Costa Victoria is ready for her last trip to Aliaga

Last June Costa Cruises had declared: “We confirm that the ownership of  Costa Victoria  has  been transferred to a subsidiary of the Genoese company San Giorgio del Porto.  Costa will notify guests who have booked upcoming Costa Victoria cruises. Interested guests will receive adequate compensation based on the legal situation currently in force ”.

Victoria, as the great scholar of ships and shipyards Matteo Martinuzzi explains , was the last ship in the fleet conceived before Costa joined the Carnival group. 

The Costa neoRomantica (born in 1993) would also be older, but the latter underwent an intensive refit in 2012 which distorted its original appearance. The ship was built by the German shipyard Bremer Vulkan which failed during the order,  so much so that its sister ship Costa Olympia was never completed with Costa colors. The incomplete hull of the latter was then purchased by Norwegian Cruise Line which completed it as Norwegian Sky in 1999.

With 75,166 gross tonnage, when it entered service it was already a bit outdated as it was completely devoid of balcony cabins, while the contemporary  Carnival Destiny , built by Fincantieri in Monfalcone, already had three and a half decks. This flaw, Martinuzzi recalls, was resolved in 2004 when two bridges almost complete with balconies were installed. But “Victoria” was also a ship on a human scale with  a beautiful Pompeian swimming pool and valuable works of art such as the mosaics by Emilio Tadini.