Cuba

[Glasgow_Saint]

Anyone been? Thinking about 2 weeks in September......

[CB Saint]

Havanna is worth a trip, the daquiris in hemming ways bar are excellent. Go to club tropicana, the drinks really are free. Upside - no yanks, downside - the Canadians have stepped up to fill the obnoxious tourist void.

[Tokyo-Saint]

A mixed bad really, some really good stuff (beaches are untouched) but a few really bad points - service is terrible, wait hours for any food/drink, generally people don't give a **** as they know they will have a job no matter what. Some of the worst food I have ever had anywhere in the world. Maybe just my taste though as there are a few Cuban restrarants around in London.

[Glasgow_Saint]

Ahhh mixed reviews online too.......

 

Any other recomendations for somewhere in september? 2 weeks with budget (for hotel and flights) circa £1,250 each

[dubai_phil]

Ahhh mixed reviews online too.......

 

Any other recomendations for somewhere in september? 2 weeks with budget (for hotel and flights) circa £1,250 each

 

Vietnam mate. Qatar & Emirates fly in, cheap as chips when you got out the hotels and STUNNING scenery. Cities are crazy & pollution gets up your nose but Sapa/Bac Ha/Lao Cai, Phong Ngha National Park & Caves, Hoi An/Danang beaches wowsa, dunno how it fits to a UK budget though but will be the end of the rainy season so heavy showers in afternoon for a bit but able to get better prices. Just IF flying in Sept check you don't clash with Eid Holidays which pushes the flight cost up

[JackFrost]

Anyone been? Thinking about 2 weeks in September......

 

My sister went earlier in the year and she loved it. She described Havana as a city in colour and London as a city in monochrome in comparison, the best way to get around is going is a taxi service where they run old GAZs or on rickshaws. She had a wonderful time and you can literally buy anything from the markets they have there.

 

Whatever you do don't get a hire car unless you're a vastly experienced car mechanic, and can fix anything with cellotape and a piece of string

[dubai_phil]

One other point GS - was looking at Cuba some time ago and September & Hurricane season came to the fore after a mate got stuck there for two weeks after the place was hit.

Research

[Glasgow_Saint]

My sister went earlier in the year and she loved it. She described Havana as a city in colour and London as a city in monochrome in comparison, the best way to get around is going is a taxi service where they run old GAZs or on rickshaws. She had a wonderful time and you can literally buy anything from the markets they have there.

 

Whatever you do don't get a hire car unless you're a vastly experienced car mechanic, and can fix anything with cellotape and a piece of string

 

Sounds good!

 

One other point GS - was looking at Cuba some time ago and September & Hurricane season came to the fore after a mate got stuck there for two weeks after the place was hit.

Research

 

Not good

[Bensfcno1]

I went in November about 9 years ago. Was amazing! Stayed in Cayo-coco, which is one of a few Cayo islands linked to tue North of Cuba by a single road! Wildlife and beaches are unbelievable and people were very friendly both at the hotel and in a locality town we visited, during a trip to an old sugar cane farm.

[Glasgow_Saint]

I went in November about 9 years ago. Was amazing! Stayed in Cayo-coco, which is one of a few Cayo islands linked to tue North of Cuba by a single road! Wildlife and beaches are unbelievable and people were very friendly both at the hotel and in a locality town we visited, during a trip to an old sugar cane farm.

 

Best place youve been on? Or been somewhere better since?

[Smirking_Saint]

What is 110_persaint's view on this ?

 

Personally I have always fancied cuba

[Turkish]

Went to Cayo Gulliermo a few years back loved it, beautiful place. The island next door to Cayo Coco where bensfcno1 went. Fantastic weather, white sandy beaches, blue sea, great for boat trips. Did a couple down the coast wnd snorkelled round a couple of ship wrecks, a dolphin was swimming alongside the boat for a couple of miles which was brilliant. Hired a speed board for a day. Havana is class too, really interesting place. Top place and as you'd expect great for rum and cigars too. Lots of fat Canadians though.

[FloridaMarlin]

Went a couple of years ago and enjoyed it by and large.

 

Stayed in an all-inclusive resort at Jibacoa, about an hour or so from Havana.

 

Most of the all-inclusive resorts are Spanish/Jamaican owned and are excellent. Food and facilities excellent, as was the service.

