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Costa Crociere Costa Lines was established in 1924 but sailed with only freighters untill 1947 when the Maria C. recieved some passenger accomodation (120 passengers besides cargo). One year later, the Anna C. was their first purpose built passenger liner, operating mostly on the Genoa-South America run. This was the main Costa passenger line. Costa Lines grew larger and at their best years they were the largest passengerline in the western world, only surpassed by the Russian communist fleet. Costa is now again part of the biggest cruisecompany in the world and especially from the second half of the nineties onwards, the fleet was rapidly growing with big cruiseliners. Recently, the line added some 100.000-plus tonnage ships based on an improved Destiny-class design.  Costa Romantica was built at the Fincantieri wharf at Porto Marghera, Italy as yardnumber 5899. Her tonnage is 53.049, her lenght 220,52 meters, width 30,82 meters and draft 7,60 meters. Some 1905 passengers are served by 607 crew on ten decks and her rating by Berlitz was 4 stars. Costa Romantica and her slightly older sister Costa Classica were the first megaships of the Costa Line. The introduced the 'Euroluxe' concept to the company, being far bigger than the older ex-liners in the Costa fleet at the time. Classica floated out at the 2nd of february 1991, sailing her first cruise that december. Romantica's floatout followed the 28th of november 1992. She was named at Genoa on the 25th of september 1993 and sailed from this Italian port at the 7th of october to the Canaries. Mediterranean cruising has always been the most important part for Costa, so these ships were deployed at the Med really often. But they also did worldwide cruising from their early years on. In the year 2000, their homeports changed from Monrovia to Genoa and they became part of the ever growing Italian passengerfleet. Because a lot of European countries made it more profitable to reflag the foreign passengerliners again back to their own colours, this has become common the last years.  Just after these two ships entered service, two even bigger ships were ordered for Costa and they would recieve the names Costa Victoria and Costa Olympia. They were built at the Bremer Vulkan Werke at Vegesack, Germany. Their tonnage was 75.000 and they were built to transport around 2000 holidaymakers. But a few months after Costa Victoria was floated out, the wharf went bankrupt and work on her sistership stopped when this ship was complete for 35%. This second ship was sold to Norwegian Cruise Line and they brought her into service in 1999 as Norwegian Sky. Costa Victoria sailed her first cruise from Venice at the 28th of july 1996. She was rebuilt in 2004 when she recieved 246 balconies for her outside cabins because this became the new standard for modern cruiseliners. At the end of the year 2000, far bigger liners had entered the fleet of Costa and the former biggest Italian liners ever were becoming the smallest. Costa planned a lenghtening for the ships at the old Cammell-Laird wharf at Birkenhead, so on the 23th of november 2000 Costa Classica went to the English wharf. Not everything went as smoothly as it should be and the middle part arrived far too late for Costa. They ordered the ship back and Cammell Laird stayed with the costs and went bankrupt. In 2011 was announced that the ships would be rebuilt and lenghtened in the winter of 2011 to 2012 and re-emerge as the Costa neoClassica and Costa neoRomantica. At least this will be a very neo-naming system in the cruise industry. 
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