MSC Lirica in one read
MSC Lirica is the ship MSC Cruises built when it was not yet MSC Cruises. She was delivered from Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire in 2003 as the company's first-ever newbuild — everything the line had operated before her was bought second-hand — and she exists because a competitor went wrong. Festival Cruises cancelled two units at the yard amid financial difficulty, MSC took the slots, and a company that now orders 215,000-gross-ton hulls started here at roughly 60,000.
Twelve years later she was cut in half. Between 31 August and 9 November 2015 at Fincantieri's Palermo yard she was the last of her four sisters through MSC's €200 million Renaissance Programme: a 2,400-tonne prefabricated midsection floated into a 24-metre gap, 193 new guest staterooms and 59 new crew cabins, beam widened from 28.8 to 32 metres. She went in at about 60,000 tons and came out at 65,591, 274.9 metres long, with an outdoor aqua park and a set of children's clubs she had never had.
And there is one thing you should know before anything else on this page. In February 2026 MSC withdrew all of her 2026–27 South America itineraries from its website and booking system, with passengers receiving notices citing “operational reasons affecting MSC Lirica's deployment.” Her last currently-scheduled voyage terminates in Venice on 15 November 2026. MSC has announced no sale, no charter and no disposal — and has also not announced what she does next. We will label that plainly rather than guess at it.
Fit scores, not review scores — a lower value number means the base fare buys you less of the ship, not that she's a lesser ship.
Adriatic and Mediterranean travellers who want the itinerary to be the holiday, on a small ship where nothing is gated, no restaurant carries a surcharge, and the fare reflects the age of the hardware honestly.
You want new hardware, a signature attraction, or a schedule you can plan a 2027 holiday around. She has no publicly documented major refit since November 2015, and her deployment past 15 November 2026 is unpublished.
What Lirica was built to solve
She was built to prove MSC could build. Before 2003 the company was a shipping conglomerate that had acquired a cruise line and run it on inherited tonnage. Ordering a newbuild is a different kind of commitment: it means you have a view about what a ship should be, and you are willing to pay for it. Lirica was that view, and it was a modest one — around 60,000 tons, roughly 1,600 guests as she was originally configured, a European ship for European ports, with no attempt whatsoever to out-spectacle the Americans.
The stretch solved an entirely different problem. By 2014 MSC needed berths rather than ships, and berths on an existing hull are the cheapest capacity in the industry. The Renaissance Programme cost about €200 million across four ships — roughly €50 million each, against several hundred million for a newbuild — and consumed 38 weeks of drydock in total for all four hulls. Per berth added, it is almost certainly the best deal MSC has ever done.
The honest part is what it did to the ratio. Guest capacity rose 29.5 per cent. Cabins rose 19.5 per cent. Length rose 9.6 per cent. Gross tonnage rose 9.3 per cent. Read those four numbers in order and the story tells itself: they added far more passengers than ship. The public rooms, the buffet, the lifts and the pool deck grew by a fraction of what the passenger list did, and the enlarged buffet and extended restaurant delivered by the programme did not close that gap.
When you read a review of this ship complaining about queues at the buffet or a crowded pool deck, you are usually reading about a decision taken in a Sicilian drydock in 2015 rather than about the crew working that week. Passengers up 29.5 per cent against tonnage up 9.3 per cent is a three-to-one mismatch, and it is baked into the steel. That does not make the complaint invalid — it makes it predictable, which is more useful. Sail her at a quiet time of year and a great deal of it simply does not happen to you.
Is Lirica your ship?
Four quick questions and we'll give you an honest read on whether she fits — not a sales pitch.
Best for: the report card
Fit grades with the reasoning attached — who she suits, not how good she is.
