MSC Magnifica news

The news is finally out regarding MSC Magnifica and the ambitious plans for renovating the nine year old Musica-class ship ahead of it’s home-porting in Southampton for the summer season of 2021. We’ve known some of the details about this since March this year and it’s killed us keeping it a secret.

We’ve built an excellent working relationship with MSC Cruises mainly due to the forum we run https://m.facebook.com/groups/MSCUKForum/?ref=group_header&view=group and of course having cruised with the line 28 times in five years means we have a great knowledge of the company. We were honoured to be invited to the company’s head office in Uxbridge last night for the unveiling of the plans and the fabulous new itineraries.

In the same style as every MSC cruise a reception was held with free flowing Aperol Spritz and Prosecco on offer.

MSC moved in to their new offices just days after the Brexit vote in 2016 and since then have invested heavily in the site, with MSC Cruise Management being based in the building. This impressive operation has a state of the art control room with direct links to every ship in the MSC Cruises fleet and is the nerve centre for the fleet worldwide. The Cruise Management area is also set up with representatives from every department you’d find on a cruise ship.

Captain Pier Paolo Scala and MD of MSC Uk and Ireland Antonio Paradiso gave us a talk on this impressive operation.

Following the tour of the Cruise Management Centre it was back down to the atrium for the big reveal from Antonio – you can watch the full video live in our Facebook group but the key highlights are:

MSC Magnifica will sail from Southampton once again in 2021 after being renovated at Fincantieri’s ship yard
The renovation will include the addition of a new 25 metre section to stretch the ship
215 new cabins will be added, which will take the percentage of balcony cabins onboard to over 65%
A new water park and splash area will be added, some of which will be indoors – perfect for any weather
An additional speciality restaurant will be added and the existing one reconfigured
The Southampton season will feature 24 sailings, with exciting, new itineraries to the Canary Islands, Norwegian Fjords, The Baltic and of course the favourite Northern Europe classics of Zeebrugge and Hamburg
MSC Magnifica will only embark guests at the port of Southampton

Speaking to us Antonio mentioned that a lot of feedback has been taken from the conversations on our Facebook forum and he spends time everyday reading the forum to keep up with how UK and Irish guests are feeling.