Costa Cruise’s latest LNG-powered XL-class ship Costa Toscana, headed out to sea trials on Monday, Finland-based shipbuilder Meyer Turku said. During the sea trials the ship’s operations and equipment will be tested for a little over a week, after returning back to the shipyard, the shipyard added. Assisted by the tugs, the ship left Meyer Turku while the event was witnessed by a large number of people gathered on nearby shores.

The construction of Costa Toscana started last year with a steel cutting ceremony in July 2019.The state-of-the-art ship will be completed at Meyer's Turku shipyard this autumn, as per original schedule. However due to the ongoing pandemic, Costa Cruises announced that Costa Toscana will make a delayed debut in the Mediterranean in March 2022 instead of originally planed launch in December 2021.

Costa Toscana will offer one-week cruises in the western Mediterranean with calls in Savona, Marseille, Barcelona, Valencia, Palermo and Civitavecchia / Rome. The Costa Toscana cruises, originally scheduled from December 18, 2021, to early March 2022, will instead be operated by Costa Luminosa, which has to cancel its program of long winter cruises in the Mediterranean due to the restrictions currently in force in Israel. Costa Cruises is already informing the guests and travel agencies affected by these changes.