TUCSON – After several years of planning and much anticipation, the first cruiseliner will depart from Puerto Penasco, Mexico – more commonly known as Rocky Point north of the border – and set sail around the Gulf of California in the first week of December, Sonora state officials said over the weekend.

Cruise and Maritime Voyages (CMV), a privately owned British company with experience offering cruises along Mexico's Pacific Coast, will launch the service with its cruiseliner Astoria's maiden voyage Dec. 7.

The company is already booking reservations for the six dates in the route's inaugural season, running from late 2019 to early 2020.

The 250-cabin cruise ship has capacity for about 550 people, said John Dennis, CMV's vice president of sales and marketing. He expects the bulk of those passengers to come from Arizona.

"(Arizona has) always done very, very well as far as a cruise passengers source market," Dennis said. "So, it seemed to favor us basically saying 'yes, we wanted to' ... for a lack of a better term, 'be the official cruise line of Arizona and Sonora.'"

Titled Treasures of the Sea of Cortez, the 11-day voyage will take passengers to eight ports along the Gulf of California (also called the Sea of Cortez), starting and ending in Rocky Point.

Rates start at $1,399 per passenger, according to the website.

Rocky Point aims to become player in cruise industry

The development is a major step in the Sonora state government's plans to turn Puerto Penasco into a major player in the cruise industry.

Sonora Gov. Claudia Pavlovich said her administration hopes Cruise and Maritime Voyages will be the first of many companies to use Rocky Point as a home base for future cruises and boost the area's economy.

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"We're more or less estimating that the economic impact per port for these six voyages will be between $100,000 to 200,000," said Hector Platt Mazon, the subdirector for the Sonora Tourism Commission.

"We don't have a base from where we can measure, so it's a bit complicated coming up with an exact figure," he added.

But Sonora's plans have encountered serious roadblocks.

For starters, construction of a home-port dock for cruise ships in the city had languished for years. To date, there's no finalized timeline for its completion because of a lack of funding.

Aided by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, Pavlovich secured $13 million in the Mexican federal government's 2018 budget to renew construction of the home port.

That money is expected to cover the completion of the project's first of three phases by 2020.

But an additional investment of $80.5 million will be needed to cover the remaining two phases, according to the state.

Cruise will use 'tender embarkation'

Although CMV is acutely aware of those challenges, the cruises will set sail from Puerto Penasco in December, even if the home port remains unfinished, Dennis said.

After visiting the area and meeting with state and local officials to review their options, the company said the most likely option will be a "tender embarkation," in which passengers are taken by smaller boats to the ship, instead of having them directly board it.

"The key thing for us was trying to bring in a ship that would allow us to facilitate this," he said. "Other vessels that we had in the fleet are much larger, and unfortunately, while we did review bringing in a larger vessel into Penasco, that would've probably been much more of a logistical challenge for us and for the local community."

Although the details aren't set, Dennis said the company is considering ferrying passengers from the marina, near the city's downtown, to the cruise ship, which would be docked about 20 minutes offshore in the bay.

The voyage will take off from Rocky Point and dock at seven other cities spanning three Mexican states along the Gulf of California.

The seven cities are: Topolobampo and Mazatlan in Sinaloa; Cabo San Lucas, La Paz, Loreto and Santa Rosalia in Baja California Sur, and Guaymas in Sonora.

The six dates scheduled so far are Dec. 7, 18 and 29 in 2019, and Jan. 9, 20 and 31 in 2020.

Dennis said CMV is optimistic about the launch. And depending on its success and reception, Dennis added, the company envisions making it a yearly offering. With time, the company envisions possibly having year-round service with shorter cruises, he added.

3,000 spaces available for cruise

Arizona tourism officials welcomed news of the first cruise ship sailing off from Rocky Point in December. The two states have been working closely to push for the home port's completion.

"This is great news for Sonora, and for travelers who want to explore the Sea of Cortez from Arizona," said Debbie Johnson, executive director for the Arizona Office of Tourism.

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"It's also another stepping stone toward a completed cruise port in Rocky Point, which would continue to strengthen tourism commerce in – and between – Arizona and Sonora, and is something Gov. Ducey and Gov. Pavlovich have long supported," she added.

Johnson's counterparts in the Sonora Tourism Commission said they would draft plans to market the cruise and attract the 3,000 passengers for the six scheduled dates.

The number of visitors to Rocky Point has been rising, topping 2 million in the past few years.

That gives Hector Vasquez, president of the Puerto Penasco Convention and Visitors Bureau, reason to believe that the cruises will add to the resort town's attractiveness and draw even more visitors.

"This is a new product," he said. "I think we will be successful. Why? Because in no other place will you find the beauty of the Sea of Cortez."