Great service! We were picked up at the car rental drop off at the Bologna airport and delivered to…read moreour rental swiftly and smoothly. Our driver was exceptionally helpful, carrying some of our luggage to our apartment as the street was car free on weekends, so we had a short walk. Pick up at 3am a few days later was easy and prompt. Communication was maintained easily and the early morning drive to the airport was great. A top notch company that we will use again.

Book this company! Giacomo was great to work with. When our driver canceled 1 hour before, I called…read moreand he got me driver. Thank you for saving our trip!

Costa Crociere, also known as Costa Cruise Lines, is the European branch of Carnival Cruise Lines…read moreand aims to embody the Italian dolce vita! Costa Cruise Line ships are big and bright, with Mediterranean-influenced cuisine, regional wines and warm, rich decor. The lifestyle onboard is "Italian vacation resort". Costa is one of the few cruise lines that offers rolling embarkation in Europe, with passengers embarking and disembarking at several ports on any one cruise. Costa Cruise Lines offer a European experience that is primarily geared toward Europeans with 15 different cruise ships that sail all over Europe. Ship Amenities 8/10 We sailed on the Costa Fortuna which pays tribute to tribute to ocean liners of the past. The public areas and restaurants are decorated with reproductions of advertising images of the roaring '20s and '30s which I thought was quite charming and nostalgic. The 13 decks of the ship are dedicated to international ports. The Costa Fortuna features 4 pools, one with a retractable roof, hot tubs and slide, open decks, casino, disco, and a theater! Ports 10/10 The primary reason we booked this cruise was the Itinerary: 1. Genoa, Italy (near Portofino) 9/10 2. Marseille, France 9/10 3. Tarragona, Spain 9/10 4. Palma de Mallorca Island, Spain 8/10 5. Ibiza Island, Spain 10/10 6. Olbia, Sardinia Island, Italy 8/10 Food 8/10 Unlike American cruises where you can find food at any hour on the ship somewhere, there were gaps of no food between 10am to 12pm, 3pm to 645pm, and after 9pm no food was available. It's probably best that I don't eat late at night but sometimes we get back from the port starving and have no food options for a couple hours and it can be rough. The food quality was pretty good with plenty of seafood options but I think I like the food on Royal and Norwegian better. For breakfast, I was able to still get the amazing salmon bagels so that was nice! I was very surprised that they charged extra for ice cream and crepes because they don't on most other cruises. More surprisingly, these 2 vendors always had long lines the entire cruise. Drinks 8/10 The banana coladas, strawberry daiquiris, Mai tais, pink panthers, and White Russians were amazing. However one of my favorite drinks, the caipirinha and the mojito, the bartenders just could not get right. The pool bartenders margaritas were pretty bad but I managed to find some great margaritas on the deck 4 bar made by a Honduran bartender who made the best margaritas on the ship. I was only disappointed that I did not discover this bartender earlier in the cruise! Crowd 7/10 On European itineraries, Costa attracts mostly passengers from Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Ukraine, Greece, and the U.K. while Americans are a minority. It was tough talking to a lot of fellow cruisers as many did not speak English. Service 8/10 Bartenders were pretty quick and friendly, dining servers were friendly, and the cabin steward was pretty friendly and managed to never wake us up but he did not make any towel animals on the beds like on other cruise lines. The mater d for formal dining was pretty grouchy with us as we changed dining times a couple times but that was because of various on deck activities and port arrival times. Norwegian and other cruise lines have more flexible dining options for sure. If you're looking to do a Mediterranean cruise and go to Ibiza and party in the late hours I definitely recommend this cruise as this is one of the only cruises that stays overnight in Ibiza. All the ports of this cruise are amazing and it's so nice to have 7 course meals and wake up at a new location without having to haul luggage around and take trains all across Europe and waste your day hours traveling sitting on a train. However, if you seek more English speaking fellow passengers and more flexible dining options I'd recommend Norwegian or Royal Carribean Cruise Lines over Costa Cruise Lines but you may not get the same great ports and it will cost you a good couple hundred more.

