The 600 passengers on the Adonia are the first cruisers to travel from a U.S. port to Cuba since the rapprochement between the United States and Cuba began on December 17, 2014 and the first since U.S.-Cuba relations went into the deep freeze more than 50 years ago.
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Officially the cruise is a people-to-people trip, one of the 12 categories of travel permitted with the embargo still in effect.
The Adonia’s arrival is the first step toward a future in which thousands of ships a year could cross the Florida Straits, long closed to most U.S.-Cuba traffic.
But the Cuban government changed the policy to allow Sunday’s trip. After a half-century of waiting, passengers finally set sail on Sunday from Miami on an historic cruise to Cuba.
Other cruise lines also are negotiating to get into the Cuban market with ships home-ported in the United States.
Initially, the firm had maintained a policy of not accepting Cuban travelers for the cruises, in accordance with a Cuban law preventing Cubans from arriving there by sea.
They had warned that the first cruise would be postponed past May 1 unless the Cubans changed their policy.
Carnival’s spokesperson Roger Frizzell told reporters that this would be a traditional sightseeing tour, where cruise passengers will enjoy the landscapes, meet the people and take a look around.
Carnival Corporation announced its new Fathom brand was accepting bookings to Cuba from all travelers, including individuals born in Cuba. But several Cold War-era restrictions on travelling and trading are yet to be lifted.
A Cuban government rule stipulated, however, that Cubans could only enter or leave by plane.
Its climax was a historic visit to the communist island nation by President Barack Obama and his family in March.
The Miami Herald ( http://hrld.us/21ohkxc ) reported that a boat carrying some activists protesting the trip to Cuba was nearby in Florida waters before the ship’s departure Sunday.
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Commercial flights between the two countries are also expected to resume soon.
