Costa Cruises

Another cruise line is going to be able to restart cruises in Europe soon.

Costa Cruises announced it will begin sailing again in Italy beginning in March.

Costa Cruises is owned by Carnival Corporation, and will restart operations on the Costa Smeralda, scheduled for March 27 to ports around Italy on 3- and 4-day mini-cruises or alternatively a 7-day cruise, calling at Savona, La Spezia, Civitavecchia, Naples, Messina and Cagliari.

A Costa Cruises ship will end its sailing due to a Coronavirus outbreak in France, which follows a small outbreak on the previous ship's sailing.

The decision to cancel the Costa Diadema was made in an abundance of caution by the cruise line due to the health situation in France, where COVID-19 cases have spiked in recent days.

The Costa Diadema has been chartered by a French company for two sailings, with the first sailing having 7 guests test positive for COVID-19 despite being asymptomatic.

Costa Cruises restarted its cruise operations on Sunday, becoming the first Carnival Corporation cruise line to restart cruising.

The Costa Deliziosa sailed from Trieste, Italy and began a 7-night cruise that visits only ports in Italy with Italian passengers onboard.

Costa joins a few other cruise lines that have been able to resume cruises in Europe, including MSC Cruises.

In order to keep passengers safe from COVID-19, a variety of new protocols have been added including:

Carnival Corporation announced today that Costa Cruises will begin sailing again on September 6, 2020 in Italy.

A limited amount of sailings will begin on two ships that wil sail from Trieste and Genoa, Italy, carrying only Italian passengers.

Originally the ships had itineraries that would visit Greece, but will only visit Italian ports.

Costa Cruises announced today it is the latest cruise line to require a negative COVID-19 test in order to go on their ships.

When Costa begins sailing again in September, the cruise line will perform antigenic COVID-19 swab tests on all guests.

Costa plans to resume sailings with cruises from Trieste, Italy, and announced on Tuesday it is the first cruise company to earn the Biosafety Trust Certification from RINA.

Carniva's Costa Victoria will be sold to be scrapped, as a result of the cruise giant's financial problems due to COVID-19.

Francesco Ferrari, the mayor of the Italian town of Piombino, posted on Facebook that the Carnival-owned cruise ship had arrived in Piombino to be prepared for demolition.

Aida Cruises and Costa Cruises both announced they will cancel all of their sailings until July 31, 2020.

Both cruise lines are subsidiaries of Carnival Cruise Corporation.

German-based Aida Cruises cancelled all sailings through July 31, 2020.

Guests on cancelled Aida cruises will have their cancellations processed chronologically according to the departure date. A travel credit will be on offer and a bonus of 10% on top of the payment already made. The credit can be used for bookings until December 31, 2021.

All the passengers aboard the Costa Smeralda are being held in lockdown in Italy due to fears someone onboard might have the coronavirus.

Two Chinese passengers aboard the Costa Cruises ship are being tested by medical staff, who boarded the ship in the port of Civitavecchia.

The two guests have been quarantined in separate rooms, with their blood work being sent to a hospital in Rome.

The cruise ship, carrying around 7,000 guests and crew, is in lockdown.

MSC Cruises, Royal Caribbean, Costa Cruises and more have all had to cancel sailings from China due to the coronavirus outbreak.