MSC Cruises is the third largest cruise company in the world in total passengers served, behind Carnival (which also owns brands including Holland America) and RCI (which owns Royal Caribbean and Celebrity). In fact, according to Cruise Market Watchin 2025 MSC Cruises accounted for 7.4% of the revenues of the entire cruise ship and ocean liner industry.
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MSC — which stands for Mediterranean Shipping Company — entered the cruise liner space in 1989. Since then, MSC says, it has become “the market leader in Europe, South America, the Middle East and Southern Africa, with a strong presence in North America and the Far East. We operte in more than 100 countries across the world, offering cruises across five continents with our fleet of modern ships.”
MSC Cruises is part of the passenger division of the parent MSC Group; the other part is the much smaller Explora Journeys. MSC Group also has a massive cargo division that operates cargo and container ships, some of which are among the biggest ships the world has ever seen. But despite being one of the planet’s largest shipping companies, MSC is still family-owned. The modern-day iteration of MSC dates back to 1970, when founder Gianluigi Aponte began operations using a single cargo ship, the MV Patricia. However, the Aponte family has a history of over 300 years in the seafaring space, with the first mention of the Apontes dating back to 1675.
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How many cruise ships does MSC Cruises own?
MSC currently operates 23 cruise ships, which can be divided into six classes. The biggest belong to the “World” class: the MSC World America, which joined the fleet in April 2025, and the MSC World Europa, which made its debut in 2022. Besides these two ships, MSC is set to add two more World Class ships — the MSC World Asia and the MSC World Atlantic — to the fleet before the end of 2027. The World Asia is to debut in 2026, the World Atlantic the following year.
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MSC’s “World” Class cruise ships are among the world’s biggest and boast a tonnage of 241,767. They’re 1,092 feet long, and can carry up to 6,762 passengers each, with 2,138 crew members. These floating monsters are second in size only to Royal Caribbean’s “Icon Class” ships, which have a greater tonnage (278,503 tons), are longer (1,196 feet), and can carry more crew (2,350) — but fewer passengers (5,610).
What does the rest of MSC’s cruise ship fleet look like?
Before MSC came up with the “World” class ships, its biggest ships belonged to the company’s Meraviglia-Plus class, a subset of its Meraviglia Class. There are five Meraviglia class ships in MSC’s fleet, three of which belong to the larger Meraviglia-Plus family. The newest is the MSC Euribia, which joined MSC in 2023. The other “Plus” class ships are the MSC Virtuosa (2021) and the MSC Grandiosa (2019). The other members of the Meraviglia Class include the “original” that gave the class its name: MSC Meraviglia (2017) and MSC Bellissima (2019).
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The largest of the Meraviglia-class ships boasts a passenger capacity of up to 6,327 people and a crew capacity of 1,711. At 1,086 feet, these ships are nearly as long as the “World” class ships but have a much lower tonnage of 205,520. The smaller members of the Meraviglia Class can carry up to 5,642 passengers, are 1,033 feet long, and have a tonnage of 192,190. MSC also owns four “Seaside” class ships, which, while smaller than the Meravigloia Class, are giant ships in their own right. These are the MSC Seaside, MSC Seaview, MSC Seashore, and MSC Seascape.
These three classes make up MSC’s premium cruise liners. However, the rest of the company’s cruise liner fleet is spread across three mode classes; the Fantasia Class (4 ships), the Musica Class (4 ships), and the Lirica Class (4 ships).
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