 

If you're the sort of person who is happy to spend two weeks on a beach or beside the pool and not move, then it's as good as anywhere.

 

We're not big on that and stayed there as we thought it would be easy to get into Havana under our own steam, but that's where the shortcomings were.

 

There isn't a joined-up public transport system in Cuba. we could get halfway on the bus, but after that it was a case of thumbing a lift, which might have been standing up in the back of a truck, or taking a taxi which can be expensive.

 

To get to Havana we had to go on the organised trips, which are OK but don't leave you a lot of time to do your own thing.

 

You can hire cars and I've driven in all sorts of countries but I wouldn't drive in Cuba. The roads aren't great with big potholes and few markings, and at night it's pitch black as they switch off the street lights to save electricity. Havana must be the darkest city in the world.

 

Tourists are free to travel around Cuba (although they don't seem too keen to let the locals go where they like) and a mate of mine went all over the island back-packing a few years back and had a fantastic time, especially as he did home stays, which are a sort of B&B where you stay with locals in their houses.

 

It is a third world country and has all the trappings that go with it. The country desperately needs money pumped into it, but you hope that once the Castro brothers die, the Yanks don't barge in as they will just try and convert it into the sort of offshore playground you see in Godfather III and which partly prompted La Revoluccion in the first place.

 

Since The Wall fell and the Russians and East Germans buggered off home overnight to make money in their own countries, Cuba was left in the lurch and has accepted tourism as a vital source of foreign currency, so they are trying to build a tourist infrastructure.

 

I must say it didn't feel like an oppressive communist state, and you have to say that the revolution to an extent served its purpose for a lot of Cuban people.

 

Life under the Batista regime was pretty rough on the poor peasantry and now everyone in Cuba is guaranteed free health care, free education (they have the second highest literacy rate in the world), housing and food. Housing and food may not always be top standard, but everyone has a roof over their head, and nobody starves, even if some foodstuffs are rationed.

 

Free enterprise is creeping in. Farmers are now able to sell some of their produce, instead of it all going into the common cooperative, and there is now a small but thriving property market.

 

But it's not so good when a doctor (and Cuba has some of the best doctors in the world, and they export them to countries like Venezuela in exchange for oil and other goods) earns the same as a bus driver.

 

Everyone who travels to Cuba goes for the chance to visit Havana. It is an amazing place, with some fantastic Spanish colonial architecture, but it's the condescending travel writers who revel in its down-at-heel faded grandeur, when in fact the place is falling down.

 

Most of the old town of Havana is a UNESCO world heritage site, but it needs money pumped into it.

 

Club Tropicana was a spectacle but I couldn't get my head how this decadent and ostentatious relic of the pre-revolution days had been allowed to continue by the regime.

 

My advice would be to go, and go with an open mind. It's a fascinating place, with its share of drawbacks, but you might want to see it now before it changes.

[Glasgow_Saint]

What is 110_persaint's view on this ?

 

Personally I have always fancied cuba

 

[Glasgow_Saint]

Went to Cayo Gulliermo a few years back loved it, beautiful place. The island next door to Cayo Coco where bensfcno1 went. Fantastic weather, white sandy beaches, blue sea, great for boat trips. Did a couple down the coast wnd snorkelled round a couple of ship wrecks, a dolphin was swimming alongside the boat for a couple of miles which was brilliant. Hired a speed board for a day. Havana is class too, really interesting place. Top place and as you'd expect great for rum and cigars too. Lots of fat Canadians though.

 

Went a couple of years ago and enjoyed it by and large.

 

Stayed in an all-inclusive resort at Jibacoa, about an hour or so from Havana.

 

Most of the all-inclusive resorts are Spanish/Jamaican owned and are excellent. Food and facilities excellent, as was the service.

 

If you're the sort of person who is happy to spend two weeks on a beach or beside the pool and not move, then it's as good as anywhere.

 

We're not big on that and stayed there as we thought it would be easy to get into Havana under our own steam, but that's where the shortcomings were.

 

There isn't a joined-up public transport system in Cuba. we could get halfway on the bus, but after that it was a case of thumbing a lift, which might have been standing up in the back of a truck, or taking a taxi which can be expensive.

