Cruise News - Maritime News

Costa Cruises, a part of Carnival Corporation & plc officially took delivery of the new Costa Firenze ship from Fincantieri, designed and built in the Marghera shipyard and inspired by the Florentine Renaissance.

The event has taken place in full digital mode.

With 135,500 gross tonnage and a capacity of more than 5,200 guests, the Costa Firenze is part of the development plan that includes seven new ships to be delivered for the Costa Group by 2023, for a total investment of more than €6 billion. 

Costa Firenze is the fourth of these new ships to be delivered with three more to come.

Of the 14 ships currently operating in the Costa Cruises fleet, 11 were built by Fincantieri, confirming the solid relationship between the two companies, as well as representing a significant contribution to the Italian economy, including guaranteeing work for thousands of employees in the shipyards and external companies, mainly involved in interiors fittings.

The Costa Firenze project also takes sustainability in special regard.

Costa Firenze's excellent environmental performance has been acknowledged by RINA, an international certification organization, with Green Star 3, a voluntary notation covering all the main aspects of a ship's environmental impact and requiring maximum protection and prevention across areas such as waste, grey water, black water, machinery oil, CO2, ozone, greenhouse gases, particulate matter, sulphur oxides, nitrogen and ballast water, among others. In addition to honoring compliance with a series of environmental sustainability standards, the certification also recognizes the design solutions and operating procedures that Costa has implemented voluntarily, both during construction and navigation, aimed at outperforming the environmental protection requirements of international regulations.

The ship will first sail in the Mediterranean in 2021, providing two different week-long itineraries in the western Mediterranean. The first itinerary, available from Feb. 28, 2021, includes the Italian destinations of Genoa, La Spezia – with excursions also departing to Florence – and Naples, as well as Valencia, Barcelona and Marseille. The second itinerary, available from May to October 2021, includes Genoa and Civitavecchia, with excursions to Rome, as well as Naples, Ibiza, Barcelona and Marseille. After October 2021, the ship will move to Asia to join her sister ship Costa Venezia, also built by Fincantieri, in the Monfalcone shipyard, and in operation since March 2019.