Never been on Copsta. Try www.cruisecritic.com for extensive passenger reviews.

Costa is a lovely cruise lines however jsut be warned that there will be lot of Italians onboard, so expect mostly Italian food, announcements in at least 5 different languages. Have a read of all the cruise reviews at http://www.Cruise.co.uk.

My husband and I took a 12 day cruise on the Magica April 2010. It also was an Eastern Med. cruise with stops in Greece (3 ports), Egypt, Ephesus, Cyprus and starting and stopping in Italy. Just keep in mind the ships of Costa are Italian and most places are not smoke free. We didn't have a problem in our room that had a balcony but our daughter and husband across the hall had the smell of smoke in their cabin all the time. The food was good aboard the ship but the best food we had was at the hotels we stopped at for lunch on our excursions.
I wouldn't wait until you're onboard to book trips because some of the ones that were popular were sold out for those who waited. We had our travel agent book ours ahead of time and got what we wanted. If you can my suggestion is on the day of the excursions to get at the front of the crowd so you can be on the bus first or close to it. That way you can sit up front and not only have a better view, but better access to the tour guides who we found were all good at answering questions.
Our bed was extremely firm and so I suffered and stayed pretty tired all the time, but no one else seemed to be bothered by it. I suggest if you have back or leg problems you take plenty of Tylenol or ibuprofen with you.
We enjoyed the breakfast buffet instead of a sit down meal and were never not satisfied. We bought the coffee coupons and so were able to enjoy some good expressos and cappuccinos. Otherwise the coffee was terrible. We also bought wine coupons and they're a variety of options but in the long run we think it was a savings.
We took in some of the late evening entertainment on board and it was good, but just so late for us. I suggest booking the earlier dinner and then take in the show if you want to since the late seating people always had to wait until we all left the dinning room, but the advantage I guess for them is they got to watch the shows first if they wanted to.
I hope you have a wonderful time. We still look at our pictures and remember how beautiful it was.

thanks everybody. I'll be ok with it being Italian - I did look at the cruisecritic.com advise. Do I need to bring any dressy outfits for dinners/evening??

We had 3 separate formal dinners aboard our 12 day cruise. You should get a "plan of the day" paper on your bed upon arriving back to your cabin each afternoon and there will be one upon arrival the first day as well. It will list the preferred dress for the dinners. I really loved that part of the cruise, when we got to dress up. Not everyone chose to dress up and that's ok as well. It takes all kinds to make the world go round…….just have another glass of wine and enjoy!