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St. Pete mayor was on cruise ship diverted from Cuba

The mayor and his family were bound for Havana when things changed.

St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman and his family were on their way to Cuba when an order from the Trump administration threw off their plans.

Kriseman was on a Norwegian Cruise Line vessel bound for Havana that stopped first in Key West before getting diverted to the Bahamas.

He is expected to return Friday and be back in the office on Monday.

Kriseman had planned on taking his family on an educational tour to Cuba when president Donald Trump ordered the island nation be removed from all U.S. cruise itineraries as soon as possible.

"The mayor and his family are among the countless Americans who are being and will continue to be negatively impacted by the Trump administration's senseless and short-sighted stance toward Cuba," a statement from the mayor's office said. 

Related: Trump administration halts cruises to Cuba under new rules

The statement from Mayor Kriseman's office said the inconvenience of being on a family trip pales in comparison to the pain the people of Cuba must feel again because of "misguided U.S. policies." 

The Trump administration on Tuesday ended the most popular forms of U.S. travel to Cuba, banning cruise ships and a heavily used category of educational travel in an attempt to cut off cash to the island's communist government.

Cruise travel from the U.S. to Cuba began in May 2016 during President Barack Obama's opening with the island. It has become the most popular form of U.S. leisure travel to the island, bringing 142,721 people in the first four months of the year, a more than 300 percent increase over the same period last year. For travelers confused about the thicket of federal regulations governing travel to Cuba, cruises offered a simple, one-stop, guaranteed-legal way to travel.

The new restrictions are part of a broader effort by the administration of President Donald Trump to roll back the Obama-era efforts to restore normal relations between the United States and Cuba, which drew sharp criticism from the more hardline elements of the Cuban-American community and their allies in Congress.

Related: Booked a cruise to Cuba? Here's what the cruise ship companies are saying

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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