The Costa Atlantica, a member of the Costa Cruises fleet, the largest Italian travel company and Europe’s n.1 cruise line, scored full marks (100) in a recent inspection conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States. The inspection was held on September 26 during a stopover in New York, one of the port calls of the Costa Atlantica during the latter part of her transatlantic cruise, which departed on September 16 from Savona and ended on October 3 in Quebec City (Canada).
The CDC inspections are part of the Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP), which was introduced in the early 1970s and involves all ships that stop in a US port. They are unannounced events and are carried out by officials from the USPHS (United States Public Health Service) twice a year. The score, on a scale from 1 to 100, is assigned on the basis of a checklist with some 48 areas of assessment encompassing hygiene and sanitation of food (from storage to preparation), water, shipboard personnel and the ship as a whole.
This is the 6th time that the Costa Cruises fleet has received maximum marks from the CDC inspectors. The first vessel to obtain the perfect 100 was actually the Costa Atlantica herself in 2001, and she repeated this success in 2005; meanwhile the sister ship of the Costa Atlantica, Costa Mediterranea, obtained the top score in 2004, 2005 and 2006.
(www.costacrociere.it)