AIDAsol

Overview

AIDAsol is the fifth ship of AIDA Cruises' Sphinx series and one of the enlarged second group of the class, built by Meyer Werft at Papenburg and delivered in 2011. She is not a lead ship and has no renamings or transfers behind her; her significance is as a mature statement of the AIDA formula — the German-language club-ship concept, the Theatrium at her centre, an onboard brewery and a large wellness complex — built at the point where the Sphinx design had grown from about 69,000 GT to more than 71,000 GT. She remains in service for the operator she was built for, under the name she was launched with.

Key specifications

The dataset records 71,304 GT, a length of 253.33 m, a waterline beam of 32.2 m (37.6 m maximum) and a speed of 21.8 knots. Her reference article gives a passenger capacity of 2,192; contemporary shipyard and trade sources quote about 2,198 at double occupancy and up to 2,500 maximum, with a crew of roughly 600–646. Power is from four Caterpillar MaK 9M43C diesels totalling 36,000 kW in a diesel-electric arrangement, as in her sisters. Draught is about 7.3 m.

Design and construction

AIDAsol was ordered on 13 December 2007, together with a further sister (which became AIDAmar), as part of the Carnival Corporation order that extended the Sphinx programme. The order also confirmed the enlargement of the design begun with AIDAblu: an extra deck, tonnage raised to about 71,000 GT and capacity to about 2,174–2,198 passengers. Built as Meyer Werft hull 689 — she was known during construction as "Sphinx V" before receiving her name on 6 November 2009 — her keel was laid in October 2008 and she was floated out on 27 February 2011. In March 2011 she made the River Ems conveyance from Papenburg to Emden, and she was delivered on 31 March 2011. Meyer Werft identifies her as the first AIDA ship able to take shore power in port and largely shut down her generators alongside — an early step in the fleet's cold-ironing programme.

Naming, launch and maiden voyage

The ship was floated out at Papenburg on 27 February 2011 and christened at Kiel on 9 April 2011. She entered service that month, in April 2011 — the dataset records 2011 for both launch and maiden voyage — opening her career on Northern European itineraries from German ports, the home market the entire Sphinx programme was built to serve.

Career by operator

As with her sisters, legal ownership rested with Carnival's Costa Crociere until 2023 and then with Carnival Corporation & plc, while operation, marketing and the ship's Italian flag and Genoa registry have been constants of the AIDA arrangement. There have been no charters to other brands, no renamings and no changes of operator: her career is a single line, spent on the line's European programmes — Northern Europe and the Baltic in season, the Mediterranean and Atlantic islands beyond it. Those are historical deployment patterns only.

Onboard character

AIDAsol repeats the layout language of the enlarged Sphinx ships. At her centre is the Theatrium, the three-deck glass-walled fusion of atrium and theatre that AIDA introduced on AIDAdiva. The enlarged hull allowed the wellness offer to grow: a Body & Soul spa of about 2,300 m² (some sources quote up to 2,600 m² for the enlarged design), and the class's additional deck was worked into the public-room plan. The ship also carries the onboard brewery introduced on AIDAblu — a working Brauhaus brewing unfiltered beer at sea, which became a signature AIDA talking point of this generation. Dining follows the club model: buffet restaurants at the centre, a small number of à la carte and speciality venues around them, and no formal dress code anywhere.

Major refits and incidents

The ship has been kept current through periodic dry dockings and hotel refurbishments across her service life; a refurbishment in 2023 was reported in trade coverage of the fleet. No fire, grounding, collision or comparable casualty is recorded for this hull in the sources consulted. Like the rest of the AIDA fleet she was laid up during the COVID-19 shutdown of cruising in 2020–21 and returned to service as the German market reopened — an interruption of programme, not an incident of the ship herself.

Sister ships and class

The Sphinx series comprises seven Meyer Werft ships for AIDA: AIDAdiva (2007), AIDAbella (2008) and AIDAluna (2009) to the original design, then the enlarged group — AIDAblu (2010), AIDAsol (2011), AIDAmar (2012) and AIDAstella (2013). AIDAsol and AIDAmar, ordered together in December 2007, are the closest pair in the class, near-identical twins at 71,304 GT. All seven ships remain with AIDA under their original names.

Fate and where she is now

The dataset lists AIDAsol as active and operating for AIDA Cruises, under her original name and with her original operator — the standard, uneventful record of a Sphinx-class ship in mid-career. She is a Phase 1 (active fleet) page in this directory, and nothing in her record to date points to a sale, transfer or renaming.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships; AIDAsol, Wikipedia (ship article); Ship Technology, "AIDAsol Cruise Ship"; Castles of the Seas, AIDAsol construction and naming notes; Meyer Werft delivery reporting (2011).