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CRUISE SHIPS
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on board daily, and the Indian selections
and pasta dishes were consistently good.
This is squarely a middle-of-the-road
cruise for families and couples, many of
whom dress extremely casually, even in
the main restaurant at dinner (flip flops and
T-shirts). Cabins are on the small side, but
pluses include stocked mini-bars stuffed
with snacks, soft drinks, beer and wine (for
a per-item fee).
The evening entertainment was a
highlight, and it was hard to find an empty
seat in the show lounge for an acrobatic
act, a magic show featuring the classic
sawed-in-half assistant, and a concert
featuring a singer who sang Adele songs
nearly perfectly. Costa’s famous late-night
contests in the nightclubs attracted a small
but dedicated crowd of slapstick humour
lovers (on Costa’s European cruises the
shows are packed), as teams of couples
were asked to do things like shove ping
pong balls in each other pants or pop
balloons attached to their backsides. You
get the picture.
A floating United Nations of Asians,
Australians, Europeans and Nor th
Americans, the ship’s passengers and
crew struggled at times to communicate.
The instructions on the gym equipment
were all in Chinese and it was hard for me
to understand our Japanese cabin steward,
or the woman running the bingo game. With
my five words of French, I helped a French
woman operate the coffee machine in the
buffet restaurant.
Still, it all worked somehow. The crew
was friendly and hardworking, and we
appreciated their helping my niece, who
uses a wheelchair, to get on and off the ship
in port, both of which unfortunately required
theuseof time-consuming tender boats toget
ashore. Language didn’t matter much when
it came to the excellent deep tissuemassage
andmanicuremy niece and I signed up for in
the spa. My 11-year-old twin sonswere too old
for the small (and packed) kids’ club and too
young for the large (and empty) teen room,
but they were happy to play table tennis and
foosball with other tweens.
Round-trip four-night
Costa Victoria
cruises
from Singapore to
Phuket, Thailand, and
Langkawi, Malaysia,
star t from US$519
per person, including
meals, entertainment
and most activities.
costacruise.com