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Costa Cruises

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Find a Cruise on Costa Cruises

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Cruising with Costa

Based in Italy, Costa Cruises distinguishes itself from other European cruise lines with its Mediterranean-inspired design and festive atmosphere. Costa's ships depart from a variety of ports around the world, bringing passengers to destinations in the Caribbean, Europe, South America and beyond. Itineraries last anywhere from one to 130 nights.

For an extra fee, Costa Cruises offers excursions like panoramic gondola rides in Venice  and boat rides and snorkeling in Barbados . Costa also hosts a variety of cruising experiences. Some ships have an intimate ambiance and relaxed atmosphere, while others are more crowded and offer action-packed itineraries. Costa's ships feature roughly one crew member for every three passengers.

Affordable cabins are easy to find within Costa's fleet – a main draw, according to recent cruisers. While at sea, you can take advantage of casinos, fitness facilities, multiple pools and hot tubs, and live shows. Once you've worked up an appetite, have a seat at one of the ship's main restaurants or consider splurging on a meal at a specialty eatery for a more memorable experience.

Pros & Cons

Mix of mostly European and some American passengers

Affordable rates for European itineraries

Onboard activities cater to families, couples and spa enthusiasts

Meals at specialty restaurants are not covered by cruise rates

No departures from the U.S.

Some Americans might have trouble with the European-style service

• Expert Rating » 3.1
• Traveler Rating » 3.3
• Health Rating » 4.5

Costa Cruises has been ranked based on an expert evaluation of the line's level of luxury, as well as an assessment of user reviews and health ratings.

• # 8 in Best Cruise Lines in the Mediterranean
• # 10 in Best Cruise Lines for the Money

Explore Photos

Costa Cruises Ships

Costa Smeralda

Costa Toscana

Costa Diadema

Costa Deliziosa

Costa Pacifica

Costa Favolosa

Costa Fascinosa

Costa Fortuna

Before You Book

• To reserve most Costa voyages, travelers must pay a deposit of no less than 25% of the fare, with the full amount paid at least 30 days before the departure date. For cruises booked less than 30 days in advance, the fare must be paid in full when booking.
• All cancellations and refund requests can be made by calling 1-800-GO-COSTA. Cruisers will be charged 15% of their cruise fare if they cancel 90 or more days before departure. After that, passengers will be charged a higher percentage of their fare based on their specific packages.
• If you need medical assistance of any kind, you must submit your requirements in writing to Costa at the time the reservation is made. Failure to do so may result in Costa canceling your reservation.

Before You Board

• After full payment (and at least one month before departure), you must check in online through the  MyCosta website  and complete the boarding form. The site also allows you to book drink and spa packages, excursions and reservations at specialty restaurants.
• Costa passengers must present a valid passport for embarkation. Passports must be valid six months past the trip's completion. Certain countries require cruisers to obtain visas. Travelers who do not present the necessary documents will not be permitted to board the ship, nor will they be refunded.
• Passengers are allowed one piece of luggage (in addition to hand luggage) for cruises of seven nights or less and two pieces of luggage for voyages lasting eight to 14 nights. Cruises longer than 14 nights allow passengers to bring up to three pieces of luggage. The recommended maximum weight per bag is 50 pounds. Overall, Costa recommends bringing one piece of luggage whenever possible.
• You can book excursions online up to three days prior to departure using the cruise line's  MyCosta booking tool . After this deadline, excursions can only be reserved on board.

Disclaimers about ship ratings: A ship’s Health Rating is based on vessel inspection scores published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If a ship did not receive a CDC score within 22 months prior to the calculation of its Overall Rating, its Health Rating appears as N/A; in such a case, the ship’s Overall Rating is calculated using the average Health Rating of all CDC-rated ships within the cruise line. All ship Traveler Ratings are based on ratings provided under license by Cruiseline.com.

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Search Resumes for British Mogul and 5 Others After Yacht Sinks Off Sicily

The body of the vessel’s cook was recovered while divers searched the hull of the Bayesian for passengers, including the tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch.

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By Elisabetta Povoledo

Deep-sea divers with Italy’s firefighter corps resumed their search on Tuesday for six missing passengers — including a British software mogul and his daughter — of a yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily the previous day.

Twenty-two people were on board the 180-foot British-flagged sailing yacht, the Bayesian, which was anchored near the port of Porticello, when it was hit by what witnesses described as a waterspout, a small tornado on water, during a sudden and violent storm.

Fifteen people who managed to get to a raft were rescued by the captain of a nearby sailing cruise ship. The body of the yacht’s cook, identified by news outlets as Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian Antiguan, was recovered on Monday. But several people are still unaccounted for, according to Salvatore Cocina, an official with Sicily’s civil protection agency.

