MSC Cruises cancels Dubai repositioning at end of 2025/26 season on Red Sea concerns

MSC Cruises has cancelled a 25-day Grand Voyage from Dubai to Southampton scheduled for April 4th, 2026, citing ongoing security risks in the Red Sea.

The decision affects guests booked aboard MSC Euribia, one of the line’s newest Meraviglia-Plus-class ships, which carries 5,800 passengers at double occupancy, and is due to homeport in Dubai for the 2025/26 season.

The planned itinerary of the repositioning cruise included calls at Doha, Abu Dhabi, Muscat and Aqaba, before a two-day Suez Canal transit into the Eastern Mediterranean. Further port calls were scheduled at Alexandria, Rome, Barcelona, Cadiz, Lisbon, and Le Havre, with the cruise ending in Southampton.

In its notice to guests, MSC Cruises said: “Considering that the ongoing geopolitical situation still does not allow us to guarantee a safe transit across the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, we have had to cancel MSC Euribia’s Grand Voyage from the United Arab Emirates that was due to depart in April 2026.”

The cancellation notice also confirmed that no compensation would be provided for flights, hotel stays or other travel arrangements made independently of the cruise fare.

MSC Euribia will likely instead sail for Europe via South Africa without passengers, a longer repositioning that has been formalised by other Middle East homeporting lines like Costa Cruises, but not MSC.

In a recent interview with Cruise Arabia & Africa, Angelo Capurro, Executive Director for MSC Cruises, explained that a lack of adequare port infrastructure on the continent makes it difficult to offer the African repositioning as a passenger voyage.

MSC Cruises has offered three alternatives for affected passengers: 

First, they can transfer their booking to another Grand Voyage of similar length, with the line applying the lower of the two cruise fares. 

Second, guests may rebook on any other cruise on the MSC programme without paying a change fee; if the new fare is higher, guests will pay the difference, while those choosing a cheaper voyage will be refunded the balance. 

Third, a full refund of the cruise fare already paid.

MSC Cruises has given guests until September 30th, 2025 to decide.

The cancellation is the latest in a series of adjustments made by cruise operators as instability in the Red Sea continues to disrupt itineraries. 

This is the second time MSC Euribia has had a Grand Voyage cancelled due to security concerns. In October 2024, the ship’s planned repositioning cruise from Kiel to Dubai was withdrawn for similar reasons, after reports of attacks on vessels transiting the area.

MSC Cruises has had to cancel its repositioning voyages to and from Dubai every year since 2023, when the Red Sea security situation first began to deteriorate. 

Earlier this month, MSC Cruises also rerouted its 2026 World Cruise aboard MSC Magnifica. The ship, originally due to pass through the Suez Canal, was redirected around Africa’s western coast. The change added 12 days to the itinerary, extending it to 131 days.

Despite multiple cruise lines scaling back or avoiding transits of the Red Sea altogether, the region’s viability as a cruise corridor remains key to global voyages, according to multiple cruise executives who spoke at Arabian Travel Market in Dubai earlier this year. 

For now, MSC Cruises has indicated that guest safety continues to guide its operational decisions, even when it means altering or cancelling long-established repositioning voyages.