MSC Meraviglia
MSC Cruises · Cruise · In service · built by Chantiers de l'Atlantique
MSC Meraviglia was, at delivery in 2017, the largest ship ever built by a European cruise line, and the lead ship of the class that carried MSC into the mega-ship era.
Derived metrics
Computed by ships.fyi from the core specification — see how we calculate these.
How big is it, really?
The MSC Meraviglia's length overall, against things you already know the size of.
The 747-8 held the longest-airliner record for over a decade, until Boeing's 777-9 took it by about 19 inches (76.72 m) — our sibling site aircraft.fyi measures everything that flies the same way.
One MSC Meraviglia = 1.17 Titanics · 3.0 football pitches · 13 blue whales · 4.1 Boeing 747-8s laid end to end.
Plan a sailing on MSC Meraviglia
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The numbers
| Length overall | 315.83 m |
|---|---|
| Beam | 43 m |
| Draught | 8.75 m |
| Gross tonnage | 171,598 GT |
| Passengers | 4,488 (double) / 5,642 (max) |
| Crew | ≈1,536 |
| Propulsion | Diesel-electric, 2 × ABB Azipod (38.4 MW) |
| Maximum speed | 22.7 kn |
| Entered service | 3 June 2017 |
Put the MSC Meraviglia next to something
Last verified: 2026-07-15 · Spot an error? business@luck.fyi
What makes it different
MSC Meraviglia is the ship that moved MSC up a weight class. Before her the fleet topped out around 139,000 gross tons; she arrived in 2017 at 171,598 GT — the largest ship a European cruise line had ever built — and every big MSC ship since descends from her.
The defining space is the Galleria Meraviglia, a two-deck indoor promenade running most of the ship's length beneath a 480-square-metre LED ceiling that plays sky, aurora and animation depending on the hour. It solved a real problem for a line whose ships work northern Europe as well as the Caribbean: an outdoor-feeling main street that works in bad weather.
Mechanically she is conventional and well proven — diesel-electric with two 19.2 MW ABB Azipod units, 22.7 knots flat out. Her importance is architectural rather than technical: the Meraviglia platform, stretched and then LNG-converted, produced five ships in six years and remains the backbone of the MSC fleet.
The MSC Meraviglia line
Meraviglia class
Project Vista
Who operates the MSC Meraviglia
All 1 operator of record, verified 2026-07-15. Figures marked ≈ are approximate.
MSCCMSC CruisesMediterranean summers and North American seasons; extensively refitted for the North American market.1✓→