The line said there are several Cuban-Americans taking the historic cruise.
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“I left Cuba when I was four”, said Milly Martin, one of a dozen Cuban-born Americans that boarded the ship.
Aiming to change that as part of a policy of diplomatic and economic normalization, Obama approved US cruises to Cuba in 2015.
But the voyages will include on-board workshops covering Cuba’s history, culture and music, which let’s it qualify as a “people-to-people” educational tour.
Until last week it was uncertain whether the cruise would take place.
Obama had urged the Republican-controlled Congress to lift the unilateral and illegal over-50-year-old blockade on the island, and travel ban, but to no avail, resorting to his executive powers to punch holes in them instead. “I think he really wanted to help the people and improve the life of the common people of Cuba”.
Fathom now begins seven-day voyages to three ports of call in Cuba: Havana, Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba, with a cruise being chartered every other week.
Standing beside Cuban and American flags, the cruise manager touted the journey as “the beginning of a new era”.
The demonstrators didn’t stop the cruise ship from pulling out of the port.
Most of the money would go directly to the Cuban government, council head John Kavulich said. But its conditions to start the visits were for Cuba to allow its citizens to sail freely. “I was born in Cuba”.
The visit began when the first hazy outlines of the Havana skyline appeared on the horizon about 7 a.m., and excitement aboard the Adonia began to build.
Carnival counsel Arnie Perez was the first to step off the ship in Havana.
NY cruises featured dressy dinners, movies, dancing and betting on “horse races” in which stewards dragged wooden horses around a ballroom track according to rolls of dice that determined how many feet each could move per turn.
Gary Carlson said that, to him, the controversy surrounding the cruise doesn’t add up.
Once a major vacation destination for Americans, Cuba has been off limits since the end of the Carter Administration.
Despite U.S. overtures, a growing alliance between the United States and the Communist nation hasn’t stopped leftist leaders from raising their voice against foreign political powers. Cuba-born passengers were aboard when the Adonia left port on Sunday, the company said.
“We will never forget this day as we enter the city”, said Captain David Box as the Adonia pulled into the harbour.
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Before the Cuban Revolution brought Fidel Castro to power in 1959, cruise ships and ferries were a common way to cross the Florida Straits.
