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HAVANA, Cuba — The growth of cruising to Cuba hit another milestone on Tuesday as a Norwegian Cruise Line ship visited the country for the first time.
With Norwegian's top executives looking on from the bridge and excited passengers lining its top decks, the Norwegian Sky pulled into Havana just after dawn after sailing overnight from Miami. The 2,004-passenger vessel will remain in the Cuban capital through Wednesday afternoon.
"You guys are going to love Havana," Frank Del Rio, the Cuban-born CEO of Norwegian's parent company, said at a guest reception before the vessel arrived. "It's a unique city ... (Cubans are) friendly people. They want Americans to come. They want to engage with us."
Hinting at the tension that has existed between the U.S. and Cuban governments for decades, Del Rio added that "tourism in general is a great way to engage people who may not see eye-to-eye with our way of living, with our way of governing."
In addition to Del Rio and other Norwegian executives, a number of the company's investors and board members as well as travel agency executives are on the sailing.
At 77,104 tons, Sky is the largest of nearly half a dozen cruise ships that have sailed from the USA to Cuba for the first time in recent weeks. The voyages are taking place as longstanding restrictions on travel between the countries loosen.
Norwegian Cruise Line announces more Cuba voyages
Sky's arrival comes just eight days after the first visit from a Royal Caribbean ship, Empress of the Seas. April also saw the first visit by a Regent Seven Seas Cruises vessel. Oceania Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises ships arrived for the first time in March.
The vessels are following in the wake of Adonia, a 704-passenger ship operated by the little-known Fathom brand that in 2016 launched the first USA-to-Cuba trips in decades. Owned by cruise giant Carnival Corp., Fathom will cease operating cruises in the coming weeks. Carnival Corp.'s better-known Carnival brand will begin cruises to Cuba in June.
Carnival Cruise Line gets nod for Cuba trips
Starting with its current trip, Sky will be sailing weekly to Havana from Miami on a four-night itinerary that also includes a visit to Great Stirrup Cay, Norwegian's private island in The Bahamas.
In doing so, Norwegian becomes the only line sailing weekly to Cuba from Miami.
Royal Caribbean also plans frequent voyages to Cuba but out of Tampa. The other lines that have begun sailings to Cuba from the USA only are offering the trips occasionally.
The Cuba calls planned by Norwegian and the other lines are designed to provide an opportunity for "people-to-people" exchanges between Americans and Cubans as allowed by U.S. rules governing visits to Cuba, the companies have said.
While the Obama administration loosened restrictions on travel to Cuba in 2016, U.S. visitors still are limited in the activities they are allowed to do in the country by the terms of the USA's five-decade-old embargo. The embargo specifies that activities fall within one of 12 approved categories. The categories include educational pursuits such as people-to-people exchanges.
Fares for the Norwegian sailings to Cuba start at $699 per person, including unlimited beverages.
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