With the U.S. announcing but not specifying new restrictions on trade and travel to Cuba, U.S. travelers appear to be rushing to make plans that it is assumed will be 'grandfathered' when the new rules are announced.
One major vendor of Cuba arrangements, Insight Cuba, says his company is seeing a 23% increase in website hits and an 18% boost in bookings since National Security Advisor John Bolton announced the administration's intent on April 17.
Bolton gave no more detail than that the Treasury Department "will implement further regulatory changes to restrict nonfamily travel to Cuba." Previous changes, both loosening and tightening, have taken months to implement and did not affect plans already in place.
A further complication is that the government has lifted a stay on companies suing under the Helms-Burton Act, which allows any company that uses facilities that were seized by the Cuban government from private owner to be sued by the former owners. In a first after decades of that stay, the former owners of the Havana cruise port are suing Carnival, which docks there.
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