MADRID, Spain. – The luxury cruise ship Club Med 2, flying the French ensign and belonging to the Club Med Consortium, arrived this Wednesday at the port of Havana.
“Welcome to Cuba!”, wrote the Cuban embassy in France on its social media upon the ship’s arrival. It also indicated that this is “one of the largest and most luxurious cruise sailing ships in the world.”
According to Cuba’s official media, the ship specializes in “all-included”, high-end vacations for families and couples.
The cruise ship, with five masts and eight decks, features 184 cabins. She is 636 feet long, 66 feet wide and 262 feet tall, with a 16.7 feet draft.
With a crew of 214 individuals, the cruise ship has room for 386 passengers. The official information does not indicate how many tourists have arrived in Cuba on the Club Med 2.
The cruise ship sails at a speed of 10 to 15 knots, and is propelled by two diesel-electric motors and sails that are controlled by computers.
Club Med 2 is the third cruise ship to arrive in Cuba during the present tourism high season. The first was the cruise ship Marella Discovery 2, of the British company TUI OK, which arrived in the country in November of last year with 1,600 tourists aboard. At the end of January 2023, a cruise ship belonging to the British company Ambassador Cruise Line arrived in Santiago de Cuba with over 1,300 tourists.
The arrival of cruise ships is one of the hopes of the Cuban regime for the recovery of the Tourism sector, which is still not getting back on its feet. As far as the arrival of tourists, 2023 has begun with numbers that are below those expected by the country’s rulers; they hope to reach the ambitious goal of welcoming 3.5 million foreign tourists.
Of the 2.5 million tourists that the Cuban government expected would arrive in 2022, Cuba only welcomed 1,614,087. Of those, 1,585,712 arrived by air, while the rest arrived in yachts and cruise ships.
Receive information from CubaNet on your cell phone through WhatsApp. Send us a message with the word “CUBA” on the phone +1 (786) 316-2072, You can also subscribe to our electronic newsletter by giving click here.
