Carnival Cruise Line Gets Nod for Cuban Sailings

Miami-based cruise company Carnival Corporation & plc has received an approval from Cuba for its Carnival Cruise Line brand to begin sailing to the country starting in June 2017.

In an effort to meet strong demand from US travelers to visit Cuba, Carnival Cruise Line is set to launch a full series of sailings in 2017, expanding Carnival Corporation’s total sailings to Cuba in 2017.

Carnival Corporation made history in May 2016 as the first US cruise company to sail to Cuba in over 40 years with its Fathom brand, which is currently sailing from Miami to Cuba through May 2017.

Building on Fathom’s sailings, Carnival Cruise Line plans to deploy the 1998-built Carnival Paradise for a series of four- and five-day voyages out of Port Tampa Bay in the second half of 2017 that will include a daytime and overnight visit to Cuba.

The 2,052-passenger Carnival Paradise will become the largest cruise ship in history to sail from the US to Havana when the ship arrives in June, according to Carnival Corporation.

“As we expand cruise vacations to Cuba in the second half of this year, we are also optimistic we will be granted approval by Cuba for additional Carnival Corporation brands. The Caribbean is already the world’s most popular region for cruising, and we are excited about expanding our itineraries across several of our brands to include Cuba,” Arnold Donald, CEO of Carnival Corporation, said.