 

To get to Havana we had to go on the organised trips, which are OK but don't leave you a lot of time to do your own thing.

 

You can hire cars and I've driven in all sorts of countries but I wouldn't drive in Cuba. The roads aren't great with big potholes and few markings, and at night it's pitch black as they switch off the street lights to save electricity. Havana must be the darkest city in the world.

 

Tourists are free to travel around Cuba (although they don't seem too keen to let the locals go where they like) and a mate of mine went all over the island back-packing a few years back and had a fantastic time, especially as he did home stays, which are a sort of B&B where you stay with locals in their houses.

 

It is a third world country and has all the trappings that go with it. The country desperately needs money pumped into it, but you hope that once the Castro brothers die, the Yanks don't barge in as they will just try and convert it into the sort of offshore playground you see in Godfather III and which partly prompted La Revoluccion in the first place.

 

Since The Wall fell and the Russians and East Germans buggered off home overnight to make money in their own countries, Cuba was left in the lurch and has accepted tourism as a vital source of foreign currency, so they are trying to build a tourist infrastructure.

 

I must say it didn't feel like an oppressive communist state, and you have to say that the revolution to an extent served its purpose for a lot of Cuban people.

 

Life under the Batista regime was pretty rough on the poor peasantry and now everyone in Cuba is guaranteed free health care, free education (they have the second highest literacy rate in the world), housing and food. Housing and food may not always be top standard, but everyone has a roof over their head, and nobody starves, even if some foodstuffs are rationed.

 

Free enterprise is creeping in. Farmers are now able to sell some of their produce, instead of it all going into the common cooperative, and there is now a small but thriving property market.

 

But it's not so good when a doctor (and Cuba has some of the best doctors in the world, and they export them to countries like Venezuela in exchange for oil and other goods) earns the same as a bus driver.

 

Everyone who travels to Cuba goes for the chance to visit Havana. It is an amazing place, with some fantastic Spanish colonial architecture, but it's the condescending travel writers who revel in its down-at-heel faded grandeur, when in fact the place is falling down.

 

Most of the old town of Havana is a UNESCO world heritage site, but it needs money pumped into it.

 

Club Tropicana was a spectacle but I couldn't get my head how this decadent and ostentatious relic of the pre-revolution days had been allowed to continue by the regime.

 

My advice would be to go, and go with an open mind. It's a fascinating place, with its share of drawbacks, but you might want to see it now before it changes.

 

 

Thanks both

[Joneth]

I've also stayed at Jibacoa and would highly recommend it. Beautiful place. Go to Cuba before it all changes.

[Saint_Pedro]

Did a week in Havana and a week in Cayo Coco. Loved the place - locals very friendly, poor, but friendly. Scenery great, food OK, mojitas fantastic.

Lots to see in Havana, but outside the city there's not a great deal other than coffee plantations etc. Beaches on the north coast are great, as Turks mentioned.

[pap]

I have a mate who used to go to Cuba quite often for a bit of a Latin American booty call.

 

She has many dormant marriage proposals from the lads she has known.

[Glasgow_Saint]

Best place to stay?

 

A) Holguin

B) Havana

C) Varadero

[a1ex2001]

Best place to stay?

 

A) Holguin

B) Havana

C) Varadero

 

Multi centre is the only way to do Cuba if you ask me we did 6 nights on the beach in the southern tip of the island we landed at Holguin and then 3 nights in Havana before flying home from there. It is a fantastic country and so nice to be away from McDonalds, Starbucks and even for the most part Coca-Cola!

 

If I were to do it again I'd definitely try and visit more of the country side and also the second city of Santiago we avoided Varadero because it seemed a bit too much of a toursit trap isolated from anything of the real Cuba. If your going to go then now is the time the country is changing rapidly and what the future holds is increadibly uncertain the US government still maintains that Cuba will be returned to the playboys of the pre revolution era one day but I can't see it happening. I hope they have a slow and controlled transition to a more democratic and free state and that the US drops the frankly ridiculous blockade that has served no purpose for a generation.

[Tokyo-Saint]

Best place to stay?

 

A) Holguin

B) Havana

C) Varadero

 

I stayed in Holguin and didn't like it. It sounds that those who went to the North had a much better time.

[Saint Mikey]

Best place to stay?

