MSC Cruises to Become Third Biggest Cruise Line This Year. Surprised?

[Jason]

According to data from the 2013 Cruise Industry News Annual Report, MSC Cruises will become the third largest cruise company by capacity this year, trailing only Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean International.

With the delivery of the MSC Preziosa, the Italian brand will carry over 1.45 million passengers on 12 ships this year.

That number propels MSC past Costa Crociere, Princess Cruises, and even Norwegian Cruise Line – to third on the capacity lists, with a 9.4 percent capacity increase over 2012.

With Carnival and Royal Caribbean carrying well over three million passengers each, MSC won’t be catching them anytime soon.

Interestingly, MSC is achieving its third place number with just 12 ships, over Norwegian’s 12 ships, compared to Princess, with 17 ships, which sail longer cruises.

By market, MSC will have over 50 percent of its capacity in the Mediterranean, 14 percent in South America, 12.5 percent in Northern Europe, and the rest in Africa, the Caribbean, Canary Islands and Red Sea.

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Source: Cruise Industry News

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[WeCruiseToo]

MSC Cruises has never really been too high on our “to cruise” list – mostly because they don’t come up all that often compared to other cruise lines – but after this news, that just may be changing!

[DebbieandJerry]

I have a friend who took her very first cruise on MSC and she loved it. But she did mention that the majority of the pasengers were European and very little English was spoken.

No huge desire to cruise this line, but one never knows what the future holds.

[cruiseduo]

Pat and I have cruised on MSC three times and will be going for the fourth next month when we go to Bermuda. We choose more for the price/destination then anything else. Food, service and ports are fine. Never had a bad experience and always felt like we were well treated. Only negative is their five language announcements.

[WeCruiseToo]

Thanks Howard. Would you recommend any of the MSC ships you’ve sailed on over the others?

[cruiseduo]

We've just been on one so far,the Lirica. This time we are going on one their newest the Poseia to Bermuda. Our last MSC cruise was in 2006. As I said in the previous post, we choose cruises by destination/price.

I'll update this later.

[cruiseduo]

"According to data from the 2013 Cruise Industry News Annual Report, MSC Cruises will become the third largest cruise company by capacity this year, trailing only Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean International."

Jason, any statistics/ratings on passengers booked? It seems that if a line builds more ships they better their "capacity" rating. Wonder what the number would be if all of Carnival brands were under the same name.