Those still missing are Mike Lynch, a British technology entrepreneur; his daughter Hannah; Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International; his wife, Judy Bloomer; Christopher J. Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance; and his wife, Neda Morvillo.

Mr. Lynch was acquitted of fraud in a U.S. trial in June, ending a high-profile, decadelong legal battle against accusations that he had defrauded Hewlett-Packard when he sold his company, Autonomy, to Hewlett for $11 billion.

Mr. Lynch and the others went missing days after Mr. Lynch’s co-defendant at the fraud trial, Stephen Chamberlain, a former vice president of finance at Autonomy, was fatally struck by a car on Saturday while out for a run, his lawyer, Gary S. Lincenberg, said in a statement.

Prosecutors in the Italian city of Termini Imerese, east of where the yacht sank, are opening a formal investigation into the yacht’s sinking. Reached by telephone, the chief prosecutor declined to comment.

The search for the missing passengers began on Monday but was suspended late that night as crews found themselves limited to the bridge deck and items like furnishings “obstructing passage,” the firefighters’ corps wrote on social media .

When divers resumed the search on Tuesday, ships trawled the waters near the site, the corps said in a statement. The Italian Coast Guard also said in a statement that search operations were “continuing unabated,” with the deployment of helicopters. There was no evidence that gasoline was leaking from the yacht, the Coast Guard said.

The yacht was lying on its right side in about 165 feet of water, meaning that divers, working in pairs, could stay underwater for only about 12 minutes at a time, said Luca Cari, a spokesman for the firefighters’ corps.

Divers were seeking a safe point of access to the vessel’s cabins. “Obviously, everything fell and the space is very tight,” Mr. Cari said, adding that the divers were having to remove obstacles, like furnishings and electrical wiring, that were “completely blocking passages.”

The firefighters’ corps said in a statement that it was impossible to verify whether people were inside the hull.

Mr. Cari said that several divers had been part of the search-and-rescue operations when the Costa Concordia, a cruise liner, capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio in 2012, killing 32 people. It is considered one of the worst maritime disasters in modern Italian history.

“It’s like the Costa Concordia, but much smaller,” Mr. Cari said in a telephone interview, comparing the search operations. “In the Costa Concordia, we came across many obstacles but we somehow were able to overcome them. Here, the obstacles block the passages and have to be removed.” He added, “This makes it more difficult.”

Crews were also trying to raise the yacht, which experts will examine to try to determine why it sank. Until then, experts can only hypothesize what happened.

Karsten Borner, the captain of a ship, the Sir Robert Baden Powell, which picked up the Bayesian’s 15 survivors, said in an interview that when the wind picked up around 4 a.m. Monday, the Bayesian was about 490 feet behind his vessel. Once the wind wound down, he said, he could not see the yacht anymore.

“My theory was that she was capsized first and then went down over the stern,” Mr. Borner said.

Dario Boote, a ship structures and naval architecture professor at the University of Genoa, said: “Now I imagine that a whole series of lawsuits will be triggered, obviously to ascertain whether there is any responsibility, as always happens very unpleasantly in these situations.” He said, however, that in this case, responsibility might be hard to determine. “Clearly, only once the wreck is raised will we know more,” he added.

Several fishermen told Italian news outlets that they had witnessed a waterspout. Peter Inness, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, said they were relatively common in the Mediterranean, though their occurrence and intensity are unpredictable.

“Until one actually forms, you can’t start telling people where it is,” Mr. Inness said, or “how to get out of the way.”

The inclement weather — with lightning intermittently streaking through the sky — made it hard to know exactly why the yacht sank. Col. Attilio Di Diodato, director of the Italian Air Force’s Center for Aerospace Meteorology and Climatology, said the agency had registered intense lightning activity and strong gusts of wind in the area at the time the boat sank.

The Bayesian had one of the tallest aluminum masts in the world, according to its builder, Perini Navi. “Having a tall aluminum mast would not make it the safest port to be in case of a storm,” said Andrea Ratti, associate professor of nautical design and architecture technology the Politecnico di Milano. The type of intensity unleashed by a violent lightning storm “could have created a significant shock wave,” he added.

He, too, cautioned that “a lot of questions will remain until we have other elements at our disposal.”

Modern yachts are built to withstand meteorological events of reasonable intensity, and all international naval registers suggest that new ships be designed for higher waves and more frequent and extreme weather events.

But “this seems a case of an unreasonable extreme event,” said Emilio Fortunato Campana, an expert in Naval Hydrodynamics at Italy’s National Research Council. “In that case, no ship is 100 percent safe,” he added. “I think the Titanic showed that nothing is unsinkable.”

Elisabetta Povoledo is a reporter based in Rome, covering Italy, the Vatican and the culture of the region. She has been a journalist for 35 years. More about Elisabetta Povoledo