The head of new-builds at MSC Cruises said the design of the line’s incoming World-class ships is a “combination” of existing Meraviglia-class and Seaside-class vessels.
MSC World Europa, the first ship in the World-class, which is capable of carrying almost 7,000 passengers, will launch in November.
It will immediately be deployed as a ‘floating hotel’ docked at Doha Port alongside MSC Poesia during the Fifa World Cup 2022 in Qatar.
From December 20, the 22-deck ship will offer itineraries from Dubai before repositioning on March 25 to the Mediterranean ahead of its summer season.
The ship is the largest liquefied natural gas-powered ship and sixth largest in terms of tonnage across the entire cruise sector, MSC Cruises claims.
Speaking at Chantiers de l’Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, France, on Tuesday (July 5), Trevor Young, vice-president of new-builds, said: “Meraviglia-class are more indoor ships and Seaside-class were more outside with a high external promenade.
“Then we came to World Europa which is a combination of the two.”
A rendering of an Infinite Ocean View cabin on World Europa with a French balcony
Two cabin grades will launch on MSC World Europa including Infinite Ocean View cabins and Promenade View cabins. The line confirmed there will be 170 Infinite Ocean View cabins.
Infinite Ocean View cabins have French balconies which provide passengers with more space, while Promenade View cabins face into the Y-shaped aft where there is a promenade and a slide spanning 11 decks. It will feature seven swimming pools and 13 whirlpools.
The ship is scheduled to launch on time, but Young said: “As you can imagine because of the supply chain issues, we have got to get [the construction] right.
Trevor Young discusses the vessel ahead of the shipyard tour of MSC World Europa
“We’ve got one chance to do it especially with all the challenges that we face in the world.”
He added: “We’re looking at things that we can put on this ship. There is so much out there. We’re so busy making World-class I and II as innovative as possible.”
Even though the second World-class ship is due to be delivered in 2025, Young explained that certain limitations – such as supply chain issues – mean the ship-building team already feel they are running behind schedule.
“We’re working around the clock,” he said. “There are the future ships as well – we never stop as we’ve got an aggressive shipbuilding programme.”
Within the next 10 months, the company is slated to launch four ships – World Europa; Seascape; MSC luxury brand Explora Journeys’ first vessel Explora I; and MSC Euribia.
At the shipyard, MSC’s director of sustainability Linden Coppell called for more collaboration between stakeholders.
She said: “We can work with other people. We have strong relationships with a lot of oil providers for example.
“We need to make sure that when that green hydrogen and low carbon fuels become available they are available to us as a shipping industry.
“Countries and regions can’t meet their own net-zero targets unless they help each other.”
She added: “No matter how hard we try to improve our energy efficiency we need new fuels and new technology to get to that net-zero target [in 2050],” she said. “We’re making fundamental improvements on World Europa.
“LNG is effectively the only fuel available today at the scale that we need that allows us to make that jump.”