Two U.S. cities will soon become homeports for two of Costa’s Italian-flavored cruise ships. Costa Firenze and Costa Venezia will operate as part of Carnival’s fleet, but will keep their Costa branding and Italian ‘look and feel’ and will be marketed as ‘Costa by Carnival.’
The ships are sister ships of Carnival’s Vista, Horizon and Panorama, and can carry over five thousand guests each. Venezia will sail from New York starting in 2023 and Firenze will show up in Long Beach, California in 2024. The Costa brand is one of several operated under the Carnival umbrella.
Unlike the two Costa by Carnival ships, a third vessel, Costa Luminosa, will make a complete transition to Carnival Luminosa and be completely refitted to operate Carnival cruises from Australia and Alaska. Presumably, during its extensive drydock time it will get a Carnival ‘whale-tail’ funnel as well.
A likely impetus behind the shifts is that cruise demand has recovered more strongly in North America than in Europe, leaving Costa with excess capacity, especially since it used to operate several of its ships from now-closed-to-cruises Chinese ports.
Carnival’s soon-to-retire CEO Arnold Donald told financial analysts that the move is “part of a right-sizing of Costa for what we see as a European environment which is complicated not only by COVID and macroeconomic conditions [but] … the invasion of Ukraine… So we’re reallocating to brands that have stronger demand, that are in a stronger position. That’s one of the beautiful things — our assets are mobile.”
