After a five-month pause in its cruise operations due to the coronavirus pandemic, the cruise company MSC informed that restarted operations, as MSC Grandiosa departed from Genoa, Italy for its first 7-night cruise in West Mediterranean.
In fact, on 16th August, MSC Grandiosa became the first ship from the MSC Cruises fleet to welcome guests back and the first ship to implement the Company’s health and safety protocol.
In light of the outbreak situation, prior to boarding all guests arriving at the cruise terminal experienced a temperature check, medical review of a health questionnaire and an antigen COVID-19 swab test.
After completing the above-mentioned 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.
Following the above, Gianni Onorato, MSC Cruises’ CEO commented:
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.
For the records, for this initial phase of the 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 .
