Key Aspects:
- Costa Cruises has implemented an unusual rule, in which guests are not allowed to remove food from the buffets or onboard restaurants.
- If guests break this rule, they could be hit with a €60 (or $70 USD) cleaning fee.
- Room service is still available, but meals must be delivered and retrieved by trained crew members.
Cruise Hive has seen plenty of guests complain about dirty dishes being left all over their ships, and apparently, Costa Cruises isn’t a fan of this either.
The cruise line is cracking down on removing food from the buffets and other restaurants onboard due to cleanliness concerns. Guests who try to dine outside of designated areas could be slapped with a €60 (about $70 USD) fee.
“For reasons of health and hygiene, we wish to inform you that it is strictly forbidden to take food from the buffet areas and restaurants for consumption in the public areas of the ship, the pool zones, in cabins, or in other interior areas,” Costa Cruises wrote in a translated letter, which is circulating on social media.
“Please note that failure to comply with this regulation may result in a charge of €60 for cleaning operations,” the letter continued.
The purpose of this unusual policy is to help avoid potential food contamination, maintain high cleanliness standards onboard, and to prevent issues with potential pests.
For the record, Costa Cruises is not known to have significant cleanliness or sanitation issues. The ships in the fleet that operate in US ports routinely score highly in inspections from the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program.
Room Service Gets Stricter
Costa Cruises will continue to offer 24-hour room service, though additional charges may apply for using this service. Per the Costa Cruises website, room service is only included for guests staying in suites and premium cabins.
To get around this, some guests like to grab their own food at the buffet and then bring it into their cabins to eat in peace and quiet or enjoy the views from their balconies.
But under the new policy, this will not be allowed and is a finable offense. Only trained crew members will be permitted to deliver and retrieve room service meals.
“Only Room Service staff, appropriately trained on hygiene-sanitary procedures, are authorized to transport and deliver food to guests’ cabins, upon request of the service,” Costa Cruises confirmed.
This is in stark contrast to policies like the one in place from Carnival Cruise Line, where guests can order room service and/or pick up their own snacks and are instructed to leave their plates and cutlery outside their doors when they are done.
For both cruise lines, room stewards regularly walk the corridors to pick up trash or used cutlery so the remnants of passenger meals aren’t just sitting out for hours.
Cruise Guests React
Essentially any time a cruise line implements a new rule or cracks down on a behavior, it’s going to be met with a mixed response.
Some cruise guests have welcomed the policy with open arms, saying that passengers have lost the privilege of taking their food on the road because of their own unhygienic behaviors.
“It was time… I’ve seen people leave their garbage on the stairs. I think it’s right, especially on the Adriatic mini cruises, vandals rise. Let’s hope someone checks seriously…” one cruise fan reacted.
Others didn’t like the idea because room service comes with a charge and the buffet wouldn’t stay open 24/7 as a free alternative. They liked the reassurance of being able to take snacks to go if they got hungry later and some needed access to food for certain medical conditions.
“I think it’s an inappropriate measure !!!! In that case the buffet should always stay open like at MSC!!!!,” another cruiser exclaimed.
Additional concerns about not being able to find seating in the buffet during peak dining hours bubbled to the surface as well.
Also interesting, the Carnival-owned brand is the only cruise line under the Carnival Corporation that is known to enforce this policy as of the time of this publication.
Sister companies like Carnival Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, and Holland America Line still seem to allow more flexibility on where guests choose to eat, though it’s possible that this policy could be rolled out to more brands in the future.