To whom it may concern: My wife and I have just returned from a Costa cruise which started in…read moreHamburg Sept 15th and ended in Savona Sept 29th.Unquestionably, it was our worst cruise experience ever. I will enumerate your deficiencies and our experiences in the following bullet points. *no internet available on board for "Americans" *arrived late for first sitting due to medical emergency concerning my wife. Was told to come back after second sitting was seated. Declined that offer. Went to pizza restaurant, ordered a pizza and had to pay for it!! When did you ever have to pay for food on a cruise ship?  *First breakfast on board was terrible. Ordered 3-minute soft boiled eggs which came nearly raw. Complained to Maitre D', he removed the eggs, offered an apology, never saw him again. *Sunday, Sept 17th, tour desk not open until 17:00. Unable to book Kristansand city tour. *Had to pay for a cup of tea in the lounge (3.10 euros plus .47 tip ) *Many times our waiter didn't know the items on the menu. Often times served the wrong items ordered. *QR code on the menu was useless. Hard to access and difficult to read. Most passengers used printed menu instead. *No pharmacy on boat. (ship medical center and staff were excellent.)  *Excursion queues on and off the ship were horrible. Very poor planning/organization. Recommend greater intervals between groups. *Tour bus pick-up in Lisbon left prematurely leaving us stranded (eventually took another bus back to ship). My jacket, with camera in the pocket was left on the bus and, to this day is still missing. When I reported the incident at the reception desk, I was treated with serious disrespect. I had to remind the young lady, that I was a guest and "I wanted to treated like one". *Charging passengers for shuttle service to and from the ship is unheard of. *Ordered swordfish for dinner one evening. Couldn't t eat it. Too salty (as was most of the food) *In general, the food, both in the dining room and at the buffet, was sub standard. (An opinion shared by our table mates). *At Marseille, paid $19 euroes for shuttle bus while free shuttle was available and unmentioned to us. *Bath water is too hot. Dangerous, potential scalding situation. Possible code violation. In closing, it was not a very enjoyable cruise experience. My wife and I would need some assurances that the above critique are resolved before we would ever consider another cruise with your line. It was a shame because the ship is beautiful. The wait staff, cabin crew, entertainment with few exceptions were all exceptional. Looking forward to your response, we are: Harry and Elena MacDonald                                                                      3 Carroll Road                                                                      Woburn, Ma. 01801                                                                       hmac917@comcast.net

The hotel room itself was spotless clean, but I had some issues. One issue is that there was only…read morestreet parking available and the area surrounding the hotel was far from a tourist area. It was uncertain if you'd see your rental car again. While convenient that it's near the train station, it also is on the side that appears to have more potential riff raff. I mean, why are there large dudes standing at all hours of the day on different intersections holding cell phones? That's stuff you see in movies and things don't end well. My other issue is that at all other hotels stayed in, the receptionists were very helpful and kind. The receptionist here was very blunt and straightforward, very clear that he was not a fan of American tourists. It didn't help that there was a large language barrier and it appeared that he liked it that way. If you must stay in Pisa: So if you're looking for a hotel that is close to the train station and close to the popular shopping strip and don't mind holding your breath for 2 minutes while you scurry in the "dark side" towards your hotel, then this is your place. It's about a 23 minute walk to the Leaning Tower. If you'd rather not take the gamble, then stay on the other side of the river. That really seemed to be the dividing line. There were very charming hotels closer to the Leaning Tower on the other side. My recommendation: Don't stay in Pisa and spend more time in Siena or Lucca (my fave). The Leaning Tower is impressive, but that's really all that I found charming in Pisa. Oh, and the academy where Galileo and Andrea Bocelli (studied law before music) looked interesting as well, but it was closed when I was there.

