Yokohama has a new cruise ship to add to its logbook. On October 7, 2026, the Costa Serena made her maiden call at the Port of Yokohama, where a 15-strong delegation from the city's Port and Harbor Bureau — including members of the Cruise Promotion and Technical teams — greeted Captain Orazio D'Aita and his crew. The visit was marked with a commemorative plaque exchange onboard, followed by a ship tour that Yokohama's port authority described as a chance to build on its relationship with Costa Cruises.
The timing is bittersweet. The 2007-built Serena has spent more than a decade sailing Asian waters, and this call falls within her farewell season in the region. After Yokohama, the itinerary takes in Kobe, Nagasaki, Busan in South Korea and Kanazawa before wrapping up in Hakodate on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido.
Then the ship heads for pastures new — very far new. On October 18, the Costa Serena departs Tokyo on a 65-night world cruise to Buenos Aires, taking in Australia, the South Pacific and South America along the way. From November 2026 through April 2027 she'll run a winter season in South America, before repositioning to Europe in late April 2027 for Mediterranean itineraries.
For cruise watchers, this is a notable shift. Costa was one of the lines that committed heavily to the Asian market, and the Serena's decade-plus presence there made her a familiar sight in Japanese and Korean ports. Her exit signals Costa redeploying capacity toward South America and the Med — good news for travellers in those regions, less so for anyone hoping to book a big Italian-style cruise ship around Japan next year.
If you've fancied a Japan-by-sea trip, the practical takeaway is that the window for this particular ship is nearly closed, though plenty of other lines still cruise the region. Yokohama itself remains a strong embarkation port: it's effectively part of Greater Tokyo, easy to reach, and pairs well with a few days exploring Kanagawa or the capital before or after sailing. The ports on the Serena's farewell run — Kobe's harbourfront, Nagasaki's layered history, Kanazawa's gardens and samurai districts, Hakodate's night views — are exactly the kind of mix that makes a Japanese coastal cruise appealing even on a different ship.
For anyone in South America, the arrival of the Costa Serena for the 2026-27 winter season is worth a look, especially for longer itineraries: the Tokyo-to-Buenos Aires world cruise segment is one of the more adventurous repositioning trips on the market this year.
