She left the group without changing a single deck
The Costa Mediterranea no longer sails for Costa. Completed in May 2003, 292
metres, 1057 cabins, she made her maiden voyage from Genoa in June 2003 and
served the line until 2021.
Her history since has something instructive about it. Transferred in 2021 to
a Chinese joint venture of the same group, she first lost her prefix, then was
renamed a second time in July 2024. In between, the group sold its stake in
that joint venture in 2023. The ship therefore left the group entirely, without
changing hull, deck or even crew: it is the ownership around her that
moved.
Where she is today
She sails exclusively for a Chinese clientele, out of Nansha, after an
initial home port further north. It is an entirely different market, with short
itineraries and an operation that has nothing in common with the Mediterranean
of her first twenty years.
This page sells nothing. It says where the hull is and under what name,
because pages published elsewhere still describe her as a Costa ship.
The ships Costa still operates
The Costa Smeralda and the Costa Toscana run on liquefied natural gas. The Costa Pacifica and the Costa Fascinosa share the
fleet's most common class.
The line, and what happened to it
Sixteen ships in 2019, eight today. Half the fleet left in six years: sold to
American, Chinese or British companies, transferred to other brands of the same
group, or cut up in a Turkish demolition yard. Of our seventeen Costa pages,
nine describe a ship the line no longer operates.
Costa was born in Genoa in 1854, in the olive oil trade. It has run ships
since 1924 and carried passengers since 1947. An American group took half of it
in 1997 and all of it in 2000. It is today one of the nine cruise brands in
that group, and its position there has weakened.
The wreck of 13 January 2012 off the island of Giglio killed 33 of the 4252
people aboard, including a diver killed during the salvage. The captain was
sentenced to sixteen years. It is from that wreck that the muster drill before
sailing comes, on every cruise ship in the world.
Leaving from Quebec
Air travel is booked separately. From Montreal, Rome, Barcelona and Athens
are reached non-stop for part of the year; Savona, Genoa, Kiel, Hamburg and the
Caribbean ports need a connection. A hotel night before embarkation is not a
luxury, it is the margin that absorbs a delayed bag.
On recourse, the situation deserves saying clearly. The carrier is Italian,
the contract provides for Italian law, and the competent courts are those of
Genoa, to the exclusion of all others. The contract also invokes the Athens
Convention, which caps liability for personal injury. This is not particular to
this line: most European cruise operators have equivalent clauses.
Nothing establishes a Quebec licence in the line's name. Voyages AquaTerra
holds that licence: trust account, Compensation Fund for Customers of Travel
Agents, and one file for flight, cruise, hotel and insurance.
