Fascinosa Looks Fab

At last, some good news for beleaguered Costa Cruises - the Costa Fascinosa, the largest Italian-flagged cruise ship, has entered service for the big Italian-based line in Venice to a significant fanfare and positive reviews.

Costa's new flagship weighs in at 114,500 tons and carries 3,800 guests and was delivered by the big Fincantieri shipyard in Venice on May 5. She is the joint-largest Italian-flagged cruise ship, together with her sister Costa Favolosa.

The company, which is still dealing with the loss of Costa Concordia in February, has invested a total of €510 million in the newcomer, with the construction process in Fincantieri’s Marghera shipyard involving the labour of around 3,000 yard workers plus a further 7,000 contractors.

After a successful maiden voyage, Fascinosa will spend the rest of the 2012 summer season (until the end of November) operating on seven-day cruises from Venice and Bari to Greece and Croatia. In winter, she will transfer transatlantic for South America cruises to Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. Then, in summer 2013, she will be back in the Eastern Mediterranean on one-week holidays to Greece and Turkey, with departures from Venice and Bari. 

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