Tag Archives: MSC Cruise

Half of Global Cruise Fleet in Service for Second Consecutive Month

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The cruising restart has seen a positive trend over the past few months. Fueled by various countries and markets reopening ports to cruise vessels, the industry saw an unprecedented number of vessels resuming revenue operations around the world over the summer.

As the restart continues, 205 ships are expected to be in guest operations by the end of September. This number means that, for the second month in a row, nearly half of the entire global cruise fleet is in operation.

According to the 2022 Global Cruise Ship Index by Cruise Industry News, the combined fleets of the nearly 90 active cruise lines currently account for approximately 410 cruise ships.

After significant growth over the previous months, 190 cruise ships were sailing with paying guests by Aug. 31. With 15 additional ships entering service through the end of September, the active cruise fleet is growing nearly 8 per cent this month.

More ships resuming service means that more cruise lines are relaunching revenue operations. In September, brands like Regent, Plantours and Star Clippers are welcoming guests back, making it 63 brands back in service.

The aforementioned data is from the Cruise Ships in Service Report by Cruise Industry News.

The restart numbers started growing in May, which saw 55 ships operating revenue sailings. In the preceding eight months – only an average of 20 ships were in service. 

A turning point, however, was reached in July. With the U.S. ports reopening for business, 141 vessels were back in service by the end of that month – an 82 per cent increase over June numbers.

From May to September, the average guest capacity per ship grew significantly, too, going from 994 to 1,454.

MSC Divina Approved by CDC, to Sail From Port Canaveral on Sept. 16

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MSC Cruises has announced that it’s MSC Divina has received approval from the CDC for its Conditional Sailing Certificate, following the successful completion of a simulated voyage last week.

With approval granted, the MSC Divina is set to become MSC Cruises’ 11th ship to resume cruising globally, as well as the company’s first to set sail from its new homeport, Orlando/Port Canaveral.

“After officially resuming cruises from the U.S. with the MSC Meraviglia in early August, we are thrilled to cross another significant milestone toward bringing our entire fleet back to sea around the world for safe, relaxing and enjoyable cruises,” said Rubén Rodríguez, President of MSC Cruises USA. “In the U.S. in particular, the MSC Divina’s restart will bring us into an entirely new, easily accessible embarkation destination, providing our guests with more choice when cruising with us to popular destinations in The Bahamas and Caribbean, including our stunning new private island destination, Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve.”

With MSC Divina’s upcoming restart, MSC Cruises’ guests can select from a variety of three-, four- and seven-night itineraries from two embarkation ports in Florida: Miami and Orlando/Port Canaveral.

Following MSC Divina’s restart, the MSC Meraviglia will add seven-night cruises to The Bahamas and Caribbean.

All cruises will continue to operate under MSC Cruises’ health and safety protocol – including testing measures, vaccine requirements, mask-wearing, social distancing, enhanced sanitization and more. MSC Cruises itineraries from Florida ports also feature stops at Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve in The Bahamas.

With ships docking at the island from early morning into the evening – and often overnight – guests can enjoy the two miles of pristine, white-sand beaches and activities including stand-up paddle boarding, kayaking, wave runner rides and more, MSC said.

MSC Introduces New Shipboard Property Management System, Otalio

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MSC Cruises has announced the introduction of a new shipboard property management system, which creates a link between its shoreside operations and the entire fleet of ships.

According to a press release, the new system will help improve internal efficiencies, tailor guest services and digitalize information for the crew.

The new customer-centric and digitalized system brings benefits through increased flexibility and automation with a cloud platform that enables a global configuration across the MSC Cruises fleet and throughout a range of different departments.


The cloud-based software developed by Hamburg-based Otalio was first used onboard MSC Virtuosa, the first deep-sea cruise ship in 15 months to sail in British waters for her maiden season in the UK that started in May.

The modern architecture of the property management system provides scalability and flexibility so that many administrative tasks can be performed by shoreside teams to bring new opportunities for fleet management.

Crew onboard can centralize all guest information in one place, such as purchase preferences, complaint tracking and Voyagers Club member status, MSC said. The crew will also benefit from real-time updates from ashore, as well as options to digitalize processes such as housekeeping rotas and menu pricing.

“This promises to be a win-win scenario whereby the Otalio technology will improve the overall guest experience and make life easier for our crew onboard. Getting Otalio ready to launch across our fleet was a huge undertaking and involved a team of 500 dedicated individuals both onboard and ashore, the biggest ever collaboration at MSC Cruises. The end result was worth the endeavour and is truly change-management at its very best,” said Chief Information Officer of MSC Cruises Daniele Buonaiuto.

The Managing Director of Otalio, Tony Heuer, said that having its latest product now in operation is a “dream come true.”

“(W)e couldn’t be more excited to see it going live. It’s a great achievement for the entire Otalio team to develop an onboard solution that covers all aspects related to guests and crew management, suitable to support larger contemporary cruise ships, as well as smaller luxury vessels. Thanks to the cutting-edge architecture of our system, structured around the unique complexity a cruise ship environment has, many administrative tasks can now be performed by shoreside teams, bringing new opportunities into fleet management altogether,” he said.

“We want to thank the MSC Cruises team for their trust and cooperation during these last two and half years of intense effort. All of this could have not been possible without the commitment and support of their entire organization, both ashore and onboard,” he added.