WASHINGTON -- With time and space running out, Miami Catholics hoping to see the pope in Cuba scrambled to book seats Tuesday on a one-day visit led by the city's archdiocese or on longer trips with pilgrims from other cities.

The confusion followed Miami Archbishop John C. Favalora's decision to scrap plans for a cruise ship capable of carrying up to 1,000 South Florida Catholics and to charter a jet with capacity for only 180 people.

Hundreds of people phoned the archdiocese Tuesday hoping to snare a seat on the plane, which will ferry pilgrims from Miami to Havana to see John Paul II celebrate an outdoor Mass on Jan. 25.

``We've been overwhelmed with calls,'' said the Rev. Patrick O'Neill, who is organizing the Miami trip. ``I've been here since the crack of dawn.''

O'Neill predicted that the Miami flight would quickly sell out, although seats were still available Tuesday evening. About 400 people had bought tickets on the cruise ship, which was canceled amid objections from some Cuban-American Catholics.

Some of those who bought cruise tickets abandoned their plans to visit Cuba, saying the one-day trip was either too much trouble or did not fit their vision of a proper pilgrimage.

``It's just too late now,'' said Otto Nelson Espino Jr., 31, a Miami lawyer who had planned to take the cruise with his Cuban-born parents and his fiance. ``I'm not going to book something at the last minute and end up so far away from everything it's like I'm in the nosebleed seats at a rock concert.''

Not deterred

But other Catholics vowed they would not be deterred by last-minute obstacles to witness the pope's first visit to Cuba, a nation that has long suppressed the church, and only last month permitted the celebration of Christmas for the first time in nearly three decades.

``I think this is going to be a great experience,'' said Jose M. Hernandez, a retired college professor from Key Biscayne, who is traveling with pilgrims from New York. ``It's a pity that more people here don't feel like that. I know many people who are dead set against going as if we were going there to march to support the government.

``But that's the way Miami is, that's the way it has been, and it seems to me, that's the way it will always be,'' he said. ``Like Lot's wife . . . we spend all our lives looking backward.''

Organizers in New York and Tampa said they still have seats available, provided travelers can get the proper visas from the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. Trips planned from Boston and San Juan, Puerto Rico, are not accepting new people, church officials said Tuesday.

747 to fly from New York

The trip from New York is the largest and offers perhaps the best opportunity for last-minute travelers. The Manhattan-based Northeast Hispanic Catholic Center, which serves several northeast archdioceses, has chartered a 747 to take several hundred people to Cuba from Jan. 20-26.

About 300 people are already booked on the flight. The center is still accepting applications this week. But planners urged people to apply immediately so they still have time to obtain visas to travel to Cuba. No U.S. permission is required for religious pilgrims.

The trip includes a tour of Old Havana, a church concert and a traditional ceremony of the firing of the cannon at Morro Castle.

The trip from Tampa, being led by a Cuban-born priest, Rev. Ramon Hernandez, already counts 80 travelers, but has room for more. The Jan. 20-27 trip requires a seven-day visa from the Cuban government, and includes visits to the seminary where theologian Felix Varela studied and taught, a tour of the Museum of the City of Havana and a dawn walk to the pope's outdoor Mass on Jan. 25.

`An act of solidarity'

``We see [the trip] first as an act of solidarity with the Church in Cuba and also as a way to establish ties with Cubans on the island for the future,'' Hernandez said.

From Boston, Bernard Cardinal Law is leading a group of 150 pilgrims -- many of them church officials -- to Havana. That trip, Jan. 23-26, is closed, said John Walsh, a spokesman for the archdiocese.

Accompanying the religious leaders will be at least four Massachusetts congressmen: Reps. Joe Moakley, Jim McGovern, Richard Neal and Bill Delahunt.

``It's an important trip for the Catholic religion -- the pope coming to a communist country,'' Moakley said. ``I hope this is the first of many openings in that country.''

From Puerto Rico, 150 pilgrims will visit Jan. 20-27, said organizer Gregory Guijarro. Guijarro said the group, led by Luis Cardinal Aponte Martinez, is comprised mostly of Puerto Ricans, but includes members of the sizable Cuban exile community as well. The trip is fully booked, he said.

Whatever it takes

Some Catholic bishops who will be in Washington for the March of Life, an anti-abortion protest marking the 25th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision on Roe vs. Wade, have arranged a small direct flight to Cuba to join the pope, said Thomas Quigley, an expert on Latin America with the U.S. Catholic Conference. That flight is not open to the public, he said.

For all the last-minute headaches, Raul Hernandez is one Cuban American who will do whatever it takes to see the holy father in Cuba.

Hernandez, 48, left Cuba during the Mariel boatlift after being persecuted there for years because of his religious beliefs, he said. ``I was labeled ideologically dangerous.''

He now works for the Catholic Church in Miami, settling refugees. He will join the Tampa pilgrimage, filled with anxiety, hope and joy.

``I'm going not because it is politically correct or incorrect,'' Hernandez said. ``I'm going because of a deep and profound personal conviction that this is the place I have to be at this time.''