By
Elly Yates-Roberts |
MSC Cruises is launching new entertainment offerings for children and teenagers onboard the line’s new flagship, MSC Grandiosa. When she enters service in November 2019 the ship will feature MSC Dance Crew, The Drone Academy, Spy Mission and a new web series.
Each year, the Switzerland-based cruise line welcomes over 350,000 children onboard its ships. As such, it is expanding its entertainment offerings for this demographic.
“The growing number of teens sailing with us, 13-17-year olds now make up 40% of our young guests – this has driven our development of exciting new teen-focused entertainment activities and a new web series dedicated to teens,” said Matteo Mancini, manager of Children’s Entertainment at MSC Cruises. “We are delighted to launch MSC Dance Crew, Spy Mission and The Drone Academy onboard MSC Grandiosa later this year and announce that filming is underway for ‘Cabin 12006’ – our new teens web series coming online early next year.”
MSC Dance Crew has been developed in partnership with Fremantle, the production company behind TV talent shows such as ‘The X Factor’. The new competition experience invites teams of teenagers to compete for the title of dance crew of the year.
MSC Cruises is also working with London-based immersive agency, The Department, to create The Drone Academy and Spy Mission. The former will take place in the Sportsplex venue onboard MSC Grandiosa and give passengers the chance to race drones through an indoor obstacle course at night.
Spy Mission will enable young guests to become immersed in a roaming spy experience, where they are led through different scenes on the ship to follow clues and solve the mystery.
Following the success of MSC Cruises’ first web series for kids, ‘Kelly & Kloe Onboard’, the cruise line is creating a new series with the help of Viacom, the media group behind the TV channel Nickelodeon.
The seven-episode series Cabin 12006 follows teenager Markus as he embarks on his first ever cruise – however, his holiday doesn’t quite go to plan and turns into an unexpected adventure.
Also new for this year, children onboard any of MSC Cruises ships can take part in MasterChef at Sea Juniors, an interactive two-stage cooking competition. The activity aims to inspire a new generation of chefs, with recipes from Rukmini Iyer, a MasterChef contestant from 2013 and author of two best-selling cookbooks.