IMO 9710562 · MMSI 370145000
MSC Virtuosa is a 2021-built Meraviglia-Plus class cruise ship (181,541 GT, 6,334 passenger capacity), the second in her subclass after MSC Grandiosa. Built by Chantiers de l'Atlantique for MSC Cruises and named at a virtual UK ceremony during pandemic restrictions. Her debut Solent cruises in May 2021 were the first UK-based cruises after the COVID-19 restart. Notable engineering: LNG-ready design, largest LED dome at sea for a virtual sky, and a 470m Galleria promenade — 20m longer than sister Bellissima.
MSC Virtuosa's 2021 launch trained a full deck-and-engineering team on delayed-boarding pandemic procedures — crew who joined her that year became the fleet's institutional memory for post-2020 sanitary-officer regimes and passenger flow management. The virtual naming ceremony is a talking point on every early-career interview.
MSC Grandiosa
Status: In service · Wikipedia
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MSC Virtuosa is a Meraviglia-Plus-class owned and operated by MSC Cruises . Built by Chantiers de l'Atlantique , France, she is the second ship in the Meraviglia-Plus class and sister ship to MSC Grandiosa .[\[7\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSCVirtuosa#citenote-7)
On 12 October 2024, a woman in her 20s died after going overboard from the MSC Virtuosa, which was sailing towards Southampton. An alert was sent out at 02:00 BST , for a search, north of Les Casquets . French fire and rescue services winched the casualty with a helicopter crew, and the woman was later pronounced dead by doctors. An investigation of the death is ongoing with French police.[\[26\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSCVirtuosa#citenote-26)
Source: MSC Virtuosa · cached via Firecrawl
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