Assuming “2003” describes the ship you will board. It describes the hull. The Lirica you sail is a 2015 ship in the middle and a 2003 ship at both ends — the inserted midsection is newer, balcony-heavy and, by every account we have seen, in visibly better condition than the original fore and aft sections. That is why reviews of the same ship in the same month disagree so violently about her state. Cabin location is doing work here that it does not do on a normal ship, and it is the single strongest argument for paying up from Bella to Fantastica so you can choose.
Where she sails
A durable pattern, an undated gap, and an honest label on the gap. Verify your specific sailing.
Her published pattern is seven-day Adriatic round-trips from Venice, which is the itinerary this class exists to run: Venice is a port a 215,000-ton ship cannot sensibly work, and at 65,591 gross tons and 274.9 metres Lirica is less than a third the tonnage of MSC World Europa. Frame the whole class this way and it makes sense — this is MSC's “everywhere else” fleet, small enough to reach ports the flagships physically cannot and used to open or hold markets that do not justify a 6,700-guest ship.
The anomaly, stated precisely and date-stamped to July 2026. In February 2026 MSC removed all of MSC Lirica's 2026–27 South America itineraries from its website and booking system. Booked passengers received notices citing “operational reasons affecting MSC Lirica's deployment.” Her last currently-scheduled voyage terminates in Venice on 15 November 2026 and no replacement 2026–27 schedule has been published.
What that does and does not mean. MSC has announced no sale, no transfer, no charter-out and no disposal for her or for any of the eight older ships in its fleet, and its December 2025 fleet-expansion materials contain no retirement plans for older tonnage. Her sister MSC Sinfonia had already displaced her from the 2025–26 South America season, so a redeployment is at least as likely as anything more dramatic. We are labelling her status beyond 15 November 2026 as unverified and leaving it there. Anyone telling you more than that is guessing.
Where the class goes generally, for context: the Mediterranean in all three of its flavours, Northern Europe and the Baltic, South Africa, South America and Brazil, the Caribbean and Bahamas, the Arabian Gulf, Asia, and MSC's Grand Voyages. These four hulls have worked more of the world map between them than any other class in the fleet.
Onboard: her features & standouts
Five dining venues, twelve bars, an aqua park that arrived twelve years after she did — and one venue we would verify aboard rather than assume. Tap through.
Walk the whole of her promenade and public decks on embarkation afternoon while everyone else is queuing for the buffet. She is only 274.9 metres long with nine passenger decks, and you can genuinely learn this entire ship in twenty minutes — which is a thing you cannot do on a 6,700-guest hull and which pays back every day afterwards. Find your two quiet lounges on day one and the crowding complaints in her reviews stop being your problem.
Deck plan logic: bottlenecks & where the dining clusters
Thirteen decks in total, nine of them passenger-accessible, five carrying cabins. That is a compact, legible ship, and the practical consequence is that nothing aboard is a long walk from anything else. The buffet and the pool complex sit high, the theatre and the main restaurants sit low, and the single vertical core between them is the entire circulation system. There is no promenade deck full of alternatives to escape into.
The bottleneck is arithmetic rather than architecture. At double occupancy she runs 2.75 guests per crew member, which is respectable. At her maximum of 2,648 guests she runs 3.67:1 — a 35 per cent degradation in service coverage that arrives precisely when the upper berths fill, which is to say in school holidays. Reviewers on this class report long waits at bars and an observed reduction in visible staff, and the capacity mathematics corroborates the complaint rather than contradicting it. If you can sail her outside the family peaks, do.
The inserted section is the thing to book around. The 2015 midsection is twenty-four metres of newer steel dropped into the middle of the ship, and it is deliberately balcony-heavy — MSC added 193 guest cabins there precisely because the middle of a ship is where balconies sell. Amidships on this hull therefore means newer, quieter and closer to both the lifts and the pool. It is the rare case where the obvious best location is also the newest one.
The dining clusters split simply because there are so few of them. Five venues, all included, no paid tier to plan around, no reservations system to lose. That is genuinely restful. The cost is repetition: food repetition and quality are the most corroborated criticism across MSC's entire older fleet, and on a seven-night Adriatic run with five venues you will notice it by about day four.
