Costa Cruises, the Italian company of Carnival Corporation, and Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri, recently celebrated the official float-out ceremony of Costa Firenze, the cruise liner’s second ship designed and built specifically for the Asian market.
The ceremony was held at the Fincantieri shipyard in Marghera, Italy, where the ship is being built. After her delivery scheduled on September 30, 2020, Costa Firenze will be heading to Singapore to offer cruises to Asian customers.
Costa Firenze is the sister ship of Costa Venezia, built by Fincantieri at the Monfalcone shipyard and launched in Trieste on March 1 this year.
Like her sister ship Costa Venezia, Costa Firenze will offer a series of innovations designed specifically for the Asian market.
With a gross tonnage of 135,500 tons, 323m in length and a capacity for over 5,200 guests, Costa Firenze and Costa Venezia are the biggest ships introduced by Costa to the Asian market. They are part of an expansion plan that includes a total of seven ships being delivered to the Costa Group by 2023, for a total investment of over 6 billion euros (US$6.6 billion).
Costa Firenze officially reached the sea for the first time during the float-out ceremony. The celebration followed the protocol provided by the seafaring tradition for such occasions, by flooding the basin where the ship took shape in recent months, following the cutting of the ribbon and the breaking of the bottle by the float-out ceremony’s godmother Franca Pierobon, an employee of Marghera shipyard.
