MSC Seashore

MSC Seashore is what happened when MSC took the Seaside prototype back to Fincantieri and asked for more of everything. She is sixteen meters longer than MSC Seaside, about 17,000 gross tons heavier, and carries roughly 200 more cabins, but the more consequential change is that most of the extra volume went outside. MSC put around 10,000 square meters of additional deck space on her, which gives her the highest ratio of open deck per passenger of any ship in the fleet. Fincantieri delivered her at Monfalcone on July 26, 2021, and Sophia Loren, godmother to most of this fleet, christened her at Genoa that November.

She kept the thing that makes the class worth choosing: the waterfront promenade, an open boardwalk running around the hull two decks above the sea, with restaurant seating on the outboard side and glass bridges across the aft end. On this hull it is longer and there is more of it.

She also carries a selective catalytic reduction system, which strips most of the nitrogen oxides out of the exhaust, an un-glamorous piece of engineering that is doing more for the air in the ports she visits than anything on the brochure.

What she is known for

Deck space. The concrete difference from the ship she is based on. On a Florida sailing with four and a half thousand aboard, finding a lounger is noticeably less of a competitive sport here.

The Yacht Club. Gated forward across several decks, with its own restaurant, lounge, pool and butler service, and drinks included inside the gates. Larger than the version on MSC Seaside.

A wide range of trip lengths. Very few ships sell a three-night Bahamas weekend and a fifteen-night Caribbean fortnight in the same year. She does, and that flexibility is unusual enough to be a reason to look at her specifically.

The dining. Included main dining rooms and a buffet, with the fleet specialty rooms above them, a steakhouse, a sushi and teppanyaki room, a taco and tequila bar. The included food is Italian in its instincts even on a Bahamas run: pasta as its own course, more fish and less fried food than an American ship serves, smaller portions, real espresso. Americans notice this within about one meal and split roughly evenly on whether they like it.

The fare tiers. The same cabin sells at three prices, Bella with the room assigned to you, Fantastica with your choice plus room-service breakfast and flexible dining, Aurea adding a thermal-spa pass, priority boarding and a drinks package. On the three- and four-night runs, where a slow embarkation costs a real fraction of the trip, priority boarding is worth more than the price difference suggests.

Where she actually sails

She is a Florida ship for now and a Mediterranean ship after that, and the changeover is sharp.

Until then the base is Port Canaveral. The staple is short: three- and four-night Bahamas runs (Nassau and Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve, sometimes Ocean Cay twice) which are the great bulk of them, with seven-, ten- and eleven-night Western Caribbean weeks folded in. A smaller second block works out of Miami on the longer end of the range, six to fifteen nights, reaching Puerto Plata, Charlotte Amalie, Philipsburg, Basseterre, Grand Turk, Cozumel and Costa Maya. Ocean Cay is on more of her sailings than anywhere else, with Nassau close behind.

In March 2028 she crosses east, a couple of crossings sold as fifteen- to twenty-two-night MSC Grand Voyages from Miami to Barcelona and Marseille by way of the Azores and Cádiz, and from April 2028 she is a Western Mediterranean ship. Seven nights, sold from Barcelona, Marseille, Genoa, Naples, Palermo and Valletta at once and split evenly between them. That program runs through to late autumn and is the largest single block on her calendar.

Who she suits

Anyone in Central Florida who wants a modern ship for a long weekend, and families most of all; a four-night MSC fare from Port Canaveral is one of the cheapest routes onto a five-year-old ship anywhere in the world, and the deck space means the ship handles a full sailing better than the passenger count suggests. Anyone thinking about a Mediterranean summer in 2028 should look at her too; she will be the same ship at European prices.

The Ocean Cay day is the reason to prefer her short runs over a competitor’s. MSC’s private island is a rehabilitated aragonite sand-mining site, replanted, with a marine reserve around it, and the ships stay into the evening rather than leaving mid-afternoon. It is quieter and less commercial than the private islands the American lines operate, and on a four-night cruise it is most of what you came for.

She is the wrong ship for anyone who wants a real Caribbean itinerary out of Florida. The short runs are Nassau and Ocean Cay and nothing else, and a three-night cruise is two full days, one of which is spent getting on and off the ship. If islands are the point, the Miami-based sailings on her schedule are the ones to look at, and they are the minority.

Anyone planning around 2028 needs to check the date rather than the ship; book the wrong month and you have bought a European vacation, or missed one. The March 2028 crossings are the interesting middle case: fifteen to twenty-two nights from Miami to Barcelona or Marseille by way of the Azores and Cádiz, on a ship that will otherwise never sell you that many sea days in a row. Those are worth a look if you like a crossing and are a poor idea if you do not know whether you do.

And the standing MSC caveat applies. The lead-in fare is a Bella fare with no drinks, no wi-fi, no specialty dining and no gratuities in it, and the US-based operation has a mixed reputation for embarkation and guest services in a way the European one does not. Price the week you intend to have, and arrive at your assigned boarding time rather than early.