Cuba cruises: Why Norwegian Sky voyages from Miami to Havana …

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HAVANA, Cuba — Itching to visit Havana? There’s a new way to get there from the USA that’s quick, easy and affordable: A cruise from Miami on the Norwegian Sky.

Earlier this month, the 2,004-passenger Norwegian Cruise Line ship began the first weekly sailings to the Cuban capital from the Port of Miami with fares starting around $600 per person. The four-night trips include two full days in Havana.

Norwegian’s voyages to Cuba aren’t the first from the USA. But if a focused visit to Havana is your goal, they just might be the best. Here, five things to love about them:

1. They leave from Miami. Just 228 miles from Havana, Miami is the ideal hub for a quick sailing to Cuba. It’s more than 100 miles closer to Havana than Tampa, the base for many of Royal Caribbean and Carnival’s new Cuba cruises. Traveling at 17 knots, a ship can travel between Miami and Havana in just 12 hours, and that’s just about how long it takes for Sky to make the journey. Departing every Monday, Sky pulls out of Miami in the early evening and is arriving in Havana the next morning as the sun comes up.

2. They’re all about Havana. Many of the new Cuba itineraries that cruise lines are touting are little more than traditional Caribbean voyages spruced up with a single day in Havana. Some of Royal Caribbean’s Cuba trips from Tampa that are five nights long include just nine hours in Havana tucked between calls in Key West, Fla. and Cozumel, Mexico. Norwegian’s Cuba trips, by contrast, put the country’s capital front and center with two full days and a night spent in the city. After arriving at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesdays, Sky stays in Havana until 5:00 p.m. on Wednesdays — a span of 33 hours. That’s nearly 40% of the entire time the ship is away from Miami. No other line comes close to that sort of ratio.

3. They include that night in Havana. A day walking around the old part of Havana is one of the great allures of a visit to Cuba. Just steps away from the cruise ship dock, it offers an intoxicating mix of grand old buildings and lovely squares; live music spilling from restaurants and bars, including a couple made famous by Ernest Hemingway; and, perhaps most notably, a dizzying array of colorful cars from the 1950s. But a night carousing around the city is just as seductive, and in different ways. In staying overnight, Sky gives passengers the chance to soak up the sultry feel of Havana after dark with a sunset ride in a classic car, a dinner in town, a bar crawl or even a trip to the Tropicana — the famed outdoor nightspot featuring an extravagant show with nearly 100 dancers.

4. They’re consistent. Some of the lines starting up Cuba cruises are offering just a few departures per year to the country. Others are offering a lot of departures but with no regularity from week to week when it comes to departure day, itinerary length or routing. Norwegian is keeping it simple. Sky is departing from Miami for Havana every Monday evening and returning to Miami every Friday morning. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays the ship is in Havana. On Thursdays it goes to Great Stirrup Cay, Norwegian’s beach-lined private island in The Bahamas. Cruising to Cuba with Norwegian is a one-decision trip: Pick a Monday and go.

5. They’re affordable. As of this week, summer departures of Sky’s Havana itinerary are selling for as little as $629 per person, based on double occupancy. That works out to less than $160 a day. For that you get transportation from Miami to Havana (and Great Stirrup Cay), all your meals (assuming you eat in the ship’s included-in-the-fare restaurants; some eateries come with an extra charge) and a wide array of on-board entertainment. In an unusual twist, the fare also includes beer, wine, cocktails and other beverages. Sky is the only Norwegian ship that operates on a drinks-included-in-the-fare system, something normally only found on much more expensive luxury ships.

At 77,104 tons, Sky is the largest of nearly half a dozen cruise ships that have begun sailing from the USA to Cuba in recent months. The voyages are taking place as longstanding restrictions on travel between the countries loosen.

Sky’s inaugural visit to Cuba took place on May 2, just eight days after the first visit by 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.

The Cuba calls offered by the lines are marketed as providing an opportunity for “people-to-people” exchanges between Americans and Cubans as allowed by U.S. rules governing visits to Cuba. 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.