MSC Grandiosa sets sail from Genoa

MSC Grandiosa has become the first ship from the MSC Cruises fleet to welcome guests back on board as the line resumed sailings.

The line said that guests began embarking MSC Cruises’ flagship in the port of Genoa, Italy arriving at the cruise terminal according to their allocated time slots and followed the new universal screening procedures according to the company’s health and safety protocol.

This includes a temperature check, medical review of a health questionnaire and an antigen Covid-19 swab test for every guest prior to boarding. After completing these steps and having received the results of the test while in the terminal, guests that were fit to travel then embarked the ship according to the new health and safety procedures, which includes sanitation of both hand and hold luggage.

All guests received a MSC for Me wristband, which provides them with contactless options while on board such as opening the cabin or making payments. MSC Cruises said it will also help to facilitate proximity and contact tracing, if needed.

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All crew members have gone through similar health screening measures, which included three Covid-19 tests in various phases as well as a period of isolation before commencing their duties. Each crew member will then be regularly tested and their health monitored.

Gianni Onorato, MSC Cruises’ CEO, said: “It is a real pleasure for me to be here and sail on board the first of our ships to return to service and to be able to welcome back our guests. Our main goal during these last months has been to put in place the right measures that will protect the health and safety of our guests, crew and the communities we visit. But at the same time, we have worked to ensure that we are able to provide our guests with a cruise holiday that they can enjoy and still experience all of the elements that they know and love from entertainment and activities on board through to protected ashore visits.”

New guests will embark in Civitavecchia, Naples and Palermo and then the ship will call at Valetta in Malta, before returning to Genoa on Sunday.

For this initial phase of the restart of operations, the two MSC Cruises ships operating in the Mediterranean – the second being MSC Magnifica in the East Mediterranean – for the current summer season will initially only welcome guests who are residents in Schengen countries, meaning Britons will have to wait.