After completing my 15th cruise last month, my second with MSC, I really can’t understand how this company is growing so quickly. Before I continue – mainly to keep the trolls at bay – please understand that I am no forensic accountant, nor am I some financial guru with deep understanding of global business. I am simply an avid cruiser and I am of the opinion that MSC’s cruise operation cannot be legitimate. How could a company produce such a consistently poor product, yet show such rapid growth?
A bit of history
Let’s start with a little background information to get warmed up. MSC stands for Mediterranean Shipping Company. The company was founded in 1970 by Gianluigi Aponte, an Italian business man (now multi-billionaire), who in 50 years turned a single ship cargo operation into the world’s largest container shipping company with over 600 cargo vessels in its fleet.
In 1989 MSC decided it wanted to get into the cruising industry. The early years of MSC Cruises are pretty unremarkable. It wasn’t until 2007 that MSC Cruises started to grow somewhat steadily, building about 1 new ship a year until about 2013. From 2013 to 2017 expansion abruptly stopped. Coinciding with that lull in fleet expansion, Gianluigi Aponte stepped down in 2014 as president of the company and handed executive operations over to his son, Diego Aponte.
Since 2017 MSC has blown up, especially here in the United States. The fleet expanded considerably of late with 9 new ships built in the last 5 years and 11 additional ships currently planned or under construction. To go along with their fleet expansion, the company also leased an island in the Bahamas once used for mining operations and spent over $500 million to convert it to their private island oasis, Ocean Cay.
OK so the company grew and…?
Well, what is supporting this growth?
For starters, the reviews for MSC are generally bad. Comically bad sometimes. Most people I met on a cruise last month said, “never again” when asked about their experience. I got a good laugh at someone saying, “MSC is the Spirit Airlines of cruising”. Clearly they haven’t sailed with Carnival. Another passenger said, “you can tell they are a shipping company because they treat us like cargo”. I myself only returned to MSC because of the value and schedule availability. My on board experience recently was just as poor as the reviews say. The customer service took a “so sad for you” attitude to my complaints. More on that at some point.
I’ve noticed the company has a clever tactic to counter those negative reviews and experiences. MSC loves to fill its boats with influencers in exchange for a plethora of favorable posts about cruising. Its amazing how many beautiful people had the time of their life on the Seascape last month. Each one gushing about their amazing experiences … which was almost always followed by, #ad or #sponsored.
Here is another thing: MSC’s price point is usually way lower than that of other lines. How are they charging so much less yet offering, at least on paper, similar amenities as the likes of Royal and Norwegian? In 2021 MSC had a larger market share of passengers – about 10% overall – 5% more than NCL. Yet, MSC had less overall revenue – $1.5B compared to NCL’s over $2B. That seems like a bad thing.
How about company spending? Beyond the crazy amount of new ships in the build queue, MSC has recently purchased land within the Port of Miami to construct a new $350M ground up cruise terminal capable of processing 36,000 passengers daily. The new terminal will be able to service 3 of their largest and latest generation ships simultaneously. That is unprecedented stuff and a very optimistic expectation of future growth.
Safety track record? MSC has had a wild amount of accidents and incidents that would put most other companies out of business. A crash in Honduras in 2018, a crash in Buenos Aires in 2019, and most notably the MSC Opera crashed in Venice in June of 2019. See a video of that below.
Speaking of incidents, MSC Cruises and MSC Cargo has had a strange entanglement with drug smuggling recently. Since 2018 the following busts have been made on MSC Cruise ships: 66 kilos of cocaine found on the MSC Seaside, 19 kilos on the MSC Opera, 6 kilos on the MSC Divina, and 132 kilos on the MSC Poesia.
On the cargo side: In 2019, 20 tons of cocaine worth over $1 billion were found in containers aboard the MSC Gayane. Also in 2019… 1.6 tons of cocaine found aboard the MSC Carlotta; 537 kilograms of cocaine discovered aboard the MSC Desiree (Cargo); 2.4 tons of cocaine on the MSC Carlotta (Cargo); and 1.3 tons of cocaine on the MSC Avni (Cargo).
Finally, and more innocently , MSC seems to just rip off anything and everything Royal Caribbean does. Have a look at their ships, have a look at their marketing – its all just a knock off!
Putting it all together
MSC is a privately owned Italian company, offering nothing original nor ground breaking to a very established cruise market. Their reviews are generally poor and their safety track record is questionable. They have no loyal following that I have come across, which adds up because their loyalty program is a joke. The price point of their itineraries is significantly lower than other cruise lines, but they (try to) offer the same amenities as other lines. With all that said – all the negative written above – how are they doing it? How are they building several new ships a year, expanding wildly into new markets, improving Bahamian islands, and constructing state of the art cruise terminals. Something just doesn’t seem right.
Plane Addicted 