MSC Poesia’s Contract Promised a Refund. The Passengers Got a Refund and a Second Cruise.

A passenger booked on MSC Poesia’s November 12 sailing is already in Miami. The ship is still at the pier, the cruise line still says the sailing is on, and the Coast Guard still has not said what it found. “I’m on poesia Nov 12-22 cruise too. MSC still says it’s on,” ConnectionLast2505 wrote on Reddit. “My friend is flying in from far away and there’s not much to do here for 10 days and hotels are very expensive compared to other US cities. Flights to return sooner are over $600. It would save so much hussle and money for both MSC and passengers if they tell us now if the Nov 12 cruise is going or no.”

The ship has been at PortMiami since Sunday, November 1, when the Coast Guard detained it during an expanded port state control examination hours before its 5 p.m. departure on an 11-night Caribbean cruise to Jamaica, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras and Belize. More than 2,000 people were already aboard. The sailing was canceled on Tuesday morning, just after 10 a.m., when Capt. Michele Tuvo told passengers over the public address system that the line had made “the difficult decision to cancel our cruise.” Guests were allowed to stay aboard until noon on Thursday, November 5, with free Wi-Fi to rebook their travel home.

What the passengers were owed is written down, and it is less than what they got. MSC’s USA booking conditions reserve the company’s right to cancel any cruise package “at any time for any reason.” The passenger’s choices are a substitute package, another package, or “cancelling and receiving a full refund of all monies paid.” Then the line that closes the subject: “In no event shall the Company or Carrier be liable for any consequential damages or other damages as a result of such cancellation.” The conditions add that a refund may be paid in the form of a cruise credit certificate at the company’s sole option, valid for at least a year. Only a cancellation caused by mechanical failure brings anything more, and only in that case: transport to the disembarkation port or the passenger’s home city, and one night’s lodging if the cancellation strands them overnight in an unscheduled port.

The stateroom letters, delivered on Tuesday, listed a different settlement. The fare comes back in cash, to the original payment method, within 14 days, along with refunds for prepaid drink packages, specialty dining, internet and shore tours booked through MSC. On top of the cash comes a future cruise credit equal to 100 percent of the fare paid, usable on any MSC sailing if the booking is confirmed by November 2, 2027. The letter also promises reimbursement of eligible change fees and transport charges, in the same category of service and to the same destination as the journey originally booked, and a hotel room if a guest cannot get home on disembarkation day, with every claim submitted for review. The credit must be used to confirm a booking by November 2, 2027. The contract would have let MSC pay the refund in credit alone; it paid cash, and then a credit worth the fare again.

“I am glad MSC was generous with compensation,” onechaiguy wrote on Cruise Critic on November 4, after a Panama Canal crossing on the ship. Another former passenger, Safe_Aside4327, who spent 25 nights aboard on a repositioning voyage from Seattle in September and October, called the ship immaculate and wondered aloud whether the fault went back to the Malta refit. “It’s possible something wasn’t refitted properly in Malta as they did an extensive reconfiguration and refit bringing in the Yacht Club concept as well their biggest refit project ever undertaken,” he wrote on Reddit. “We didn’t notice anything unusual. The Poesia was immaculate and the Yacht Club was great I’d call it a mini Yacht Club This is a big deal but I wonder if they missed something in Seattle and Miami caught a refit issue probably waste or environmental even safety.” That is his theory, not a finding; nobody has confirmed it. He sailed her from Seattle in September and October, on the repositioning voyage that ended October 22.

“I pretty annoyed by MSC Silence on the issue,” Danielbdo wrote on Reddit. He is booked on the November 12 sailing. “I am booked on the Poesia for next Thursday on a 10day cruise, (12-23), the official channels say nothing and that the cruise is still on, but it has now almost been a week since the USCG detained the vessel and it is still at the port in Miami. I think they royally fucked something up and aren’t telling. If it was a minor issue they would have said something by now. I don’t know what to do at the moment….” The compensation letter settled the money, and the silence that followed left the cause unanswered. The November 12 sailing is still listed, and as of November 6 MSC had announced no change to it.

In 2025 the Coast Guard conducted 8,999 safety examinations of foreign vessels and detained 77 of them, a rate of 0.85 percent. Passenger ships accounted for 389 of those examinations. Inspectors found deficiencies on 205 of them, 704 in total. They detained none. Sector Miami, which held Poesia, conducted 438 examinations and 13 detentions in 2025, the most of any sector in the country. Alex Perez, a maritime attorney in Miami, told Fox News Digital that detaining a cruise ship carrying thousands of people rather than citing it is very rare, and that the detention itself “tells you the Coast Guard found something significant enough to warrant a detention.”

Its last American inspection, in April 2026, found problems with the operational readiness of its lifesaving appliances and let it sail. It had been inspected in Miami in March 2024, and four times before that since it entered service. The April inspection came the same spring the ship left a Malta dry dock, emerging on April 6 with 69 new Yacht Club suites after a refit that ran from February 19. The Centers for Disease Control scored its sanitation 97 out of 100 on April 23. The Coast Guard’s inspection is a separate regime from the CDC’s sanitation program, and the 97 says nothing about the systems the Coast Guard was examining in Miami.

The one named theory for what failed comes from an Italian maritime paper, not from either institution involved. Shipping Italy reported on November 5, as unofficial and unconfirmed industry rumor, that inspectors may have found a suspected “magic pipe,” a bypass that lets oily bilge water skip the separator and go straight overboard, in violation of the MARPOL pollution convention, possibly after a tip-off from someone who knew the equipment. MSC declined to comment on the leak. The precedent for that kind of finding is the one cruise lines remember. In December 2016 the Justice Department fined Princess Cruises $40 million, the largest criminal penalty ever imposed for deliberate vessel pollution, after a whistleblowing engineer revealed a “magic pipe” on Caribbean Princess that had been discharging oily waste since 2005, 4,227 gallons of it off the coast of England. Princess pleaded guilty to seven felony charges, and eight Carnival companies were put under a five-year court-supervised environmental compliance program. The earlier cases run the same way: Royal Caribbean paid $18 million in 1999, Carnival $18 million in 2002, Holland America $2 million in 1998, Norwegian Cruise Line $1.5 million in 2002. None of that is evidence about Poesia. Shipping Italy itself notes that in more recent years, no similar cases on cruise ships had been identified and sanctioned.

On Wednesday, October 28, passengers booked on MSC Opera received text messages that their cruises were canceled for technical reasons. Opera had been in dry dock in Valletta, Malta, earlier in October and was due to resume passenger operations on October 29, with Mediterranean sailings and a transatlantic repositioning ahead. Some passengers were told to board in Livorno on October 31 instead, and one already in Genoa was offered a hotel stay, transport to Livorno and onboard credit. MSC offered full refunds plus reimbursement for eligible travel and accommodation expenses, and has not publicly identified the technical issue. Nothing in the record connects the Opera cancellations to the Poesia detention.

Asked about the leak, MSC told Shipping Italy only that “during the inspection of the vessel by the United States Coast Guard, certain observations were made and a corrective action plan was immediately developed. The process is ongoing, and we are fully cooperating with the Coast Guard to resolve the matter.” The Coast Guard has said the ship will remain detained until the deficiencies are corrected and it is cleared to sail.