| IMO | 9760512 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 171,598 GT |
| Length | 315.83 m |
| Beam | 43.0 m |
| Passenger capacity (double) | 4488 |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 5642 |
| Service speed | 21.8 knots |
| Builder | STX France |
| Hull number | E34 |
| Launched | 2016 |
| Maiden voyage | 2017 |
| Class | Meraviglia-class cruise ship |
| Operator | MSC Italian Cruises |
| Status | Active |
Overview
MSC Meraviglia — meraviglia is Italian for "wonder" — is the lead ship of MSC Cruises' Meraviglia class and the ship that took the Swiss-based, Italian-rooted line into the very largest bracket of cruise shipbuilding. When she entered service in June 2017 she was, on her article's account, the sixth largest cruise ship in the world, behind only Royal Caribbean's Oasis-class ships and AIDAnova, and the largest ship yet built for a European-owned cruise company. She was MSC's flagship and its statement of intent: from this ship on, MSC would compete hull-for-hull with the American giants.
She is also a well-documented ship, because her construction was filmed for the Science Channel series Building Giants and her delivery in May 2017 was attended by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron — a measure of what a ship of this size meant to the Saint-Nazaire yard and to French industry.
The dataset's figures need two footnotes. Its tonnage, 171,589 GT, differs by nine tons from the Bureau Veritas-derived article figure of 171,598 GT used in the prose. And its launch year, 2017, is her entry-into-service year: she was floated out on 2 September 2016. Both points are logged in the batch notes. Her class field is blank in the dataset; she is the Meraviglia-class lead ship, cited in her article as Project Vista.
Key specifications
On the article's registered figures, MSC Meraviglia measures 171,598 GT and 12,200 DWT, 315.83 metres long with a beam of 43 metres, a height of 65 metres and a draught of 8.75 metres, with 15 passenger decks. Her capacity is 4,488 passengers at double occupancy and 5,642 at maximum on the article's figures; MSC's own material has quoted 5,714, the figure the dataset records as maximum capacity — a variant, logged rather than resolved. Her crew is 1,536. She is diesel-electric: four Wärtsilä engines drive two ABB Azipod units totalling 38.4 MW, giving 22.7 knots maximum and 21.8 knots in service, the dataset's speed. She is registered at Valletta, Malta.
Design and construction
MSC and STX France signed a letter of intent in March 2014 for two ships of a new class, each then projected at 167,600 GT, and the order was confirmed on 20 March 2014. Steel was cut at the Chantiers de l'Atlantique yard at Saint-Nazaire on 20 April 2015, at the ceremony at which her name was announced. Construction assembled 50 prefabricated megablocks amounting to about 35,000 tons of steel, with cabins built as complete modules at a separate facility and lifted in — the industrial method, filmed for Building Giants, that makes modern ships of this size buildable at all. Her keel was laid in October 2015 on the dating in her article (some yard reporting puts a formal keel ceremony in February 2016 ), and she was floated out on 2 September 2016. She was completed and delivered on 31 May 2017, as yard hull E34.
The design's signature is internal rather than external: a long interior promenade — the Galleria Meraviglia — roofed by a continuous LED screen ceiling that can show a sky, a sea or a spectacle, running through the heart of the ship as a Mediterranean town's main street of shops, bars and restaurants.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
There was never another name. Meraviglia was announced at the steel-cutting in April 2015 and she was launched — floated out — under it on 2 September 2016. She was christened at Le Havre on 3 June 2017 by her godmother, Sophia Loren, MSC's traditional sponsor, at a ceremony featuring the French actor Patrick Bruel, the group Kids United and the comedian Gad Elmaleh, in the year Le Havre celebrated its 500th anniversary. She entered service the same day, 3 June 2017. The delivery ceremony three days earlier at Saint-Nazaire, attended by President Macron, doubled as the signing of MSC's order for the still larger World-class ships — the line's ambitions announced, literally, on the deck of its new flagship.
Career by operator
| Period | Name | Operator | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017–present | MSC Meraviglia | MSC Cruises (dataset: MSC Italian Cruises / MSC Cruises) | Lead ship of the Meraviglia class; delivered 31 May 2017; christened at Le Havre 3 June 2017 and entered service the same day |
Within that single-operator career, the broad shape — stated without itinerary detail — is a European debut, a first North American deployment in 2019 as part of MSC's North American expansion, pandemic suspension and restart from 2021, and a period as the line's New York ship from 2023. Those movements are fleet strategy, not changes of ownership or identity, and her name, operator and flag have never changed.
Onboard character
Meraviglia defined MSC's big-ship character for the generation that followed. The Galleria's LED dome made the interior promenade the ship's theatre — a space that changes mood from morning sky to evening spectacle without moving a wall. Around it the class concentrated the apparatus of the modern resort ship at European scale: a large theatre, a water park and ropes course, a dedicated Cirque du Soleil at Sea space in the Carousel Lounge — the first such partnership at sea — numerous dining venues, and an MSC Yacht Club enclave in its developed form. Contemporary reviewers noted the trade the design made openly: very high passenger numbers in a hull with, proportionally, less public space per passenger than older ships. That density, managed into defined, legible districts, is the Meraviglia formula the later MSC fleet inherited.
Major refits and incidents
No structural refit of Meraviglia is recorded in the sources consulted; her documented history is operational. In February 2020, in the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, she was refused entry at Jamaican and Cayman ports over a feared infection case, and was finally allowed to dock at Cozumel, Mexico, where the cases aboard were found to be common seasonal influenza. She later suspended and restarted cruising with the rest of the fleet. In May 2024 she arrived in New York with a dead 44-foot female sei whale lodged on her bow; authorities conducted a necropsy and took samples to investigate the whale's death, an incident widely reported by the Associated Press and Reuters. In May 2025 she underwent repairs in Portland, Maine, including replacement of propeller blades. In March 2026 a serious plumbing and sewage-system problem was reported aboard, without affecting her itinerary, on the article's account. Her shore-power story belongs here too: equipped for cold ironing from build, she was unable to connect at Brooklyn for a period because her connector could not be reached, and first connected there after terminal upgrades in October 2025.
Sister ships and class
The Meraviglia class, as led by this ship, consists of MSC Meraviglia (2017) and her direct sister MSC Bellissima (2019), followed by the enlarged Meraviglia Plus variant: MSC Grandiosa (2019), MSC Virtuosa (2021) and MSC Euribia (2023). Together the five ships were, at their introduction, the largest ever built for a European cruise company, and they remain the core of MSC's fleet between the smaller Fantasia and Seaside classes and the LNG-fuelled World class that followed. Meraviglia herself is the prototype: every later ship of the family is a variation on the platform, promenade and general arrangement established at Saint-Nazaire in 2015–2017.
Fate and where she is now
MSC Meraviglia is in active service with MSC Cruises, as the dataset and her article agree. Plans reported in her article for her deployment to move away from New York in 2026 are fleet scheduling, not a change of status, and in line with this directory's evergreen policy no current or future itinerary is stated as fact here. Her fate as a piece of maritime history is already fixed by her first season: the first of MSC's mega-ships, the prototype of its most numerous modern class, and the ship on whose delivery day the line ordered the even larger ships that would succeed her.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships plus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSC_Meraviglia and https://res.cloudinary.com/cruisebound/image/upload/v1660076643/production/msc_meraviglia_54cd92d625.pdf