In March 2014, MSC Crociere ordered two cruise ships from the “Vista” project, the MSC Meraviglia and the MSC Bellissima , from STX France (now Chantiers de l'Atlantique ) , with options for two further newbuildings agreed. As a result, two larger ships in the so-called Meraviglia -Plus class were commissioned in February 2016 . They will be about 6000 GT larger and 16 meters longer than the first two ships of this series.
The first steel cut of the MSC Virtuosa took place on June 14, 2018. A 125 meter long fuselage section was built with two additional sections at the Crist shipyard in Gdynia and transferred to Saint-Nazaire in May / June 2019.
On November 28, 2019, the MSC Virtuosa floated up . She was pulled out of the building dock with tugs and maneuvered to the equipment quay. In 2020, the delivery planned for October 2020 was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic . The ship will be technically handed over to MSC Cruises in November 2020, but payment and commissioning will only take place in March 2021.
