First U.S. cruise in decades arrives in Cuba

MIAMI — With its horn blaring and salsa music pouring from its speakers, a U.S. cruise ship docked in Havana on Monday morning, the first time that's happened in nearly 40 years.

"We'll never forget this day," Capt. David Box said over the ship's public address system as it approached the harbor, according to The Miami Herald.

The trip represents the latest step in the normalization process between the Cold War foes that was started by President Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro on Dec. 17, 2014. Since then, the countries' embassies have reopened in Washington and Havana, Obama visited Cuba, and more U.S. businesses operate on the long-isolated island.

But the voyage of the Adonia, a 704-passenger vessel operated by Fathom Travel and owned by Miami-based Carnival Corp., was a source of controversy long before it set sail. At first, the Cuban government forbade anybody born in Cuba from traveling on the cruise, citing national security concerns. Cuban-Americans in Miami filed a federal lawsuit to stop the cruise because of that restriction. Just two weeks before the Adonia was scheduled to depart Port Miami, the Cuban government dropped the restriction on Cuban-born passengers, clearing the way for the historic sail.

The U.S. still maintains an economic embargo on Cuba that forbids U.S. citizens from traveling there purely as tourists. Americans can travel to Cuba under 12 categories that include educational, religious and humanitarian reasons. 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.

Passenger Carey Rybicki said she received a lot of grief for booking a ticket on the cruise. Like so many other Americans who have fantasized about visiting the mysterious, communist island, she said she couldn't resist.

"Some of my friends thought I was foolish," she told WSVN-TV. "But it was something I always wanted to do."

The Adonia's seven-day cruise around Cuba, which includes stops in Havana, Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba, is only the start. Carnival says the ship will cruise twice a month to Havana.

Norwegian Cruise Lines says it's in negotiations with the Cuban government to begin sailing to the island later this year. Connecticut-based Pearl Sea Cruises has been trying to get approval for Cuba trips, and small-ship specialist Ponant plans to start sailing in 2017.

All told, more than a dozen lines have announced plans to run U.S.-Cuba cruises, which could lead to more than 100,000 people visiting Cuba from the U.S. aboard cruise ships by 2017, according to the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. That could result in more than $300 million in revenue for cruise operators, with about $88 million of that going directly to the Cuban government, said council president John Kavulich.

That income is an easy lure for the Cuban government, which has struggled over the decades to improve the impoverished conditions of many of its 11 million citizens.

Tourism from the U.S. has increased more than 50% following the 2014 announcement. Hotels, restaurants and transportation services in Havana have been operating at or near capacity ever since, straining the country's ability to accommodate the rush. Passengers aboard the Adonia, and other cruise ships, will sleep and eat most of their meals on board, easing that strain.

Before the 1959 Cuban revolution, cruise ships regularly traveled from the U.S. to Cuba, with elegant Caribbean cruises departing from New York and $42 overnight weekend jaunts leaving twice a week from Miami, Michael Grace, an amateur cruise ship historian, told the Associated Press.

New York 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.

He said the United Fruit company operated a once-a-week cruise service out of New Orleans, too.

"Cuba was a very big destination for Americans, just enormous," Grace said.

Cruises dwindled in the years leading up to the Cuban Revolution and ended entirely after Fidel Castro, Raúl's brother, overthrew the U.S.-backed government in 1959.

After then-President Carter dropped limits on Cuba travel in 1977,  400 passengers, including musical legend Dizzy Gillespie, sailed there from New Orleans on a "Jazz Cruise" aboard the MS Daphne. Like the Adonia, it sailed despite dockside protests by Cuban exiles, and continued protests and bomb threats forced Carras Cruises to cancel additional sailings, Grace said.

The following year, however, Daphne made several cruises from New Orleans to Cuba and other destinations in the Caribbean.

Cuba cut back on all cruise tourism in 2005, ending a joint venture with Italian terminal management company Silares Terminales del Caribe, and Fidel Castro criticized cruise ships during a speech on state television.

"Floating hotels come, floating restaurants, floating theaters, floating diversions visit countries to leave their trash, their empty cans and papers for a few miserable cents," Castro said.

All that changed Monday, when the first passengers — a Cuban-American couple — walked off the Adonia and onto the streets of Havana.

Arnie Pérez and his wife, Carmen, have lived through the difficult negotiations to get a U.S. cruise ship in Cuba for nearly a year. Pérez is Carnival's chief legal counsel and was in the middle of the long process, which included the federal lawsuit, protests outside of Carnival's offices and months of uncertainty. On Monday, he said the opportunity to help change the situation in Cuba made the effort well worth it.

"The time is now to do something different toward Cuba," he told The Miami Herald. "We're engaging with people and we are hoping for the best."