| Gross tonnage | 85,861 GT |
|---|---|
| Length | 292.56 m |
| Beam | 32.2 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 2680 |
| Service speed | 22.0 knots |
| Builder | Kvaerner Masa-Yards |
| Yard | Hietalahti shipyard |
| Hull number | 498 |
| Launched | 2000 |
| Maiden voyage | 2000 |
| Class | Spirit-class cruise ship |
| Operator | Margaritaville at Sea |
| Status | Active |
| All names | Margaritaville at Sea Islander; Costa Atlantica |
Overview
Margaritaville at Sea Islander began life as Costa Atlantica, the first of Costa Cruises' Spirit-class ships, delivered from Helsinki in 2000. For two decades she was one of the most distinctively decorated ships in the Costa fleet — a floating tribute to Italian cinema and Venetian café culture. Sold in 2019 to CSSC Carnival Cruise Shipping, the Chinese joint venture, she never entered service for that owner, a casualty of the pandemic pause in Asian cruising. Her second career came in 2024, when, after a transformation at Harland & Wolff in Belfast, she entered service for the small Florida line Margaritaville at Sea — the same hull wearing the laid-back tropical identity of Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville brand. Few ships illustrate the modern second-hand cruise market better: a sound, mid-sized hull passing from an Italian giant, through a Chinese venture that never used her, to an American niche brand.
Key specifications
As built, the ship measures 85,861 GT, 292.56 metres in length, with a hull beam of 32.2 metres (maximum breadth 38.8 metres). She carries 2,114 passengers at double occupancy in just over 1,050 cabins, rising to 2,680 at maximum capacity, and her service speed is 22 knots. She was built by Kvaerner Masa-Yards at Helsinki as hull number 498, on the Spirit-class platform developed within Carnival Corporation and shared between Costa and Carnival Cruise Line. A signature engineering feature of her Costa configuration was the magrodome-covered pool, allowing the main pool deck to be used in poor weather and widening the range of climates she could serve.
Design and construction
The Spirit class was Carnival Corporation's efficient, Panamax-sized platform of the late 1990s: a long, relatively narrow hull with a high proportion of balcony cabins and diesel-electric machinery. Costa's version, designed under architect Joe Farcus, clothed that American platform in Italian themes. Every passenger deck was named after a film by Federico Fellini, with deck signage carrying drawings by cartoonist Milo Manara; interiors used Carrara marble, Murano glass and inlaid mosaic. The centrepiece was a faithful reproduction of Venice's Caffè Florian, the 1720 coffee house on St Mark's Square, recreated in barocchetto style aboard a cruise ship. Costa Atlantica was the first of the type for Costa, followed by the near-sister Costa Mediterranea in 2003.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
The ship was launched at Helsinki in 2000 and delivered to Costa Cruises the same year. She was christened at Venice on 15 July 2000, an appropriately Italian setting for a ship decorated as a celebration of Italian art and cinema, and entered service that summer as Costa Atlantica. Her second naming came twenty-four years later: renamed Margaritaville at Sea Islander, she was christened for her new owners in June 2024 with Savannah Buffett, daughter of the late Jimmy Buffett, as godmother, and sailed her maiden voyage under the new name on 14 June 2024.
Career by operator
| Years | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 2000–2019 | Costa Atlantica | Costa Cruises |
| 2019–2023 | Costa Atlantica | CSSC Carnival Cruise Shipping (owner; never entered service) |
| 2024–present | Margaritaville at Sea Islander | Margaritaville at Sea |
Under Costa she spent nineteen years in the mainstream of the European fleet. Her 2019 sale to CSSC Carnival was part of Carnival Corporation's plan to seed the Chinese market with transferred tonnage, but the pandemic intervened and she never sailed for the venture. Margaritaville at Sea acquired her in 2023 and put her through the refit that produced her present identity.
Onboard character
Two distinct characters have occupied this hull. As Costa Atlantica she was the "Italian ship": Fellini deck names, a ten-deck atrium with Murano-glass chandeliers and frescoed scenes of Pompeii, the Paparazzi Lounge hung with Tazio Secchiaroli's photographs of 1950s and 1960s film stars, and the Caffè Florian replica as her social heart. As Islander, the 2024 refit re-skinned the same bones in Margaritaville tropical colours — palm trees and parrots on the hull, a three-storey poolside LandShark bar, a Flip Flop Atrium — replacing Venetian café culture with the beach-bar mythology of Jimmy Buffett. The architecture underneath, Farcus's atrium and the Spirit-class layout, survives both skins.
Major refits and incidents
The defining refit is the 2024 conversion. The ship arrived at Harland & Wolff, Belfast, in January 2024 for wet-dock work, entered dry dock on 12 March 2024, and left Belfast on 19 May 2024 with all staterooms and public spaces rebuilt in the Margaritaville theme, finishing touches applied during the Atlantic crossing. Earlier, as Costa Atlantica, she had received the periodic hotel refits normal for a Costa front-line ship, including the addition of wellness suites and Samsara spa facilities in the line's mid-2000s configuration of the class. No major casualties or groundings are recorded for this hull in the sources used for this guide.
Sister ships and class
The Spirit class spans two brands: Carnival Cruise Line's Carnival Spirit, Carnival Pride, Carnival Legend and Carnival Miracle, and Costa's Costa Atlantica and Costa Mediterranea. All six share the Helsinki-built platform — a notably long-lived design, every member of which remains in service in some brand more than two decades after launch.
Fate and where she is now
The ship is in active service as Margaritaville at Sea Islander, the second and larger ship of Margaritaville at Sea, having found a third owner and a second name a quarter-century after her Venetian christening.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaritaville_at_Sea_Islander, https://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/CostaAtlantica-stands-out-as-Italian-flavored-work-of-art, https://www.margaritavilleatsea.com/savannah-buffett-named-godmother-of-margaritaville-at-sea-islander