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Costa eyes 40% capacity spike by 2021

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Costa Venezia and a sister ship are designated for China
With four newbuilds coming between 2019 and 2021, Costa Cruises will be increasing capacity by 40%. Two of those ships are for China.

At Fincantieri's Marghera shipyard, construction has begun on the second China ship, the sister of Costa Venezia. That 135,500gt newbuild is scheduled for 2020 delivery.

Next year Costa Venezia and Costa Smeralda will be delivered, Costa Fortuna will return to Europe and Costa neoRiviera will be handed over to AIDA Cruises to sail as AIDAmira.

Costa Venezia is under construction at Fincantieri's Monfalcone yard and due for delivery in February 2019, Costa Smeralda, the world's first cruise ship fully powered by LNG, is being built at Meyer Turku in Finland for 2020 delivery. A sister to Costa Smeralda will follow from Meyer Turku in 2021.

The net result is that Costa's fleet will increase from 14 ships now to 17 in 2021.

Fortuna and Victoria back to the Med from Asia

Making way for the new ships, Costa Fortuna—currently deployed in Asia—will return to the Mediterranean in March 2019. As earlier reported, it will sail weeklong cruises from Genoa. At the end of 2019, Costa neoRiviera will transfer to AIDA Cruises.

Victoria has new tapas and paella bar

In addition, Costa Victoria—which previously sailed in China—has been operating regularly in the Mediterranean since the end of March, having undergone an €11m renovation in Marseille. The majority of the work was focused on the cabins and public areas, with a new tapas and paella bar created. Next summer the ship will operate a new itinerary focused on the beaches and entertainment of the Balearic Islands and Spain.