MSC Cruises Heads Into Winter With Its Widest Sailing Selection Ever

As its expansion kicks into full gear, MSC will offer its most extensive selection of sailings ever during winter 2017-2018.  

The new winter lineup, released this week, includes more Caribbean sailings, a new region for MSC to focus on, and new sailings in South America.  

Highlights include:  

• New 7- and 14-night Southern Caribbean sailings from Martinique and Guadeloupe on MSC Fantasia, including stops at new ports of call in Kingstown, Saint Vincent and The Grenadines. 
• Launch of the new flagship, MSC Meraviglia, in June. It will sail the Mediterranean for its inaugural season, offering Western Mediterranean itineraries through April 2018.  
• Launch of the Caribbean-centric MSC Seaside, which will be christened in Miami in December 2017. It will sail two different itineraries — an Eastern Caribbean calling on San Juan, St. Maarten and Nassau; and a Western Caribbean calling at Ocho Rios, George Town and Cozumel. (Of the 1.8 million guests who cruised with MSC last year, only 10%, or about 200,000, sailed in North America.) 
• New 10-, 11- and 12-night Mediterranean sailings on MSC Orchestra with different ports of embarkation—Genoa, Marseille, Barcelona and Civitavecchia.  
• United Arab Emirates Cruises on MSC Splendida with two different embarkation ports, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, with a call at Sir Bani Yas Island beach oasis.  
• South American sailings of up to seven nights on MSC Preziosa and MSC Magnifica departing from Santos/São Paulo, Brazil, and eight- and nine-night cruises from Buenos Aires, Argentina, on MSC Poesia.  

The debut of MSC Seaside will also mark the official launch of MSC’s new technology program, MSC for Me. A new wearable will link to guests’ mobile phones, so they can make and track dinner reservations, show tickets and shore excursions in real time. The wearables also will help passengers navigate the ship and offer up the daily program of events and itinerary.

The entire MSC fleet, including 11 new megaships over the next decade, will be equipped with touchless technology developed in partnership with Samsung, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Deloitte Digital.