| IMO | 9239783 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 102,669 GT |
| Length | 272.2 m |
| Beam | 35.5 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 3470 |
| Service speed | 23 knots |
| Builder | Fincantieri |
| Yard | Fincantieri |
| Hull number | 6086 |
| Launched | 2003 |
| Maiden voyage | 2003 |
| Class | Fortuna-class cruise ship |
| Operator | Margaritaville at Sea |
| Status | Active |
| All names | Margaritaville at Sea Beachcomber; Costa Fortuna |
Overview
Costa Fortuna was Costa Cruises' first ship of more than 100,000 tons and the vessel that carried the Italian line's nostalgic, liner-themed identity into the megaship era. Built by Fincantieri at Sestri Ponente, Genoa, and delivered in 2003 on the platform of Carnival's Destiny class, she was designed as a floating museum of Italian transatlantic history: her public rooms took the names and dates of great Italian liners, and her atrium displayed models of the Costa fleet — all 26 of them, up to and including herself — mounted upside down on the ceiling.
For more than twenty years she was a Mediterranean and long-haul mainstay of the Costa fleet, and for much of that time its oldest large ship. The dataset lists her simply as operating for Costa, which was accurate for the whole period the roster describes; reporting in 2025–26 of a sale and a future career as Margaritaville at Sea Beachcomber from 2026 is noted in the fate section below, as the documented next chapter rather than the current one.
Key specifications
The dataset gives 102,669 GT, 272.2 metres length, 35.5 metres beam, 3,470 passengers maximum and Fincantieri hull 6086. Wikipedia agrees: 102,669 GT, 272.19 metres, 35.54 metres beam, 2,702 passengers at double occupancy and 3,470 maximum, with a crew of about 1,090 across 13 decks. No speed is given in the dataset; published figures give about 20 knots in service and 23 knots maximum from an installed power of 63,360 kW driving two azimuthing pods.
She is a Destiny-platform ship: the hull and general arrangement pioneered by Carnival Destiny in 1996, the first cruise ship to exceed 100,000 GT, adapted for Costa with a taller superstructure treatment, Italian interior architecture and a larger spa and show-lounge provision than the Carnival originals. Her space ratio, around 30 GT per passenger at full capacity, places her firmly in the big-ship mainstream of her decade.
Design and construction
Fincantieri built her at Sestri Ponente — the Genoa yard that had produced some of Italy's most famous liners, a continuity Costa deliberately emphasised in the ship's concept. She was launched and completed in 2003, christened on 31 October 2003 by Italian actress Maria Grazia Cucinotta, and entered service in November 2003, with her maiden voyage dated 25 November 2003 in the ship's article; the dataset records only the year.
The design brief was homage. Where Carnival's Destiny ships were themed as floating resorts, Fortuna was themed as a liner archive: room names carried liner names and launch years — Conte di Savoia 1932, Leonardo da Vinci 1960, Michelangelo and Raffaello 1965 — vintage posters and Art Deco detailing ran through the public spaces, and the atrium's ceiling of inverted fleet models became her best-known visual signature. It was an early and unusually literal example of a cruise brand merchandising its own maritime heritage.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
Fortuna — fortune, luck — is a classical Costa name with Roman resonance, and an apt one for a ship whose décor celebrates chance, migration and the great gamble of the transatlantic trade. She kept the name unchanged for her entire Costa career, more than two decades — stability that makes her announced renaming on transfer, to Margaritaville at Sea Beachcomber, a genuinely new chapter rather than a rebranding exercise.
Career by operator
Her Costa career ran from November 2003, built around Mediterranean programmes with long-haul seasons including South America and Asia in various years, and a significant 2018 refurbishment (below). In May 2025 Costa confirmed the ship — by then the fleet's oldest — would leave in September 2026, and the ship's article records her sale to Paradise Cruise Line Operator for Margaritaville at Sea service from 2026, with registry moving from Genoa to Madeira. Because this directory's dataset is frozen with Costa as operator and "Operating" as her fate, the guide presents the transfer as documented future disposition, flagged here and in the fate section.
| Name | Operator | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Costa Fortuna | Costa Cruises | 2003–2026 |
| Margaritaville at Sea Beachcomber | Margaritaville at Sea | From 2026 (announced) |
Onboard character
The character is archival Italianità. The Grand Bar and atrium staged the fleet's history overhead; the twin main dining rooms, Michelangelo 1965 and Raffaello 1965, took their names and styling from the last great Italian transatlantic liners; lounges referenced the Conte Rosso of 1921 and the Leonardo da Vinci of 1960. Dining, entertainment and décor all leaned Italian — pasta, opera excerpts, espresso culture — at a scale Carnival's American ships never attempted.
Later refits modernised the formula — interactive kiosks, refreshed buffet and bar concepts, and in places coloured panels replaced the original model displays — but the liner-name framework survived, which is why she remained recognisable to past passengers across twenty years of service.
Major refits and incidents
Her principal documented refit was in 2018, a significant refurbishment that refreshed cabins, dining and public areas mid-career and underwrote her final Costa years. No major casualty — no fire, grounding or collision of record — marks her history; her incident file is notable mainly for its emptiness across more than two decades of intensive service, a record shared with most of the Fincantieri-built Costa fleet.
Sister ships and class
The dataset classes her as Destiny class, which is the platform truth; Wikipedia refines it to a Fortuna class for Costa's adapted pair, Costa Fortuna and Costa Magica (2004). Her platform sisters in the wider Destiny/Triumph family include Carnival Destiny (now Carnival Sunshine), Carnival Triumph, Carnival Victory and Costa's own Magica. The distinction is worth keeping: same hull DNA, different ships in décor, layout and national character.
Fate and where she is now
As frozen in the dataset, Costa Fortuna is an active Costa ship, and that remained true through the period the roster describes. The documented disposition — sale out of the Costa fleet in September 2026 and a new career as Margaritaville at Sea Beachcomber — is recorded here from the ship's Wikipedia article so that readers understand the transfer as announced fact, while the spec box and career table preserve the dataset's Costa-era identity as her primary record.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Fortuna