Value strategy: what to pre-book, what to skip
A ship with no specialty restaurants and no gated deck has fewer ways to take your money. Here is where it still goes.
Worth locking in
- The drinks package, before you sail. It prices below the onboard rate, and MSC states that all MSC Cruises' pre-paid and onboard beverage packages include gratuities — where several American lines add 18 to 20 per cent at the point of purchase. On a ship whose reviewers report long bar queues, a package also removes the second reason to stand in one.
- Fantastica rather than Bella. On Bella MSC assigns your stateroom shortly before departure. On a ship that is 2015 in the middle and 2003 at both ends, that is a materially bigger gamble than it is on a uniform hull. Fantastica buys cabin choice, free room-service delivery and a free booking change.
- Your shore excursions, or your own plan. On a ship with no signature onboard attraction the itinerary is the product. Venice and the Adriatic reward planning more than almost any other European itinerary, and this is the one line item where spending more clearly buys more.
Save your money
- A specialty dining package. There isn't one. Every restaurant aboard is included in your fare, which is structurally different from every newer MSC ship and the single best thing about booking this class.
- Aurea purely for the drinks. The Aurea fare tier's drinks package is discounted, not free, and that catches people out every season. Aurea buys free-time dining, adults-only thermal access and priority boarding — buy it for those or not at all.
- The top cabin grade, if you are buying it for exclusivity. There is nothing to be exclusive from on this ship. The largest accommodation aboard runs about 248 square feet and opens onto the same decks as everyone else's.
Structuring a day
- Eat at the edges of the service. The buffet and the pool deck are the two documented pinch points on this class, and both are a function of everyone arriving at once. Half an hour either side of the rush and she feels like a different ship.
- Claim a lounge. Twelve bars and lounges on a hull this size means at least three of them are always empty. Find yours on day one; it becomes your ship.
- Go ashore early and come back late. She is small, which means she berths where the big ships tender and she is usually a short walk from the town rather than a shuttle ride. That is the actual luxury on this ship and it costs nothing.
The fare first. Cruise Critic has shown MSC Lirica sailings starting at $148 per person, and CruiseMapper has listed 2026 Adriatic sailings on her from roughly $1,176 to $1,913 per cabin. That is a remarkable amount of Mediterranean for the money, and MSC's own philosophy frames it correctly — value is not spending the least money, it is getting the most vacation for the money you choose to spend.
Now the qualifier, because it belongs in the same breath. Multiple experienced reviewers of this class argue that the low price “reflects reduced quality rather than value.” We think that is too absolute — the itineraries, the social feel and the absence of upsells are real products, not consolation prizes — but it is a serious criticism from people who have sailed a lot of ships, and selling you cheapness dressed as value would be the easiest dishonest thing this page could do. The honest position is that she is excellent value for a specific traveller and poor value for a general one, and the difference is entirely whether you want a ship or a route.
Budget the service charge properly. On European itineraries MSC's charge runs about €12 per person per night with a reduced rate for children rather than the flat adult figure North American sailings apply — confirm the exact child figure for your departure, because it varies by market and MSC does not publish one number for all of them.
Hidden gems
Eight things worth knowing before you sail her, none of them in the brochure.
Book amidships and you book 2015
The inserted 24-metre midsection is newer steel, balcony-heavy and closest to the lifts. On most ships the middle is a compromise; on this one it is the newest part of the ship.
She was MSC's first newbuild
Every MSC ship before her was second-hand. If you like the idea that the line's whole modern fleet descends from one 60,000-ton ship ordered into a rival's cancelled slots, this is that ship.
The class has a second name
Naval-architecture sources and Wikipedia file these four under the Mistral class, after the 1999 ship Mistral. MSC itself says “Lirica Class,” which is what we use. The original Mistral now sails as Ambition for Ambassador Cruise Line and was never an MSC ship.
