Owned by Carnival Corporation, Costa is Europe’s largest cruise line with a fleet of a dozen ships ranging in size from 25,000 to well over 100,000 tons. It is growing fast to meet the burgeoning European cruise market.
Fleet
The fleet varies widely from two smallish ships built fromthe hulls of container ships to some of the largest vessels afloat. The size ofthe newbuilds continues to increase.
Itineraries
Costa bases ships in the Caribbean in the late fall throughthe winter into spring, and its ships either cater to Europeans or to NorthAmericans and Europeans. In the summer, they cruise the Mediterranean with aEuropean majority. Here they compete with all the big mass market players on thesame repetitive itineraries at a good value price. Costa also bases ships in South America, the Persian Gulf and East Asia but North Americans rarely come aboard.
Dining and Decor
Nominally Italian, Costa employs Italian officers andItalian maitre d’hotels and offers Italian and Continental menus. The food ismass market fare. The smaller and older ships have a sleek European décor whilethe newest megaships have Carnival Corporation’s Joe Farcus design, colorfuland glitzy and loosely themed to Greek gods, Italian artists, legends and thelike, not unlike his Carnival Cruise Line creations.
Programs
There are lots of onboard activities but no special enrichmentprograms.
Onboard Experience
The largest cruise market is the Mediterranean where Costais the dominant player, and here the passengers are overwhelmingly Italian,Spanish and French with a small percentage of North American bookingindividually and more coming in groups. Announcements will invariably be infour languages, and maybe more. So the atmosphere is dominated by middle-classEuropeans, including Italians.
Competitors
Costa’s main competitor would be Mediterranean ShippingCruises, a huge Swiss-owned container firm that has rapidly been building newtonnage. MSC ships slightly edge out Costa for an Italian product.
