any rumors about another MSC ship for 2023 in the Caribbean?

[Markanddonna]

I am rather surprised that MSC has little to offer in the eastern and southern Caribbean in 2023. Are there any rumors about another ship being added?

[Native Floridian 26]

2023?  They don't even know what they're doing in 2022 per another thread about Nov/Dec cruises.  They did mention starting to cruise in Alaska either in 2023 or 2024.

 

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Native Floridian 26

[sidari]

MSC Seascape is slated to sail from Miami early December 2022, heard that it could be November but nothing in writing.

[Markanddonna]

The reason I am asking is that we want to move our Jan 2022 cruise to Jan 2023 and are looking at options with not great itineraries. Nothing in the eastern or southern Carib.

[JAGR]

9 minutes ago, Markanddonna said:

The reason I am asking is that we want to move our Jan 2022 cruise to Jan 2023 and are looking at options with not great itineraries. Nothing in the eastern or southern Carib.

From January 2 on, the Seascape is doing what the current sailings of Seashore are doing this current season.  Puerto Rico, Puerto Plata, OC, and the Bahamas on one week, and Cozumel, Georgetown, Ocho Rios, and OC on other weeks.

 

[hamrag]

3 hours ago, Markanddonna said:

I am rather surprised that MSC has little to offer in the eastern and southern Caribbean in 2023. Are there any rumors about another ship being added?

Yes, you just started it! 😉

[ready2cruzagain]

MSC's itineraries for the Caribbean have never been all that and since Omicron, they have only gotten worse.

[Markanddonna]

In 2019, I traveled to some great eastern Caribbean ports on MSC.  Oh, well.

[capitalbarry]

I heard MSC World Europa will be  have new home ort of Miami in November 2023, hence the Reason for the new cruise terminal will be  built and able to serve three cruise ships at a time and move up to 36,000 people in and out every day . Heard this , cant remember were though...

[shipgeeks]

We would love to have Armonia back in the US.  And sailing from Baltimore would be even better!

[richs52]

Weren’t there reports before Covid that MSC was sending a ship to Tampa?  

[Bluewake]

On 1/12/2022 at 4:20 PM, Markanddonna said:

In 2019, I traveled to some great eastern Caribbean ports on MSC.  Oh, well.

 So did we.  In January 2019,  we were on a 10 night MSC Divina cruise which stopped in Antigua, St. Kitts/Nevis Tortola, Guadeloupe, and St. Maarten (from where we took the ferry to St. Barths). It was a great cruise.   I really hope that MSC can escape the repetition of the same rather unimaginative Eastern and Western loops from the USA that seems to have become their pattern.  Perhaps post pandemic?

[Markanddonna]

14 hours ago, Bluewake said:

 So did we.  In January 2019,  we were on a 10 night MSC Divina cruise which stopped in Antigua, St. Kitts/Nevis Tortola, Guadeloupe, and St. Maarten (from where we took the ferry to St. Barths). It was a great cruise.   I really hope that MSC can escape the repetition of the same rather unimaginative Eastern and Western loops from the USA that seems to have become their pattern.  Perhaps post pandemic?

We did that one in Feb. It was great except for Guadeloupe. Being French, they decided to strike at the port the day of our cruise. The other ship in port didn't even let their passengers off. Our bus, which we were ferried to to avoid the strikers,  got stuck and blocked the highway. It was a pretty miserable day, but oh how the French love their strikes!  I think of all the locals who rely on tourism being hurt by this decision.

Edited March 26, 2022 by Markanddonna

[Bluewake]

7 hours ago, Markanddonna said:

We did that one in Feb. It was great except for Guadeloupe. Being French, they decided to strike at the port the day of our cruise. The other ship in port didn't even let their passengers off. Our bus, which we were ferried to to avoid the strikers,  got stuck and blocked the highway. It was a pretty miserable day, but oh how the French love their strikes!  I think of all the locals who rely on tourism being hurt by this decision.

We may have been on the same cruise!  We left Miami on Jan 31, 2019 and were in Guadeloupe on Feb 6th.   Because of the strike, most (if not all) taxi drivers and tour operators didn't enter the port.  There were other ships that we later heard refused to allow their passengers to get off, however,  MSC hustled our excusion group onto a small boat and we were taken across the channel where a few buses were waiting.  We got away pretty quickly.  I don't recall our bus blocking a street...either I just missed that or it was another bus.  We went to the botannical garden in Deshaies and then to a resort area where several episodes of Death in Paradise had been filmed.  When we got back, we heard from quite a few disgruntled passenger whose excursions had been cancelled or were prevented from leaving the port.  Guadeloupe is one of the destinations on our "we'd really like to cruise there again" list but it seems that only Princess goes there from the US.

[Markanddonna]

2 hours ago, Bluewake said:

We may have been on the same cruise!  We left Miami on Jan 31, 2019 and were in Guadeloupe on Feb 6th.   Because of the strike, most (if not all) taxi drivers and tour operators didn't enter the port.  There were other ships that we later heard refused to allow their passengers to get off, however,  MSC hustled our excusion group onto a small boat and we were taken across the channel where a few buses were waiting.  We got away pretty quickly.  I don't recall our bus blocking a street...either I just missed that or it was another bus.  We went to the botannical garden in Deshaies and then to a resort area where several episodes of Death in Paradise had been filmed.  When we got back, we heard from quite a few disgruntled passenger whose excursions had been cancelled or were prevented from leaving the port.  Guadeloupe is one of the destinations on our "we'd really like to cruise there again" list but it seems that only Princess goes there from the US.

We weren't on the same excursion. We were supposed to go to some waterfall and the bus driver went past the stop so he stopped and then tried to back into the parking lot. He got the one tire caught in a ditch and there was no room to move. We were right behind the driver and panicked when a semi was sailing down the road. If he didn't stop, I wouldn't be typing this. We had to wait for an hour or two in a mosquito infested area until a driver returned to her car so she could move it (not her fault.)  

[KINGBOBOFTHENORTH]

On 3/25/2022 at 6:11 PM, richs52 said:

Weren’t there reports before Covid that MSC was sending a ship to Tampa?  

Yes, Armonia was originally slated for Tampa but those all got cancelled. MSC later settled on Port Canaveral rather than Tampa so they could use larger ships.