You can tell her from the ex-Festival pair by the stern
Despite identical post-stretch dimensions, Lirica and Opera have a more rounded stern. Armonia and Sinfonia differ at the stern, the funnel and the internal layout. Same class, two different design lineages.
Her build year is not her fleet-entry year
The dates usually quoted for this class — Lirica 2003, Opera 2004, Sinfonia 2005, Armonia 2004 — are MSC fleet-entry years. Two of the four were built for another company entirely and are older than their MSC dates suggest.
There is no deck 17 anywhere in this fleet
Seventeen is unlucky in Italy: the numeral XVII is an anagram of VIXI, “I have lived,” a Roman tombstone inscription. On a thirteen-deck ship it never comes up, which is one small way a deck plan tells you how big a ship is.
The aqua park is younger than the ship
Twelve years younger. Water slides and water cannons arrived with the 2015 stretch, as did the Chicco®, LEGO® and Namco® kids' spaces. Anyone describing her as a ship with nothing for children is describing the 2003 version.
Her Cruise Critic editor score is blank
She is the only ship of the four with no editor rating at all — the site displays “-- / 5.0.” Her three sisters all carry a flat 4.0. That is an absence of assessment, not a bad one, and it is worth knowing before you read her member average as though it were the whole picture.
No Yacht Club, and why that matters
MSC Lirica does not have an MSC Yacht Club, and unlike two of her sisters she does not have a Junior Suite Aurea either. Verified against MSC's own ship page, her accommodation runs to three things: Interior, Ocean View and Balcony. That is the entire ladder. There is no butler tier, no private restaurant, no gated lounge, no separate pool deck and no priority enclave to buy your way into. If you have read our guide to the MSC Yacht Club and were planning to book one, this is the page where we tell you it does not exist here.
What sits at the top instead is the Aurea experience — a fare tier rather than a place. Aurea buys free-time dining in a dedicated restaurant, adults-only thermal-suite access at the MSC Aurea Spa, priority boarding and a discounted drinks package. Note the word discounted; it is not free, and that is the single most common misunderstanding about MSC's tier structure. Aurea is a set of privileges attached to your booking, not a gated quarter of the ship you disappear into.
Here is the editorial line, and we think it is the most interesting thing about this class. The Lirica class is the last of MSC's fleet where every guest uses the same restaurants, the same pools and the same sun deck. On Meraviglia, Seaside, Fantasia and World class the best real estate aboard is behind a keycard. By spring 2027 MSC will offer a Yacht Club on 19 of 24 ships. These four are among the five that will not, and on this ship the absence is total — no enclave, no suite tier, nothing above a balcony.
The same logic runs through the restaurants. There are no specialty surcharge restaurants on this class; all dining is complimentary. On a new MSC ship the paid dining is frequently the best dining, which means the quality of your week is partly a function of your willingness to spend again after you have already paid. That trade does not exist here. You cannot buy a better dinner than the one your neighbour is eating, which is either a limitation or a relief depending entirely on who you are — and it is worth being honest that for a lot of travellers it is genuinely a limitation.
What you lose is choice; what you gain is a ship that is one thing. There is no part of MSC Lirica you are being kept out of. On a small, sociable, port-led vessel that turns out to matter more than it sounds, and it is the clearest reason to choose this class over a newer, better-equipped, more stratified ship.
Two ways to sail her
She is a couples' ship that families can use, rather than the other way round. Here is the honest version of each week.
What families actually find
What works. The aqua park with slides and water cannons, the Chicco®, LEGO® and Namco® areas and the teens space are all free, and on a ship this compact your children are never far away. Nothing aboard needs a wristband, a reservation or a supplement, which removes most of the friction that makes a family cruise feel like a series of transactions.
