MIAMI (AP) — Passengers have set sail from Miami on a historic cruise to Cuba, the first in decades to depart from a U.S. seaport for the communist island nation.
Carnival Corp.’s 704-passenger Adonia left port Sunday at 4:24 p.m., bound for Havana. Carnival’s Cuba cruises, operating under its Fathom brand, will also visit the ports of Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba on the seven-day outing. Several Cuba-born passengers, among hundreds of others, were aboard.
The cruise comes after Cuba loosened its policy banning Cuban-born people from arriving to the country by sea, a rule that threatened to stop the cruises from happening.
Restarting the cruises was an important element of a bid by President Barack Obama’s administration’s to increase tourism to Cuba after the 2014 decision to restore diplomatic relations.
