U.S. cruise liner makes historic Havana trip
THE first US cruise ship in nearly 40 years has crossed the Florida Straits from Miami and docked in Havana, restarting commercial travel on waters that served as a stage for a halfcentury of Cold War hostility.
Carnival Cruise Line’s Adonia became the first US cruise ship in Havana since president Jimmy Carter eliminated virtually all restrictions of American travel to Cuba in the late 1970s.
Travel limits were restored after Mr Carter left office and US cruises to Cuba only become possible again after presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro declared detente on December 17, 2014.
Hundreds of workers and passers-by gathered to watch, some cheering, as the gleaming white 704-passenger ship pulled into the dock – the first step towards a future in which thousands of ships a year could cross the Florida Straits, long closed to most US-Cuba traffic due to tensions that once brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
The straits were blocked by the US during the Cuban Missile Crisis and tens of thousands of Cubans have fled across them to Florida on home-made rafts – with untold thousands dying in the process. The number of Cubans trying to cross the straits is at its highest point in eight years and cruises and merchant ships regularly rescue rafters from the straits.
The Adonia is one of Carnival’s smaller ships – roughly half the size of some larger European vessels that already dock in Havana – but US cruises are expected to bring Cuba tens of millions of dollars in badly needed foreign hard currency if traffic increases as expected.
More than a dozen lines have announced plans to run US-Cuba cruises and if all actually begin operations, Cuba could earn more than 80 million US dollars (£54.5 million) a year, according to the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.
Most of the money goes directly to the Cuban government, council head John Kavulich said. He estimated that the cruise companies pay the government $500,000 (£340,700) per cruise, while passengers spend about $100 (£68) per person in each city they visit.
Carnival says the Adonia will cruise twice a month from Miami to Havana, where it will start a seven-day circuit of Cuba with stops in the cities of Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba.