Italian cruise line Costa Cruises has renewed its entire vacation offer. From now on the company is focussing even more on exploring destinations sustainably. Meanwhile the cruise line is also sharing some exciting culinary news and new land tours.
Italian cruise line Costa Cruises is presenting a host of new features for its holidays, completely reshaping what the company has to offer. Costa’s new concept is based on enabling guests to explore destinations through unique experiences, both on board and ashore.
“Now our ships are sailing again, we decided to completely renew our offer. The innovations are so significant that we can talk about a whole new way of travelling with Costa. We want everyone who holidays with us to enjoy unique, enriching experiences, discovering destinations in the most authentic, insightful, sustainable way possible” explains Mario Zanetti, President of Costa Cruises.
“For more than 70 years Costa has been synonymous with cruise travel. At this very important time for the recovery of tourism we wanted to rewrite the future of cruises in a way that is more responsible and mindful of people and the planet, with the aim of steering the sector back to the constant growth it saw before 2020”.
Costa’s new cruise concept
Costa has focused on three key areas: cuisine, tours and sustainability.
When it comes to cuisine, Costa has called on the expertise of three of the world’s finest chefs: Bruno Barbieri, Hélène Darroze and Ángel León. The exceptional trio of starred chefs has explored authentic local recipes from the destinations visited by Costa ships, and reworked them with their own personal know-how. To ensure guests enjoy their culinary voyage to the fullest, enabling them to discover destinations on board even before they reach them, Costa Cruises has created two major new features: the Archipelago restaurant and Destination Dishes.
Destination Dishes are individual recipes designed by the three chefs, interpreting the traditions and flavours of the places guests will be visiting the following day. They are available in the main restaurants on all Costa ships, and are included in the price of the cruise.
The new Archipelago restaurant, available on Costa Smeralda and soon on other ships in the fleet, gives guests a truly unique culinary experience with three menus to choose from, one by each chef. The menus offer 5 exquisite dishes created to explore each part of the sea route through its cuisine. The chefs’ menus, just like the Destination Dishes, were designed with the greatest attention for the ingredients – most of them sourced from local producers – and how they are prepared, in order to prevent food waste.
Both the restaurant’s concept and design are equally as innovative. Archipelago features ‘island’ tables for a more intimate experience, framed by a copper sculpture enclosing unique pieces of driftwood. The driftwood decorating the islands was salvaged as part of ‘Guardians of the Coast’, the environmental education programme for the protection of the Italian coastline run by the Costa Crociere Foundation. For every dinner eaten at the Archipelago, Costa will donate part of the proceeds to Costa Crociere Foundation to support environmental and social projects.
When it comes to tours, the company has rethought its entire range to enable guests to explore hidden, rarely visited gems. The itineraries have also been redesigned to accommodate the longest-ever stopovers in ports, giving guests whole days to unhurriedly explore their destinations and make the most of their entire cruise. As such Costa tours become genuine experiences discovering the essence of each place, allowing guests to enjoy the most genuine traditions, flavours and colours, and creating value for local communities.
A new visual identity
Costa’s transformation is so far-reaching that the company has decided to transform its distinctive sign too, with a new visual identity. The biggest innovation lies in the company logo, particularly its most recognisable element: the iconic ‘C‘, that has been accompanying Costa on seas world-wide for over 70 years. The new ‘C’ brings together two different motifs in a sinuous, enveloping embrace: the earth, seen in yellow in the lower part of the logo, and the sea, in blue in the upper part, joined in the same experience thanks to cruises with Costa.
Costa’s latest innovations are already available on Costa Smeralda, Costa Firenze, Costa Luminosa, Costa Deliziosa and Costa Diadema. The innovations will be extended to the next ships as they gradually return to service. This includes the new flagship Costa Toscana, the second LNG-powered ship in the fleet, which will enter service in March 2022.