MSC Cruises will base MSC Grandiosa in Southampton next year with a spring/summer deployment comprising 23 departures.
The Meraviglia Plus-class vessel is a sister to MSC Virtuosa, which sailed from the UK in summer 2021 and is due to return in April.
Grandiosa’s 2023 season will comprise a variety of itineraries including mini cruises to Rotterdam and Bruges, as well as longer voyages in the Mediterranean and to the Canary Islands.
Antonio Paradiso, MSC’s the UK and Ireland managing director, said the line “have been delighted” with the response from the British and Irish market to Virtuosa and looked forward to “bringing another of our largest and most-loved ships” to Southampton.
“We have seen strong demand for the itineraries for this year with a particular interest in the two 14-night sailings to the Mediterranean taking place in the school summer holidays and as a result have replicated many of these itineraries ready for the 2023 season,” said Paradiso.
He urged guests and agents to book early and “take advantage of the great rates” during the programme’s early booking window.
“Cruise has always been unique when it comes to early booking, our guests will happily book a number of different cruises several years in advance to secure their holiday, and we are thrilled to be able, once again, to provide them with the opportunity to book early,” Paradiso added.
From the end of May until October, the line’s four ships were due to operate Baltic Sea sailings which include St Petersburg – MSC Preziosa, MSC Grandiosa, MSC Poesia and MSC Virtuosa – will all suspend their calls to the city.
No MSC ships are currently calling at St Petersburg.
MSC said the health and safety of its passengers and crew was “a top priority” and that “since the onset” of the conflict in Ukraine, it had been in touch with alternative ports – such as Stockholm, Helsinki and Tallinn – to confirm new calls.
Carnival Corp brands P&O Cruises and Cunard amended their Baltic cruise itineraries in response to the escalating conflict, while other cruise lines and operators said they were “monitoring the situation closely”.
MSC said it would communicate the details of changes on each individual sailing to travel agents and customers “as soon as possible”.
MSC’s website will also be updated to reflect the confirmed details of new itineraries to “provide maximum clarity” for existing guests and future guests looking to book Baltic Sea sailings.
MSC Group’s cruise division has announced that it had become the first major global cruise company to join the Green Marine Europe Label.
According to a press release, Green Marine Europe Label is a voluntary environmental certification program for the maritime industry that was launched in 2020 to “create a mechanism to support shipowners in demonstrating their environmental performance on a European scale.” It follows the success of Green Marine’s North American environmental certification program, MSC said.
MSC Group said that it has pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and its two brands, MSC Cruises and Explora Journeys, are “committed to measuring their environmental performance annually.”
The cruise brands are using the Green Marine Europe Label’s program guidelines to track progress across eight key performance indicators: aquatic invasive species, pollutant air emissions – sulfur oxides and particulate matter -, pollutant air emissions – nitrogen oxides -, greenhouse gas emissions, oily discharge, waste management, underwater noise and responsible ship recycling.
The two brands have committed to submit their annual environmental performance results to an external accredited verification party and publish them.
“Even while we tackled the many challenges of the past two years, we never lost sight of our responsibilities in the long term. In line with our commitment to sustainability and our pledge to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, the Green Marine Europe Label will help us demonstrate our progress and share this with our guests, the communities that we serve and all other stakeholders. All of this, while we continue our work on several projects studying the development of green fuels and technology solutions and we look forward to bringing them to life soonest,” Executive Chairman of the Cruise Division of MSC Group, Pierfrancesco Vago, said.
‘’Certification to the Green Marine Europe Label across our entire fleet will further demonstrate our commitment to environmental sustainability as it also reflects our desire to continually improve our performance in that space,” MSC Cruise Management’s Vice President Environmental Operations and Compliance Minas Myrtidis added.
According to the press release, the Green Marine Europe Label is the result of a partnership of the North American environmental certification program Green Marine, which has been operational for 10 years, and the Surfrider Foundation, a leading NGO in the ocean and maritime protection in the European Union.
The partnership was established in 2019, and the program was launched in the spring of 2020.
MSC said that in recent years it has made considerable advances across all areas of its cruise operations thanks to the deployment of some art environmental technologies, fuels and solutions. These include advanced emissions control systems, ballast water treatment systems and advanced wastewater treatment systems.
The first two vessels of Explora Journeys, which are currently under construction, will feature these and other environmental solutions.
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