Finland’s Meyer Turku yard has floated out the second LNG-powered cruise ship for Carnival Corporation’s Costa Cruises.
The yard held a virtual launching ceremony for the 185,000 GT Costa Toscana on Friday.
The newbuild is a sister vessel to Costa Smeralda that joined the Italian brand of Carnival in 2019.
To remind, Meyer Turku started work on LNG-powered Costa Toscana last year with a steel cutting ceremony in July 2019.
During the float-out ceremony on Friday, Costa Toscana officially touched the sea for the first time, with the flooding of the basin where she has been built in recent months.
The vessel will enter service in December 2021, once the interior fittings have been completed. It will make its debut in Brazil in the 2021-22 season.
Costa Group, which includes Costa Cruises, Germany-based AIDA Cruises and Costa Asia, has ordered five new LNG-powered ships. Two of these, Costa Smeralda and AIDAnova, are already in operation.
The vessels are part of an expansion plan that includes seven new ships scheduled for delivery to Costa Group by 2023, for a total investment of more than six billion euros ($7.27 billion).
