NORWEGIAN SKY BEGINS CUBA SERVICE FROM MIAMI

After almost a year of anticipation, Norwegian Cruise Line has begun sailing to Cuba, with the Norwegian Sky making the first arrival in Havana of any true mainstream large cruise ship. Though the rival Royal Caribbean inaugurated service to the island last month with Empress of the Seas, the first arrival of the significantly larger, more amenity laden Norwegian Sky marks a real milestone in the history of both cruising and Cuba itself.

Nearly all of the four night cruises to be offered on board the 2,000 passenger, 1999 built ship will offer an overnight call in Havana, the historic Cuban capital, and will allow passengers to enjoy a more immersive night life experience than is the case at almost any other Caribbean island, where overnight stops tend to be pretty much limited to Barbados in winter.

With it's legendary free and easy vibe and it's streets filled with ancient, American vintage cars, Cuba has long been a mixture of the irresistible and, for many, the frankly inaccessible. The death of Fidel Castro was the inevitable precursor to a lowering of tensions- and resistance- to the return of large scale American tourism to the troubled island. Now, almost inevitably, many of these latter day Hemingways will be arriving on ships of the newly unccnstrained cruise industry.

For many lines desperate to create something new in the overly saturated winter Caribbean cruise market, the opening up of accessibility to Cuba comes as something akin to a magic bullet, and everybody is clamouring to get on the Havana bandwagon. Short term success seems assured for anyone putting respectable tonnage on the Cuba run. But will that popularity last?

In cruising, it seems that everything old becomes new again. Cuba, the Mojito sodden old lag of the post war era, has become shiny, new and alluring again. Like some ageing nightclub singer rigged up in new skirt and head dress, the island is suddenly an exotic and novel diversion once again. Money will pour in with those same tourists and, for the next few years at least, the island should have plenty to smile about.

Long term, Cuba's potential allure will revolve around better infrastructure and docking facilities as much as anything else, and an  ability to adapt to newer, more technically modern ships that not all of it's Caribbean neighbours have been keen to thus far do. And on that front, time alone will truly tell.