MADRID, Spain.- The luxury cruise ship Club Med 2, flying the French flag and belonging to the Club Med consortium, arrived this Wednesday at the port of Havana.
“Welcome to Cuba!” wrote the Cuban Embassy in France in its social networks upon arrival of the ship. Just as she pointed out that it is “one of the largest and most luxurious sailing cruises in the world.”
Welcome to Cuba!
L’une des croisières à la voile les + grandes et les + luxueuses au monde.
Le célèbre croisière-voilier Club Med 2, navire sophistiqué battant pavillon français, est arrivé à LaHavane ????
appartient au @ClubMedFR Specialized in haut de gamme holidays. pic.twitter.com/B9sxAcu03X
— Ambassador of Cuba in France (@EmbaCubaFrancia) February 8, 2023
According to the official media Cubans, the boat is specialized in vacations with the All-Inclusive modality, high-end and focused on families and couples.
The cruiser, with five masts and eight decks, has 184 cabins. It is 194 meters long, 20 wide and 80 high, and a draft of 5.09 meters.
With 214 crew members, it has capacity for 386 passengers, although the information does not specify how many tourists have arrived on the Island in Club Med 2.
She cruises at a speed between 10 and 15 knots, powered by two diesel-electric engines and computer-controlled sails.
The Club Med 2 is the third cruise ship to arrive in Cuba in the current high tourism season. The first was the Marella Discovery 2 cruise ship, from the British company TUI OK, which arrived in the country last November, with 1,600 tourists on board. While at the end of January 2023 a cruise ship belonging to the British company Ambassador Cruise Line disembarked in Santiago de Cuba, with more than 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 not raising its head. Regarding the arrival of tourists, 2023 has begun with figures far removed from those expected by the island’s top brass, who this year aspire to the ambitious goal receiving 3.5 million foreign visitors.
Of the 2.5 million tourists that the Cuban government expected to arrive in 2022, Cuba only received 1,614,087 visitors. Of these, 1,585,712 entered the country by air, while the rest were yachtsmen and cruise passengers.
