Carnival Corporation continues to refurbish its fleet and has confirmed the sale of the Costa Magica, formerly part of its Costa Cruises brand, according to Greek media and industry sources. The ship has been renamed Mykonos Magic by SeaJets, the Greek inter-island ferry company headed by Marios Iliopoulos.
The Costa Magica was one of three ships that Carnival announced would be leaving the fleet in December. The AIDAaura will also be retired, followed by an as-yet-unnamed Costa ship.
Iliopoulos acquired five ships from Carnival Corporation in 2020, as well as two from the Cruise & Maritime Voyages fleet auction and one from Royal Caribbean Group.
To date, SeaJets has sold Holland America Line's Maasdam (55,500 gross tons), built in 1993, which is preparing to return to service this spring as the French Renaissance. Iliopoulos also bought the Maasdam's sister ship, the Veendam, and the former Pacific Aria, another sister ship from P&O Australia before the pandemic. Iliopoulos also owns P&O Cruises' former Oceania and Royal Caribbean's former Majesty of the Seas, but sold the Columbus and Magellan for scrap shortly after acquiring them from CMV.
The new Mykonos Magic will be Iliopulos's largest and youngest cruise ship, a 102,784 gross ton vessel that has spent most of its career sailing around Europe and its last season in 2019-2020 sailed from Brazil.
At the start of the pandemic, Carnival Corporation had 104 cruise ships. Management decided to accelerate a fleet renewal program by selling off the smaller and older vessels from the corporation's eight brands. The sales included six Fantasy cruise ships from the 1990s, all sold for scrap, while the others were also sold for potential future operations.
