All US-based cruise lines will no longer make calls to Cuba, leaving them scrambling to find other ports of call and leaving some cruisers furious.
The sudden move to ban cruises with immediate effect has left customers bewildered and angry, many of which booked certain itineraries purely because they included a port call in Havana.
The Twitterverse was full of customers venting their anger.
"To say I’m angry is an understatement. This cruise was chosen around going to Cuba and now we can’t," tweeted @SusanBerland.
Carnival Corp, which had three lines serving Cuba, said: "We are working as quickly as possible to secure alternative itineraries for the remainder of our Cuba voyages and expect to have information for sailings further out in the next 2-3 days."
Royal Caribbean said guests have the option to cancel their current booking for a full refund, travel with a new itinerary minus Cuba call and receive a 50% refund.
CLIA said the sudden cruise ship ban affects about 800,000 cruise bookings including those currently at sea.
"While out of our control, we are genuinely sorry for all cruise line guests who were looking forward to their previously booked itineraries to Cuba," said CLIA chairman Adam Goldstein.
New adult-only cruise startup Virgin Voyages, which launches next year, is now ‘hard at work’ making necessary adjustments to its already announced itineraries featuring Cuba.
It will announce replacement calls next week, it said.
Although itineraries including Cuba make up only a small percentage of overall cruise traffic, they are generally sold at a premium purely because of the Cuba component.
Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian’s share value all fell by at least 3% after the government made the announcement.
