MSC Virtuosa

MSC Virtuosa has a more interesting history than most ships her age, because of when she was delivered. Chantiers de l’Atlantique handed her over on February 1, 2021, into a market that had stopped entirely. She sat until May, and when she did sail it was on domestic UK coastal cruises out of Southampton, voyages around the British Isles that called nowhere, sold to British passengers who could not leave the country. She was one of the ships that restarted cruising in Britain, and Southampton kept her as its year-round vessel for most of the five years since.

Structurally she is a Meraviglia Plus: 181,541 gross tons, 331 meters, 4,842 guests at double occupancy against 1,704 crew, with the stretched Galleria and its LED sky screen running through the middle of her and a large gated Yacht Club forward. She carries the same environmental package as MSC Grandiosa, selective catalytic reduction for nitrogen oxides, a closed-loop scrubber for sulfur, and shore power connection.

What she is known for

The Galleria and its ceiling. The stretched indoor promenade under a continuous LED sky, which is the reason to pick a Meraviglia hull over a Seaside one if you are sailing somewhere the weather is not guaranteed.

Restarting British cruising. The 2021 UK coastal season is the thing she will be remembered for, and it bought her a loyal British following that has outlasted the deployment.

The Yacht Club. Gated forward with its own restaurant, lounge, pool and sun deck, a butler for each suite and drinks included inside the gates. The stretched Plus hulls give it noticeably more room than the original Meraviglia ships do, and on a ship carrying 4,842 at double occupancy it is the difference between a busy vacation and a calm one.

Cirque du Soleil. The Carousel Lounge, the purpose-built theater-in-the-round MSC developed with Cirque du Soleil, is part of the class. Two shows a cruise with a dinner option. The room is small on purpose and books out.

The dining and the fare tiers. 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 same cabin sells at three prices: Bella with the room assigned, 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 twenty-plus-night crossings to and from Brazil, the drinks package is arithmetic rather than indulgence.

Where she actually sails

Southampton is ending, and that is the headline. A bare handful of her departures leave from there, all of them in her last months in Britain, with a scattering of final calls at Zeebrugge, Rotterdam, Cork, Cherbourg, Ålesund, Olden and Haugesund. After that she is gone from Britain.

The bulk of her calendar is the Western Mediterranean, in the multi-homeport format MSC uses there: the same seven-night circuit sold from Barcelona, Marseille, Livorno, Palermo and Naples at once, in equal share. The distinguishing call is La Goulette, the port for Tunis and Carthage, which is on very nearly every one of those weeks; she is on the North African circuit rather than the Balearic one, and that is a materially different week from what her sisters sail out of the same ports.

From late November to early April she crosses to Brazil. Seven-night South America weeks out of Santos, Salvador and Maceió, calling at Búzios, Rio de Janeiro and Ilhabela, with a few three- and four-night coastal hops between the three bases. The crossings either side are MSC Grand Voyages of fifteen to twenty-five nights by way of the Canaries, Madeira and Cape Verde. She does not go south every winter, and in the ones she does not she is Mediterranean only.

Who she suits

Anyone who wants the Mediterranean with Tunisia on it. La Goulette is a genuinely different call from the Spanish and Italian ports the rest of the fleet grinds through, and it is the reason to choose this ship over MSC World Asia or MSC Euribia on the same sea. The Brazilian season is the other draw; MSC is the leading line on that coast and the ship will feel at home there.

The multi-homeport model is worth understanding before booking her. The same physical week is on sale from five Mediterranean piers at once (an equal share from each of Barcelona, Marseille, Livorno, Palermo and Naples), and a couple joining at Livorno and a couple joining at Barcelona are on the same sailing with the same crew. Board wherever your flights are cheapest; the cruise is identical and the fare frequently is not.

She is the wrong choice for a British passenger who assumed she was still Southampton’s ship. From 2027 she is not, and MSC Meraviglia has taken that role, though note that Meraviglia’s Southampton itineraries run to Iberia and Biscay rather than to Norway, so the fjord habit that Southampton passengers built up on this ship is not being replaced either.

She is also a large, busy ship with a mostly Italian, French and Brazilian passenger list depending on the season, multilingual announcements and a service style more formal than a US or British crew’s. Anyone who wants Norwegian fjords, the Adriatic or the Aegean will not find them here; those are MSC Euribia and MSC Seaview respectively. And at five years old on a class MSC has since superseded with the World ships, she is the value option rather than the newest thing in the Mediterranean.