US travel provider teams up with Canadian cruise company
CUBA STANDARD — Adding a cruise option for U.S. travelers visiting Cuba under Washington’s “people-to-people” program, Boston-based Road Scholar teamed up with Calgary-based Cuba Cruises, Travel Weekly first reported.
This is the second try for the non-profit educational travel provider, after the Office of Foreign Assets Controls (OFAC) did not grant a license for Road Scholar’s initial plan to bring U.S. travelers from Miami to Cuba on a cruise ship. The company had to cancel already-advertised Cuba sailings in August.
The new program, in cooperation with Cuba Cruises, now flies U.S. travelers from Miami to Havana, where they stay three nights, and then shuttle them by bus to Cienfuegos where they board the Cuba Cruises-chartered Louis Cristal. The tour includes a mix of land and sea, with six nights in hotels and five nights aboard the cruise vessel.
Road Scholar Vice President Stacie Fasola told Travel Weekly the program uses the 1,200-passenger cruise ship “as a means of transportation to travel quickly to ports such as Holguín, Punta Francés and Santiago de Cuba.”
In their earlier rejection, OFAC had determined that “travel to and from Cuba, whether originating or terminating in the U.S. or a third country, may not be aboard a vessel.”
Road Scholar offers weekly departures from Dec. 16 through March 17. Rates start at $4,795, not including airfare from Miami to Havana and back.
The 12-night “Adventure Afloat Study Cruise” offers meetings with Cuban families, artists, dancers, students, community leaders and farmers. Ports of call are Cienfuegos, Punta Francés, Havana, Holguín and Santiago.
“The experience offers the best qualities of cruising and inclusive [sic] getaways combined with a Cuba that few American travelers have seen,” a press release by Cuba Cruises says.
The Louis Cristal is owned by Greece-based Louis Cruises.
The Louis Cristal trip aside, Road Scholar offers a “Spirit of Eastern Cuba,” “The Cuban Art Revolution,” “Shalom Cuba,” “Inside Cuba,” and “Cuba Today” programs for 2014.
MV Louis Cristal
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