Tag Archives: MSC Magnifica

MSC TO BUILD FOUR 1,000 GUEST LUXURY CRUISE SHIPS

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MSC Seaview in Valletta, Malta
MSC Cruises is continuing its impressive growth in the cruise industry as the company today announced an agreement to build four ultra-luxury cruise ships at Fincantieri.
The 1,000-guest, 64,000-ton ships will enter service in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026. The memorandum of agreement is for a total value in excess of two million euro, MSC said and marks the company’s first dedicated luxury ships.
Pierfrancesco Vago, MSC Cruises’ Executive Chairman, said: “It is off the back of the great success of our ship-within-a-ship luxury concept that our guests asked us to enter into the ultra-luxury segment, as a natural evolution of the MSC Yacht Club. These ships will be able to offer unique itineraries, thanks to their size, and the guest services will be taken to another level, including our personalized MSC Yacht Club butler service, available 24/7.”
By 2027, MSC will have 25 mega ships in service, up from 15 today. The additional four ships will put the MSC fleet at 29 ships by 2027 with over 98,000 berths and a market capacity of over 5 million guests annually, according to Cruise Industry News estimates.
“I am especially pleased to be able to further extend our partnership with Fincantieri through this new order. The award-winning Seaside and Seaside-Evo class have already been recognized as ground-breaking and innovative designs. We are now introducing another new class, which will establish a new standard of ultra-luxury at sea with ships that will showcase the quality and highest standards that are associated with Made in Italy,” Vago said.
Giuseppe Bono, CEO of Fincantieri, stated: “It is with pride that two great brands – an Italian one and one with a strong Italian DNA -, well-known all over the world, today announce an important construction program. We are extremely satisfied that to launch a new class of ships in the luxury segment, MSC Cruises has acknowledged that our project will allow creating a new generation of cutting-edge units from both a technological point of view, safety and with particular attention paid to passenger comfort. With this project Fincantieri can count on 53 cruise ships in its order book, confirming to be an absolute market leader in all the cruise shipbuilding segments.”

Le Havre Planning More Cruise Terminals

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MSC named its new Meraviglia last year in Le Havre

Le Havre is expecting 140 cruise calls this year and 420,000 cruise passengers, said Jean-Baptiste Gastinne, president of Le Havre Cruise Club.

Those numbers are up from last year and include 40 turnarounds, made up of 22 calls by the MSC Magnifica, 12 from the Royal Princess, as well as turns from Costa Cruises and Rivages du Monde.

The 2017 season was closed out by the Artania, which was on a Christmas cruise, becoming the 129th vessel to visit and rounding the passenger number for 2017 off to 397,522

The port facilities can easily handle three large cruise ships at once, said Gastinne, with virtually no size limits and a generous water depth of 10.5 meters.

There is no shortage of shore excursions for passengers, with both Normandy and Paris nearby.

Terminal 12 will get an upgrade in time for the 2019 season, enhancing its footprint for turnaround operations for big cruise ships.

“Thanks to the strong relationships with other cruise destinations in Northern Europe, we have driven visibility to the region and we now benefit from regular calls from cruise lines, which used to stop only for seasonal repositioning in the past,” noted Gastinne.

As the industry grows, Le Havre hopes to add three additional cruise terminals with the aim of welcoming up to four mega-ships at once and hosting two simultaneous turnarounds. 800,000 passengers annually by 2023 is not unrealistic, Gastinne noted.

Lerwick’s Cruise Business is Skyrocketing

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Business is up in Lerwick

A 34 per cent increase in calls, an 85 per cent increase in estimated passengers and an 83 per cent increase in overall tonnage is the news for 2018 in Lerwick.

That’s not bad, and it will continue to go up in 2019, with a 20 per cent increase expected in passenger arrivals.

Among the notable calls for 2018 was the MSC Meraviglia, which was scheduled to dock on July 31, breaking all previous records and becoming the largest ship to berth in Lerwick, according to Victor Sandison, the senior commercial executive at Lerwick Harbour.

“At 60 degrees north, Lerwick Harbour is Britain’s ‘top’ port, strategically located at the crossroads of the North Sea and Northeast Atlantic, providing a uniquely blended visitor experience of Scottish hospitality and Nordic culture,” said Sandison.

The port has three dedicated cruise berths and can take ships alongside up to 232 meters. In addition, large ships can anchor in sheltered anchorages with a short tender ride to the town centre.

“Lerwick Port Authority has future plans to deepen the approach channel and the berth at Mair’s Pier to provide alongside-berthing for a number of larger vessels which currently need to anchor and transfer passengers by tender,” Sandison noted. “Going forward, this will reduce any possible weather disruption for these cruise calls. A timeline for this work will be decided once financing is available.”

With traffic moving up, challenges include making sure there are “sufficient” resources available to offer a high-quality passenger experience shoreside.

Tour providers are adding new experiences to their programs, among which is a “Sound of Shetland” excursion treating visitors to a showcase of Shetland’s fantastic musical heritage in Lerwick’s Mareel waterfront auditorium.

Lerwick Port Authority has also provided support for extra coaches to be brought into the islands for the cruise season to add additional capacity for shore excursions, Sandison said.