Revised schedule and passenger arrangements
MSC Preziosa will now leave Zeebrugge at 6 p.m. on November 5, a day after its scheduled departure. The change replaces the French port visit with an overnight stay in Belgium.
Captain Francesco Iacono signed the notice informing guests of the change on November 3. It cited nationwide strikes and protests planned for November 5 and said MSC Cruises was putting passenger safety and comfort first.
MSC will credit passengers' onboard accounts for Le Havre shore excursions purchased through the cruise line. Guests seeking a tour during the longer Belgian stop can ask the ship's Shore Excursions Desk about options in and around Zeebrugge.
The Belgian port serves as a gateway to Bruges. For guests who had arranged activities in northern France, however, the additional time there will be less useful. Le Havre is a departure point for excursions to both Paris and Normandy.
The cancellation also affects a port where passengers can begin or end their cruise. Some guests booked a seven-night sailing starting in Le Havre on November 5, but MSC has not publicly explained how it will accommodate them or whether they will need to join the ship elsewhere.
The voyage affected
MSC Preziosa offers overlapping itineraries, with boarding available in Southampton, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Le Havre. According to Cruise.Blog, citing CruiseMapper, the ship's current voyage is an eight-night trip from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, November 3-11.
On that itinerary, Le Havre was the second scheduled port after Zeebrugge. Southampton and Hamburg were to follow, with another Zeebrugge visit on November 10.
The 4,345-guest MSC Preziosa is a Fantasia-class ship launched in 2013. Cruise.Blog reports that the cruise line lists its size as 139,072 gross tons.
Nationwide action expected to affect transport
The November 5 strike was called by the intersyndicale. The Local France identifies the coalition's five major unions as CFDT, CGT, FO, Unsa and FSU. Their concerns include wages, higher living costs, public services and the government's budget proposals.
Potential disruption extends to education and healthcare as well as ports and other transport services. Ahead of the action, national rail operator SNCF forecast only minor disruption to high-speed TGV trains, but greater disruption on regional Intercité and TER routes, The Local France reported.
The strike follows demonstrations on October 17, 24 and 31. According to Cruise.Blog, the French government estimated that more than 1.2 million people took part across those three dates.
Earlier port strikes and missed cruise calls
Unions that took part in an October 30 port strike have also announced their participation in the November 5 action. Le Parisien reported that those unions represent roughly 14,000 port employees, including 7,500 dockworkers.
During the October 30 strike, CGT dockers' union general secretary Tony Hautbois told AFP that French ports would be "95% shut down", with loading and unloading halted. Le Temps, reporting with AFP, said the union represents 95% of dockers and 87.5% of workers across the sector nationwide.
That earlier stoppage had been called at the European level by the European Dockworkers Council and internationally by other dockworker federations, notably in Turkey and India, to oppose war and the militarization of ports, according to Le Temps/AFP. European unions oppose a proposed EU regulation intended to ease the movement of defense equipment through civilian transport infrastructure.
MSC Virtuosa also abandoned a Le Havre call on October 30 because of the dockworkers' strike. Poor weather separately forced that sailing to skip La Rochelle, making MSC Preziosa the second MSC ship to change its itinerary because of disruption in France within a week.
Earlier in October, P&O Cruises' Iona sailed to La Coruña, Spain, instead of making its scheduled October 18 stop in Le Havre.