Hotel is really close to the train and bus station, maybe 5-10 minutes walking. Located on a street…read morewith multiple eateries, fast food and late night spots. You can walk to the City Centre in about 20-30 minutes depending on how fast you walk. So you can easily spend a day here in Pisa looking around the City Centre, Keith Haring's Tuttomundo and Arno River. Stayed in a room with two Queen sized beds, had a TV (didn't use), refrigerator, closet, reasonable sized bathroom. I really enjoyed the shower with three functions (shower head, waterfall and body). Comes with the following toiletries: shower cap, bar soap and shampoo. Beds were comfortable, AC worked well, towels soft and clean. I wasn't a fan of the bedding/blanket. Breakfast is from 7-9:30AM, consisting of croissants, little cookies, toast, some ham, juice, instant coffee maker, tea, cereal or muesli and fruit. Would recommend this place if you're just looking for a place to spend a day and looking to come back to something reasonably comfortable and clean. Decent hotel, convenient and pretty cheap- came out to about 38€ per person.

It started on the train ride out to the Tuscan town of Lucca. A few high school age teens boarded…read morein imaginative costumes. Arriving in Lucca, we encountered more people in costume and we still had no clue. It was early afternoon and rainy, and the costumed people were prevalent but not teeming throngs. That took a bit longer. We opted to walk the top of Lucca's medieval wall, a beautiful, flat stroll of under 3 miles and it was in the course of doing so that we realized what we'd come across: Day 2 of the 5-day Lucca Comix & Games festival, Europe's oldest and largest such comics and gaming festival, an event that attracted upwards of 250,000 people in 2016. The attraction of America's smaller equivalent, Comic-Con, has fully escaped me but here in this open-air fest where 98% of the fun is free of charge I suddenly got it. These people of all ages just wanted to dress up like (insert anything here) and have fun. Observing all of them and participating where possible is super fun too; a feast for the eyes. All over the wall and down below in the town, activities related to the festival take place: Booths with purchasable goods, make-up artists who'll give you the full zombie effect, live music, and experiences that emulate your favorite games. There's sites where full scale Call of Duty scenes are played out on a grand scale throughout the day. There's a Zombie March through town. There's a city bus outfitted with such remarkable special effects that, walking through it, you'll be certain some very terrible things took place on board (that's before the zombie chases you). There's even some fascinatingly odd game show where people who answer incorrectly are splattered with tomatoes before having to leap off a platform, dashing their hopes of winning. As a viewer, I found the whole experience to be remarkably fun. It livened up Lucca in a way that was inauthentic for an ancient city but for me it made the experience richer and more memorable. Arrive by train, walk along the wall, then invade the town and you'll suddenly become part of it all. As I waited on the train platform in early evening, for the ride back to Florence, a gentleman in full anime costume informed me that things truly get rich on the weekend. If I thought there were a lot of people there on a rainy Thursday, I'd be amazed at what happens come Saturday. Part of me wished I'd returned. With hundreds of stands, exhibitions, games, and reenactments spread out over the walled city along with thousands of cosplay participants, it might seem like this event is only for true fans. Nothing could be further from the truth. This event is for everyone of all ages to enjoy, including clueless spectators such as myself, who innocently stumble upon it and suddenly (finally?) understand it.

This hotel, was a great stopping point to enjoy Portofino! When all the hotels are booked up in…read morePortofino check out Helios, the pool was amazing in July. We enjoyed sitting outside and having a few drinks while watching the sunset. The customer service was fine but the hotel is very outdated, hence the 4 stars. I like to explain why I give less than 4 when I obviously enjoyed my stay. If this place had a slight remodel or even just some new paint on the walls, it'll be a hit! I mean, some people don't care what the inside of their hotel looks like but for me it was really dark and reminded me of The Shining. Regardless, amazing location and super close to the train. Nice stop before heading to Monaco as well. The beaches around the area in the summer was really lively, a lot of different activities. They have a number of amazing little mom and pop restaurants/bars you can check out. Water polo games in the ocean are a lot of fun to watch, talk about some strong swimming skills.