What surprises parents. Two things. Cabin size — standard interiors run about 129 square feet and the largest accommodation aboard about 248, so four people sharing is genuinely tight rather than cosy. And the crew ratio: filling those upper berths is exactly what takes the ship from 2.75 guests per crew member to 3.67, so the school-holiday sailing is both the one you are most likely to book and the one most likely to feel understaffed.
Which ages benefit most. Roughly five to eleven. Teenagers will find her thin — there is no ropes course, no go-karts, no roller coaster and no water park of the modern sort — and the honest advice is that a teenager who wants a ship should be on a newer one.
What couples actually find
The good week is a European one. Twelve bars and lounges, a cigar room, a gelateria, a Balinese spa, a walking track at sunrise, and a ship small enough to berth in the middle of towns the flagships have to skip. Do the Adriatic on this ship with a bottle of something and low expectations of the buffet and it is a lovely holiday for very little money.
The bad week is a ship-led one. If your plan is to stay aboard, eat well and be entertained, she will disappoint you by day three. Five dining venues on a seven-night sailing means repetition, her reviewers report food arriving lukewarm, and the entertainment is constrained by a multilingual audience in a way MSC's own editors have noted across the older fleet — announcements repeated in up to five languages, described as taking five times as long.
The quiet places. Any of the twelve lounges outside its peak hour; the walking track early; the aft decks during dinner; and the whole ship on a port day, when a vessel this size empties almost completely because everybody can actually get ashore.
Cabins: three grades, and one that matters more than the grade
988 staterooms by MSC's own count — 992 by some third-party sources — across five cabin decks, in three categories: Interior, Ocean View and Balcony. That is the whole ladder.
Location outranks category on this hull, which is unusual. The 2015 stretch inserted 193 new staterooms into a twenty-four-metre midsection, and that section is both newer and deliberately balcony-heavy. Amidships therefore means newer fittings, shorter walks to the lifts and less motion. Forward and aft is original 2003 accommodation that has had no publicly documented major refurbishment since November 2015. Same ship, same fare code, materially different room.
Be realistic about the dimensions. Standard interiors run about 129 square feet and the largest suites about 248. Reviewers on this class describe cabins as small and, on her sister Opera, as claustrophobic — and the numbers support them rather than excusing them. This is a design from an era when a cruise cabin was somewhere you slept between things, and the ship's own public rooms are where the space went.
The tiers. Bella means MSC picks your cabin for you, with fixed dining and a charge for room-service delivery — on this particular ship that is a gamble on which decade of accommodation you receive. Fantastica buys cabin choice, free delivery and one free booking change, and on a hull this variable it is the upgrade we would actually pay for. Aurea adds free-time dining, adults-only thermal access, priority boarding and a discounted — not free — drinks package. Avoid cabins immediately below the buffet and pool deck and immediately above the theatre, which on a ship with only nine passenger decks are easier to end up beneath than you might expect.
Her sister ships
Three sisters, and only one of them was built for MSC at all.
MSC Opera
Her true twin — the second MSC newbuild, 1,070 cabins, Sophia Loren's godchild, and the one running year-round Southern Caribbean without a US homeport.
2002 hull · PiraeusMSC Sinfonia
Built as Festival's European Stars. The best-reviewed ship of the four by a wide margin, working the Eastern Mediterranean from Piraeus.
2001 hull · DurbanMSC Armonia
Built as Festival's European Vision. The only one of the four with a substantial refit since the stretch, and the one opening South Africa.
The honest read
She is the least-assessed ship in the MSC fleet, and that is where any honest read has to start. Cruise Critic gives her no editor rating at all — the field displays “-- / 5.0” — while her three sisters all carry a flat 4.0. Her member sample is 250 reviews: 77 Excellent, 49 Very Good, 43 Average, 37 Poor and 41 Terrible. That is 78 of 250, or 31.2 per cent, negative, which is the mildest negative share of the three ships in this class that skew negative, and it is still a lot.
