MSC Cruises announced voluntary suspension of all sailings aboard the cruise ship MSC Orchestra in South Africa with immediate effect until 8 January, 2022. The reason behind this decision is “the most recent and sudden evolution, particularly in the past week of the pandemic ashore in the country, that puts the health and safety of its guests and crew as its utmost priority.” MSC Cruises said in a press release.
MSC Cruises has opened the sale of the regular cruise season, scheduled to run between November 2022 and April 2023, off the coast of South America. The company announced its new vessel MSC Seashore and five more ships for the season: four of them with departures from Brazil, one in Argentina and Uruguay and the sixth ship will sail on its Round the World Cruise, including visits of destinations in South America.
MSC Cruises will deploy MSC Lirica to the Eastern Mediterranean for the summer 2022, homeporting at Piraeus, Greece for the first time during the entire season. MSC Lirica will offer a 7-night voyages with 28 departures from Piraeus between April 2022 and October 2023 from calling at Kusadasi, Turkey; Haifa, Israel; Limassol, Cyprus and the Greek islands of Rhodes and Santorini.
MSC Cruises and Chantiers de l’Atlantique made an announcement about MSC’s next-generation ships, the World Europa will have two 75 kW solid oxide fuel cells onboard running on natural gas. The ship’s power will be produced from a liquid natural gas that will run the main engines.
After the great experience and the “amazing response” to this summer’s inaugural season around the British Isles, MSC Cruises announced the return of MSC Virtuosa to Southampton for the next summer, 2022 offering 20 voyages across Europe.
The UK Government tightened travel restrictions on cruise ships as fears grew about the Omicron impact on the country's ongoing Covid surge. The new regulation which was passed on November 30, states that cruise passengers will not be allowed to go out in UK ports for organized shore excursions or independent shore excursions. Passengers on all cruise ships touring the UK can only embark and disembark at the end of the voyage.
The MSC cruise ship MSC Orchestra is still scheduled to arrive in Durban, on the planned roundtrips in the Indian Ocean starting December 2021 until April 2022.
The naming ceremony of the MSC Virtuosa took place in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates on 27th of November. The famous actress and Hollywood icon Sophia Loren did the official naming of the ship at Port Rashid, which has made a partnership with Dubai's Department of Economy and Tourism and DP World. Captain Francesco Veneiro, the Master and many local important guests were present on the celebration of the long-established maritime tradition.
MSC Cruises announced the company will accept only fully vaccinated guests for the winter sailings across the entire fleet, with obligation of an additional COVID-19 test before the embarkation date. These measures were in use for all of the line’s winter voyages in other regions, just the Mediterranean sailings have been added to the list with the new requirements, and from that moment on, all the guests booked on both MSC Grandiosa and MSC Fantasia.
MSC Cruises celebrated the naming of its latest flagship MSC Seashore, and largest cruise ship built in Italy. The glamorous event took place on November 18, at the private island Ocean Cay Marine Reserve with the icon of Italian class and style Sophia Loren, serving as a Godmother of all MSC Cruises ships since 2003.
