Costa Prepares to Leave Asia After Accommodating Athletes at Asian Games
After 20 years and being a pioneer in Asia and the Chinese cruise market, Costa Cruises has operated its final Asian cruise as it prepares to reposition its last ship in Asia back to the western markets. For her finale, Costa Serena is operating an unusual charter as the first cruise ship used to accommodate athletes at the Asian Games.
The charter, which had been planned by the organizers of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games Organizing Committee as far back as 2024, however, drew attention during the final rush to the games. Organizers had anticipated around 11,000 participants, but in the final rush, it turned out that more than 17,000 were registered, raising concerns about whether they would have sufficient housing. The cruise ship is housing about 4,000 athletes and officials from up to 43 nations.
She is moored at the Kinjo Pier at the Port of Nagoya, operating as a floating hotel and residential facility. Media reports indicate that the charter deal worth approximately $30 million was negotiated by JTB’s Nagoya Business Division and was signed in September last year. She will remain in Nagoya until October 6.
Costa highlights that it made special preparations for the event. The fitness areas were expanded and re-equipped, and the pools, thermal areas, and quiet zones were repurposed as recovery spaces. The onboard medical center is coordinating with the games’ medical services. Operations aboard were also adjusted, such as the dining hours, and menus were adapted to meet the athletes’ needs.
Costa Serena was built in 2007 by Fincantieri as one of five ships in the class that included the ill-fated Costa Concordia. The 114,000 gross ton cruise ship, which is 289.5 meters (950 feet) in length, is now the oldest member of the Costa fleet.
Her role as a floating accommodation facility continues through the end of the games, with the ship scheduled to leave Tokyo on October 18 for a 65-night voyage to Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the end of Costa’s Asian deployments, which included becoming, in 2006, the first international cruise line to homeport a cruise ship, Costa Allegra (28,430 gross tons), in mainland China.
Costa developed the Asian market and moved a series of successively larger cruise ships to China, including the sister ships Costa Classica, which arrived in China in 2009, and the following year, Costa Romantica. Costa Victoria also moved to China for a time and was followed by Costa Atlantica. Costa Serena was homeported in China for the first time in 2015 and has remained in Asia for the past 11 years.
After a decade in China, Costa boasted in 2016 that it had carried two million passengers, with reports that it had more than a third of the Asian market. It sent Costa Fortuna to China in 2016 and Costa neoRomantica in 2018, while it also joined the Chinese joint venture with China State Shipbuilding Corp. (CSSC), including selling Costa Atlantica and Costa Mediterranea to what has become China’s Adora Cruises. Carnival Corporation also announced the construction of two 135,500 gross ton Costa cruise ships, each with a capacity for over 5,200 passengers, as its first custom-built cruise ships for the Chinese market. The first of the ships, Costa Venezia, made it to Asia in the summer of 2019, while her sister, Costa Firenze, was not delivered until after the COVID-19 pandemic paused cruising.
With China and much of Asia remaining closed to cruising for years, Carnival Corporation made a strategic decision to reposition the Costa operation. Older ships were retired or sold, while Costa Serena remained idle in Asia. Costa Cruises never returned the Costa Magica to service after the pandemic and sold the ship. In 2025, Costa reported it had also sold her sister ship, Costa Fortuna, which was delivered in September 2026 to her new owners. Costa is now down to eight cruise ships, after having transferred three to Carnival Cruise Line and retired four older ships, all since the pandemic.
Costa Serena departs in October, heading to Brazil and then Europe, closing Costa's 20 years in Asia and the Chinese market (Costa Cruises)
Costa Serena finally returned to service in the summer of 2023 and became the first cruise ship to restart outbound, international cruises from South Korea and Taiwan. But it would not be until the summer of 2025 before Costa Serena returned to mainland China.
The decision to leave the Asian market was announced in May 2025. With the sale of Costa Fortuna, the line said Costa Serena would undergo an overhaul in November 2025. They updated her decor, renovated her suites, redesigned her pools and bars, modernized the restaurants, and added a new food court, in preparation for her new deployments.
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Costa decided to first send Costa Serena to Brazil for the seasonal cruise market. Then in the spring of 2027 she will return for the first time to Europe, sailing in the Mediterranean. So far, Carnival Corporation has not announced any plans for new ships to rebuild Costa’s capacity.
Costa has not commented on the decision to leave Asia, but it follows many other major cruise lines that have not restored operations in China and Asia after the pandemic, citing challenges in the market. Only MSC Cruises and Royal Caribbean International restored their Chinese cruises, while Adora Cruises emerged after the pandemic.