The criticism is consistent and it is mostly about condition. Reviewers call her “maybe a tiny bit dated decor-wise” and, less gently, “to old and in need of series updates.” Food is the other universal: “the food was awful mostly served lukewarm.” Across the class the same complaints recur with more force — sewage odour, black mould from failed shower drainage, air-conditioning failures on her sister Opera. We publish those because maintenance and reliability are legitimate things to criticise a ship for and softening them would be a disservice. The factual spine underneath all of it is simple: no major publicly documented refit since November 2015, and she is one of three of the four in that position.
The counterintuitive defence is real and it is sourced. At 33.1 gross tons per guest at double occupancy MSC Lirica is not a cramped ship by fleet standards. She essentially matches the 33.3 GT per guest MSC is marketing for its forthcoming New Frontier class as “the best space-per-guest ratio in the entire MSC fleet.” Older does not mean tighter here, and anyone who tells you a 2003 hull is inherently more crowded than a 2030 one has not checked. What collapses is the full-occupancy figure — about 24.8 GT per guest, with the crew ratio going from 2.75:1 to 3.67:1. She is a spacious ship for two people and a tight one for four, and almost every argument about this class is really an argument about which of those two ships the reviewer was on.
What she genuinely offers that a new ship cannot. Port access, first — less than a third the tonnage of MSC World Europa gets her into Venice and the Adriatic on terms the flagships cannot match, and MSC's own executive chairman conceded the point in reverse when he said the smaller New Frontier class “will enable us to design new and exclusive itineraries.” Then no class stratification, no dining surcharge, and a social rather than attraction-led ship. Those are real products. They are also, notably, the things MSC has spent twenty years building away from.
And then there is the schedule. We are not going to speculate about a ship whose owner has said only that there are “operational reasons affecting MSC Lirica's deployment.” What we will say is what is documented: her last scheduled voyage ends in Venice on 15 November 2026, no replacement programme has been published, no sale or charter has been announced, and MSC's own fleet materials contain no retirement plans for older tonnage. If you want to sail her, sail her inside the published schedule. If your dates are outside it, book a sister and check back.
Who receives the most value from MSC Lirica? A couple or a pair of couples doing the Adriatic in the shoulder season, who want the ports rather than the ship, who will book amidships and Fantastica, who understand that nothing aboard costs extra and that nothing aboard will astonish them either. For that traveller she is a great deal of holiday for a small amount of money. For anyone whose week runs through the buffet, the theatre and the hope of being impressed, one of her sisters — or a newer class entirely — is the more honest recommendation, and we would rather make it here than have you discover it on day three.
MSC Lirica at a glance
The numbers, stated once, with the basis named.
| Entered MSC fleet | 2003 — MSC Cruises' first-ever newbuild |
| Hull delivered | 2003, Chantiers de l'Atlantique, Saint-Nazaire, France |
| Origin | Ordered into slots freed when Festival Cruises cancelled two units at the yard |
| Godmother | Not asserted. Sophia Loren is claimed by CruiseMapper only, with no corroboration — we will not publish it as fact |
| Gross tonnage | 65,591 GT after the stretch; approximately 60,000 before it |
| Length · beam | 274.9 m / 902 ft · 32 m — was 251.25 m · 28.8 m |
| Decks | 13 total, 9 passenger-accessible, 5 with cabins |
| Staterooms | 988 per MSC; 992 per some third-party sources |
| Guests | ~1,984 double occupancy; 2,648 maximum per MSC |
| Crew | 721 |
| Guests per crew | 2.75:1 at double occupancy; 3.67:1 at maximum |
| Space ratio | 33.1 gross tons per guest at double occupancy; 24.8 at maximum |
| Max speed | 21.7 knots |
| The stretch | Fincantieri Palermo, 31 Aug – 9 Nov 2015 — last of the four. 2,400-tonne section, +24 m, +193 guest cabins, +59 crew cabins |
| Refit history | No major refit publicly documented since November 2015 |
| Yacht Club | None. Interior, Ocean View and Balcony only — no Junior Suite tier at all |
| Specialty dining | None. All dining complimentary. Kaito Sushi Bar pricing worth verifying aboard |
| Deployment | 7-day Adriatic round-trips from Venice. Last scheduled voyage terminates Venice 15 Nov 2026; beyond that UNVERIFIED |
| Capacity conflict | CruiseMapper gives 2,548 maximum against MSC's 2,648; Wikipedia gives ~2,679. We publish MSC's figure and footnote the range |
| Cruise Critic | No editor rating (displays -- / 5.0); 250 member reviews, 78 of them Poor or Terrible |
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Quick answers
Is MSC Lirica being retired or sold?
