review of Costa are pools and sun decks.

Costa Deliziosa has 2 pools on deck 9. One at the aft of the ship and one in the middle with a retractable roof that can be closed in bad weather. There are also 4 jacuzzi, 2 at midship and 2 by the aft pool.

Now, for the weeks we were on board, the pools felt fine. BUT, we were at half capacity. For a ship of the size of the Costa Deliziosa we think a third pool would have been necessary. In fact on the 2 sea days we had the pools were quite full of people and often it was difficult to find a chair around the pool.

There are plenty of sun beds on deck 10 and 11 but they are far away from either pool. On deck 10 aft there is also an area of sunbeams that can be reserved in advance for €7.00 per person per day (or for €70.00 per person for a week). We used this area only once because we noticed that when the ship is sailing the exhaust fumes from the ship are blowing in this area making it difficult to breathe.

For this reason, we give to the pools and sun deck 6 out of ten. Not a great vote but not terrible either.

Cleanliness of the ship.

We have to admit we were really surprised on how clean this ship is! It is spotless. Every deck, bar, and bathroom is absolutely squeaky clean! We don’t know if this is because of Covid or it is normal on this ship but we were really impressed about the cleanliness of the ship.sure!

We believe that Costa Deliziosa deserves a 10 out of ten for cleanliness no doubts there!

The Spa.

As you know from previous video this is Rick natural habitat! Unfortunately, his experience at the spa was less than stellar. From the beginning, the spa wanted to sell sell sell, pretty much everything that Rick didn’t want. And it was EXPENSIVE.

Let’s Rick describe his experience:

“I usually goes for one massage a week, and when we boarded, I felt the prices were too high. I mentioned promos that were given to us in the past, and I was told no, they don’t exist, and never did.

Well, fast forward a week, and there was an 89 euro special for a 60 minute massage. I explained that I prefer 75 or 80 minute massages, and at that point, I was offered a 75 minute for 109 euro. Fair price – and had it been offered at the beginning, I might have even had two. So, I booked three massages at this price.

On the last day at sea, I had my 3rd massage, but it seemed to have ended early. Sure enough, it was just 60 minutes. Someone made the booking wrong. But… they were happy to take my 109 euro. I explained my other two massages were 75 minutes, and I was told I was wrong, and that they’d never offer it at that price.

So, I paid, and went back to my room…. And I found my receipt from the last massage. Yep. There it was, 75 min for 109. I brought it back, and they grudgingly refunded me 20 euros. But, there was overall negativity, no apologies – not really something I was used to.”

Sorry guys, for this, we give a 2 out of 10 for the spa.

The Casino

Moving on our Cruise review of Costa we will talk about the casino. It is located on deck 2 mid ship towards the front of the ship.

The casino is quite large and has a good selection of table games and slots. There are 2 roulette tables, a few cards tables and an entire section dedicated to slot machines. Also at the casino, you will find 2 pool tables.

We found the casino totally appropriate for the size of the ship and for this reason we give it a 10 out of ten.

On Board Shops

Let’s continue our Costa Deliziosa cruise review with the shops on board. All the stores are located on deck 3. There is a Costa merchandise store located at mid ship, the photo area also located at mid ship.

Then towards the front of the ship you’ll find the duty free shop that also sells snacks, chocolate and a very small selection of toiletry. You can find a jewellery store that is attached to the duty free and across the hallway, there is a clothing store.

We found the selection of items for toiletry was really really limited and considering that we were not able to buy anything at shore due to the restrictions, this was quite inconvenient. For example, toward our second week i was running low on sunscreen and the only one available at the store was a super expensive brand with a very small selection. Fortunately, we were able to buy some on the beach in Mykonos. But yes the selection on these items is really limited so better not forget anything at home!

Our vote for stores is 6 out of ten, Because the selection was really limited and it could be a bit of a problem.

The Theatre

Our next topic of our Cruise review of Costa Deliziosa is the theatre. The space is quite big and very well laid out. The seats are very comfortable and there is a lot of legroom.

Even for Andrea very long legs there was a lot of room. Also it has great tables in front of the seats for drinks and snacks.

Unfortunately due to the health protocols they did not serve drinks at the theatre but we could go to the bar and get our own and bring them with us. Hopefully this will end soon and it will go back to normal!

We found this theatre one of the most comfortable we’ve seen on a ship and we’ll give it a 10 out of ten!

Unfortunately guys due to the Covid restrictions there are few areas of the ships that we can not review because they were closed.

These include:

all the dance clubs,
the thermal suite (which we were able to see but not use),
the car simulator
the golf simulator
the movie theatre.

We also did not use the photography service because we like to take our own photos and we have hundreds of photos from past cruises, so we can’t review that service either.

Well folks we hope you enjoyed our cruise review of onboard the Costa Deliziosa, if you have any questions please leave them in the comments below.

See you soon!