Costa Deliziosa is a 92,600 ton ship with a total of 2,862 berths. Built by Fincantieri in Marghera, it was delivered at the end of January to the Italian company Costa Crociere. Costa Deliziosa is a worldwide symbol of Italian craftsmanship and together with Costa Luminosa, represents the crème de la crème of the company’s product range. It is also a feather in the cap for Italian naval shipbuilding generally. The creation of Costa Deliozosa employed a total of three thousand staff – 2,500 Fincantieri employees and around 500 workers from companies in related industries – amounting to a total investment of 450 million Euros. On 23^rd February in Dubai, it will be the first cruise ship to be inaugurated in an Arab country.

“This splendid ship – said Giuseppe Bono, Chief Executive of Fincantieri – is the third unit which Fincantieri is delivering to Costa Crociere in only nine months: it represents a remarkable industrial performance, unprecedented in the history of naval shipbuilding. Our partnership with Costa has become even more tightly-knit, building ships which allow our two companies to fly the flag for Italian manufacturing worldwide on a daily basis”.

Fincantieri is one of the world’s leading shipbuilding complexes. The company, which is headquartered in Trieste, directly and indirectly employs around 30,000 workers. It is the global leader in the construction of cruise ships, the benchmark operator in the large ferries sector and has a significant portfolio of orders in the military sector, as well as a presence in the mega yacht sector. It has design centres in Trieste (the largest in Europe) and also in Genoa.

The new ship boasts an avant-garde design, enhanced by the use of valuable materials like marble and granite, as well as decorative details created using rare Zebrano and wenge wood, Murano glass, modern polished and glazed steels and 970 La Murrina chandeliers. In the large central atrium, passengers will be able to admire highly-prestigious works of art: from “Sfera” (Sphere) by Arnaldo Pomodoro to the “Delizia fisica e Delizia intellettuale” (Physical delight and intellectual delight) painting by the very famous contemporary Italian painter, Mario Donizetti.

The designers have also worked in an environmentally-conscious manner. Costa Deliziosa is in fact the first ship in Italy and one of the first in the world to be set up for “cold ironing”, the system which allows ships that are stationary at berth to receive electrical power, without needing to keep the engines on in order to fuel the on-board generators. There is also nothing lacking in terms of passenger entertainment: a theatre, a 4D cinema, a roller skating rink, a next-generation golf simulator with external putting green and a Grand Prix simulator which reproduces the ride of a real single-seater on the best race tracks, the same as the one used by F1 drivers in training. Then there is also the 3,500 m² “Samsara Spa” wellbeing centre – with a Technogym Kinesis room, a true global premiere – and “PlayStation World”: an area equipped exclusively with PlayStation 3 consoles, which are also available for use in the cabins on request.

“The delivery of Costa Deliziosa – stated Pier Luigi Foschi, chairman and chief executive of the Costa Crociere group – is a further significant step in our expansion plan, which offers firm evidence of our company’s sound health and the quality which our product is renowned for”. In addition to Costa Deliziosa, delivery of the twin Costa Favolosa vessels is also scheduled in summer 2011, as well as Costa Fascinosa in Spring 2012.