Judge Rejects Cruise Lines’ Claims of Lawful Travel to Cuba

Four major cruise lines “committed trafficking acts” when they carried passengers to Havana and used port facilities that had been confiscated by Fidel Castro’s government in 1960, a federal judge in Miami has ruled.

Cruises to Cuba between 2015 and 2019 operated by Carnival Corp., Norwegian Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean Cruises, and MSC Cruises SA “constituted tourist activities and not proper people-to-people activities, paying millions of dollars to the Cuban Government to engage in impermissible travel,” Judge Beth Bloom of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida wrote Monday night in an omnibus order.

She dismissed the ...