MSC Cruises has said in a statement that the MSC Grandiosa will not enter Malta on Thursday after a “limited number” of positive Covid-19 cases were identified on board the ship.

The company however denied reports that there were “hundreds” of cases on board or that the cruise liner has been stranded at sea as a result.

The ship will continue her scheduled 7-day cruises in the Western Mediterranean. 

MSC Grandiosa was today due to disembark 28 holidaymakers in Valletta – none of whom had tested positive – and who had reached the end of their cruise holiday. 

The company said that arrangements are being made to fly them to Malta from one of the ship’s next port of calls.

The ship currently has 2,678 passengers and 1,400 crew on board, a total of 4,078 people. 

The company said that all individuals who tested positive during the ship’s previous cruise, and their close contacts, thanks to the rigorous application of the company’s health and safety protocol have long disembarked in ports close to their homes during the ship’s regular itinerary earlier this week. 

MSC Grandiosa is continuing to operate regularly and performing her weekly 7-day cruise in the Mediterranean.  

“Through the strictest application of the Company’s health and safety protocol - and as should be expected in light of the most recent development of the global pandemic ashore - we continue to identify a limited number of cases among passengers and crew on board our ships,” the company said in a statement. 

“This demonstrates that our protocol is effective in that it allows us to identify, isolate and care for individuals and their close contacts, and protects all other passengers, crew and communities that our ships visit.” 

All passengers and crew on board MSC ships are fully vaccinated. 

Passengers must take a Covid-19 test prior to embarkation and they are regularly monitored on board through additional testing and other measures during their cruise. Crew are tested regularly every two days. This means that during the course of any cruise, 100 per cent of people on board are tested multiple times to ensure the maximum effectiveness of the protocol for the wellbeing of all onboard. This is unlike anything that happens in any other environment ashore. 

The company said that all of these measures provide today – as they have done since cruise operations restarted in August 2020 to more than one million passengers they have hosted on board their ships globally - a safer than anywhere else ashore environment, with cases among passengers and crew continuing to be – even during the most recent peak of the global pandemic - a small fraction of cases ashore, where not 100 percent of people are tested and monitored regularly the same way as they are on board one of our cruises.