MSC Cruises to bring 170,000 passengers to Malta in 2015

MSC Cruises have announced that next year the luxurious cruise liner MSC Fantasia will be calling on a weekly basis at Malta’s Grand Harbour between 22 April – 4 November 2015. 

MSC Cruises confirmed that during 2015, they would not only be coming to Malta with the MSC Armonia but also with one of their flagships, the 140,000 tonnes mega liner  - the MSC Fantasia - carrying 4,200 passengers weekly, for a total of 32 weeks.

MSC Fantasia will be returning to Malta as it already used to call at Malta’s Grand Harbour every week  during 2011. The MSC Armonia and MSC Fantasia, in 2015, MSC will be returning to Malta, thus decorating our magnificent Valletta Grand Harbour on Wednesdays, bringing over around 170,000 passengers during 2015.

Earlier this year Hamilton Travel of Floriana, MSC Cruises’s,  Malta’s Exclusive and General Sales Agents, held high level discussions at MSCs Headquarters with the Group's Executive Chairman Pier Francesco Vago and CEO Gianni Onorato.

During these talks, MSC announced that between 2017 and 2020, they would be increasing their current fleet of 12 cruise liners by the addition of four mega cruisers, which would be amongst the largest and most luxurious in the Mediterranean.

MSC Cruises were invited to rethink their decision not to include Malta as a regular weekly destination. In fact, before this meeting was held, for the 2015 season, MSC Cruises were thinking of sending to Malta only the newly refurbished and enlarged 65,500 tonnes, MSC Armonia, with 2,600 passengers, for a limited weekly period, between the end of April and the beginning of June, and then returning on the second week of September up to the second week of November 2015.

Early in 2012 MSC Cruises had announced that as from 2013 it would be dropping a port of call from their weekly cruising itineraries. Unfortunately, Malta was the port to be abandoned by MSC in 2013 during their Western Mediterranean cruises.

Treading cautiously in 2014, MSC Cruises returned to Malta carrying 51,000 passengers on one of their smaller liners - the MSC Lirica. The operation proved quite successful with 2,500 Maltese embarking on 7 night cruises.

Good news also for Maltese and Gozitans who would like to book a cruise, starting from and ending in Malta, next Summer since Hamilton Travel will be having weekly cabins which prospective clients may book not only on MSC Armonia but now also on the MSC Fantasia. MSC Fantasia will sail from Malta to Messina, Naples, Genoa, Marseille, Barcelona and Tunis.   

Hamilton Travel said they will announce MSC Fantasia prices for cabins and dates of call at the end of January. One may call 21241292 or contact  Hamilton Travel by mail on [email protected]  for further information.