Costa Deliziosa

Overview

Costa Deliziosa is a cruise ship operated by Costa Cruises (Costa Crociere), the Italian brand of Carnival Corporation. Ordered in 2007 as part of a five-ship expansion of the Costa fleet, she was built by Fincantieri at Marghera, Venice, launched in 2009 and handed over in January 2010. She is the second of Costa's two Luminosa-class ships — a hybrid design between the Spirit and Vista classes — built deliberately smaller than the line's Concordia-class flagships and to Panamax dimensions, so that she can transit the original locks of the Panama Canal.

That flexibility shaped her career: Deliziosa became Costa's first ship to operate a world cruise, in 2011, and the class's all-ocean capability has made the pair the line's long-voyage specialists. She has carried one name and one operator throughout.

Key specifications

The dataset records Costa Deliziosa at 92,720 GT and 294.0 m in length, with a beam of 32.25 m; her article gives a beam of 32.3 m. The dataset leaves her capacity and speed blank; her published figures are 2,260 passengers at double occupancy and 2,828 maximum, with a maximum speed of 23.6 knots and a cruising speed of about 21.6 knots. She has 16 decks, 12 of them for passengers. Her machinery is a MaK/Caterpillar diesel-electric plant of about 35.2 MW. Her build cost was about €450 million.

Design and construction

Deliziosa was built by Fincantieri as hull number 6164 — recorded in the dataset as "Venezia 6164" — at the Marghera yard in Venice. Unusually, her keel and first section were built at Fincantieri's Ancona yard and towed to Marghera for completion in July 2008. The Luminosa-class design hybridises two Carnival Corporation platforms: the Spirit-class hull form used by Carnival and Costa's Atlantica class, and the Vista-class general arrangement developed for Holland America Line. The result is a Panamax ship of moderate size by modern standards, with the tiered aft decks and extensive balcony accommodation of the Vista lineage.

Naming, launch and maiden voyage

The ship was launched on 12 March 2009 — the dataset records 2010, her delivery year — and was handed over at the end of January 2010. Her maiden voyage began on 5 February 2010 from Savona, and it was during that inaugural cruise that she was christened, on 23 February 2010 at Port Rashid, Dubai — among the first cruise-ship namings held in the Middle East, coinciding with the opening of Port Rashid's cruise terminal. Because the ceremony took place in a Muslim country, a bottle of juice replaced the traditional champagne; her godmother is named in some listings as Tala Dionisi.

Career by operator

She flies the Italian flag, registered at Genoa. Her career distinction is long-haul work: in 2011 she operated Costa's first around-the-world cruise, a voyage of about 100 days from Savona visiting 37 ports, establishing the role her size and canal capability suited her for. Otherwise her service has followed Costa's standard pattern of seasonal deployment centred on the Mediterranean and Northern Europe — Copenhagen served as a summer homeport in her early seasons — including a first call at Port Everglades, Florida, in December 2015. Costa described her at delivery as a fleet flagship, a status her world-cruise role reinforced: the annual long voyage became her signature assignment within the fleet, the task for which her Panamax beam and moderate passenger count were designed.

Onboard character

Deliziosa's interiors were designed by Carnival Corporation's long-time architect Joseph Farcus around art and architecture: the atrium is organised around a bronze sphere sculpture by Arnaldo Pomodoro, warm wood finishes, and a collection reported at 340 original artworks and 4,760 prints displayed through the ship. The character is the developed Costa style of the period — Italian-referencing, contemporary rather than themed, and arranged on a more intimate scale than the line's bigger Concordia-class ships, with the Samsara spa concept and tiered, light-filled aft decks that the Vista-derived arrangement provides.

Major refits and incidents

Her record is quiet. The one firmly documented incident came early: on 21 May 2011, at Bergen, Norway, high winds broke her from her moorings and she scraped along the pierside for some 50 metres; there was no significant damage and no one was hurt, and remaining passengers were tendered aboard for safety rather than using the gangway. She is recorded as having been refurbished in 2018. No fire, grounding or collision with another vessel attaches to her career.

Sister ships and class

Her only sister is Costa Luminosa (2009), the lead ship of the Luminosa class; the pair are near-identical hybrid Spirit/Vista designs. Luminosa left Costa in 2022 to become Carnival Luminosa for Carnival Cruise Line, leaving Deliziosa as the class's sole Costa representative.

Fate and where she is now

Costa Deliziosa remains in active service with Costa Cruises under her original name, the smaller, canal-capable half of a two-ship class now split between two brands of the same group.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Deliziosa