Costa Cruises has said that it will build two new cruise ships (rendered above) as part of Carnival Corporation’s previously announced nine vessel order. Costa’s two will be included in the four next generation ships allocated for construction by Meyer Werft. Plus, the line has partnered up with Michelin-star chef Fabio Cucchelli for a new culinary program.
Costa’s two new ships will be 180,000 gross tons in size and carry 6,600 passengers, the largest guest capacity in the world. Along with two other ships for AIDA Cruises, the environmentally-friendly vessels will be the first ever LNG (liquefied natural gas) powered cruise ships. They will be built at Meyer Werft’s shipyard in Turku, Finland and launch in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
“The two Costa ships are a real innovation for the market, setting new standards for the whole industry: they will be the first green ships powered with LNG and they will offer an extensive number of guest-friendly features,” said Neil Palomba, president of Costa Cruises. “Furthermore they will be the expression of the new positioning Italy’s finest. The order also confirms the Costa brand will continue to grow, becoming even stronger and continue generating a positive economic impact in the main countries where it operates, including Italy.”
What’s more, Costa has updated its lunch and dinner offerings with the help of Chef Fabio Cucchelli and a new group of corporate chefs. The new cuisine is more authentically Italian and features 14 regional lunch and dinner menus and 252 total new dishes. When ships call in Italian ports, there will be additional regional cuisine highlighted like Genoese burrida soup with cuttlefish and fine peas in Savona.
Costa says, “new regional offerings include a fillet of spatola (silver scabbardfish in English) with bread and raisins, served with Sicilian caponata and sweet and sour red onion (from the Sicily region); Gricia-style rigatoni pasta with jowl bacon and Roman Pecorino cheese cream (from the Lazio region); and golden fried breaded pork cordon bleu with potato croquettes and grilled tomato (from the Friuli region).”
Stay tuned for more information about the new cruise ships. In the meantime, visit Costa Cruises‘ website here.
HEADER IMAGE SOURCE: COSTA CRUISES
Comments