No such announcement has been made. As of July 2026 MSC has announced no sale, transfer, charter-out or disposal for MSC Lirica, and MSC's December 2025 fleet-expansion materials contain no retirement plans for older tonnage. What is documented is narrower and stranger: in February 2026 MSC withdrew all of her 2026-27 South America itineraries citing operational reasons affecting MSC Lirica's deployment, her last currently-scheduled voyage terminates in Venice on 15 November 2026, and no replacement schedule has been published. We label her status beyond that date as unverified rather than speculating about it.
Where does MSC Lirica sail?
Her published pattern is seven-day Adriatic round-trips from Venice. Her sister MSC Sinfonia had already displaced her from the 2025-26 South America season, and her own 2026-27 South America programme was withdrawn in February 2026. Nothing is currently scheduled beyond 15 November 2026. As a class these four ships work the Mediterranean, Northern Europe and the Baltic, South Africa, South America, the Caribbean, the Arabian Gulf and Asia, and they are used to reach ports the 215,000-ton flagships physically cannot.
Does MSC Lirica have a Yacht Club?
No. Verified against MSC's own ship page, MSC Lirica offers Interior, Ocean View and Balcony staterooms only, with no suite tier at all. There is no butler service, no private restaurant, no gated lounge and no separate pool deck. The top of the product on this ship is the Aurea fare tier, which buys free-time dining, adults-only thermal-suite access, priority boarding and a discounted drinks package. None of the four Lirica-class ships has a Yacht Club, and that also means every guest aboard uses the same restaurants, pools and sun deck.
Does MSC Lirica have specialty restaurants you pay extra for?
The documented position for this class is that all dining is complimentary with no specialty surcharge restaurants, which is structurally different from every newer MSC ship. One honest caveat: the sourcing for that statement is CruiseMapper's entry for MSC Sinfonia, and MSC Lirica carries a Kaito Sushi Bar, a brand that is a paid venue on newer ships in the fleet. We would confirm Kaito's pricing aboard rather than assume it. Her five dining venues include L'Ippocampo and La Pergola.
Was MSC Lirica made bigger?
Yes. She was cut in half and stretched at Fincantieri's Palermo yard between 31 August and 9 November 2015, the last of four ships through MSC's 200 million euro Renaissance Programme. A 2,400-tonne prefabricated midsection was floated into a 24-metre gap, adding 193 guest staterooms and 59 crew cabins, widening the beam from 28.8 to 32 metres and taking her from roughly 60,000 to 65,591 gross tons. Across the class the stretch raised guest capacity 29.5 per cent against a tonnage increase of only 9.3 per cent, which is the structural reason crowding appears so often in reviews.
Is MSC Lirica good value?
For the right traveller, yes. Cruise Critic has shown fares on her starting at $148 per person, there are no specialty dining surcharges and no gated areas to buy into, and at 33.1 gross tons per guest at double occupancy she matches the space ratio MSC is marketing as the best in its entire fleet for its forthcoming New Frontier class. The qualifier that has to accompany that: multiple experienced reviewers of this class argue the low price reflects reduced quality rather than value, and with no major documented refit since 2015 that criticism is not unreasonable. She is excellent value if you want the route and poor value if you want the ship.