 

A) Holguin

B) Havana

C) Varadero

 

Varadero is fantastic for the beach holidays, and there are quite a few things to do locally. I did 3 days in Havana and then 11 in Varadero, it was an amazing holiday. You absolutely have to go to Havana, it is a very unique place, and I don't think you'd get a sense of Cuba unless you went there.

[Saint Mikey]

Multi centre is the only way to do Cuba if you ask me we did 6 nights on the beach in the southern tip of the island we landed at Holguin and then 3 nights in Havana before flying home from there. It is a fantastic country and so nice to be away from McDonalds, Starbucks and even for the most part Coca-Cola!

 

When do you go? I went last September and was looking forward to seeing no Coca-Cola, yet it was everywhere! I was mildy disappointed.

[edprice1984]

Went to Cayo Coco in 2006, absolutely gorgeous with stunning beaches. At the time it was the same price as a 4* trip to the Med...but since Fidel stepped down, market forces and the fact that Mexico is very dodgy has led to a bit of a price hike. I would recommend a couple of days in Havana too, we didn't go and regretted it after hearing about it from others in the hotel. Re the Canadians, they do fill the US void of ignorant loud mouths very well - mind you we seemed to be accompanied by half of the Bobby Moore stand when we went!

 

The food (unless local cuisine) can be a bit tasteless but it is perfectly fine. However if you don't like rum you are going to struggle....I am now a total convert to Havana Club, oh and a good cigar!

[JackFrost]

 

It is a third world country and has all the trappings that go with it. The country desperately needs money pumped into it, but you hope that once the Castro brothers die, the Yanks don't barge in as they will just try and convert it into the sort of offshore playground you see in Godfather III and which partly prompted La Revoluccion in the first place.

 

Since The Wall fell and the Russians and East Germans buggered off home overnight to make money in their own countries, Cuba was left in the lurch and has accepted tourism as a vital source of foreign currency, so they are trying to build a tourist infrastructure.

 

I must say it didn't feel like an oppressive communist state, and you have to say that the revolution to an extent served its purpose for a lot of Cuban people.

 

Life under the Batista regime was pretty rough on the poor peasantry and now everyone in Cuba is guaranteed free health care, free education (they have the second highest literacy rate in the world), housing and food. Housing and food may not always be top standard, but everyone has a roof over their head, and nobody starves, even if some foodstuffs are rationed.

 

Free enterprise is creeping in. Farmers are now able to sell some of their produce, instead of it all going into the common cooperative, and there is now a small but thriving property market.

 

 

The Cubans are still very fiercely proud of their country and there are Che Guevara/Castro paintings everywhere in Havana depicting the revolution. It's not so much oppressively communist, it's more very nationalistic and socialist. Since the Soviet Union collapsed Cuba lost their main trading partner and their tourism trade must be their main income of hard currency. The government are now encouraging free market reforms to boost the economy and you'll find all sorts of people including doctors selling car parts/kitchen parts etc. on the street corners when they're not in their full-time jobs.

 

My sister said that anyone going to Cuba has to take a taxi ride in a GAZ, it is an experience like no other.

[Turkish]

Went to Cayo Coco in 2006, absolutely gorgeous with stunning beaches. At the time it was the same price as a 4* trip to the Med...but since Fidel stepped down, market forces and the fact that Mexico is very dodgy has led to a bit of a price hike. I would recommend a couple of days in Havana too, we didn't go and regretted it after hearing about it from others in the hotel. Re the Canadians, they do fill the US void of ignorant loud mouths very well - mind you we seemed to be accompanied by half of the Bobby Moore stand when we went!

 

The food (unless local cuisine) can be a bit tasteless but it is perfectly fine. However if you don't like rum you are going to struggle....I am now a total convert to Havana Club, oh and a good cigar!

 

Th thing that annoyed me about the Canadians is they all had their own pint sized beer jugs for the swim up all inclusive bars. I was surprised how fat they were too, I always imagined Canadians to be out door types. 'Big jug, big guy' one of them said. Which I guess is the swim up hotel all inclusive bar version of a fatty rubbing his belly and proudly claiming 'all bought and paid for'. I got chatting to one on a boat trip who claimed to be the greatest snorkeller the world has ever seen, reckons he went down to the wreckage we swam round further than anyone else and saw a load of barracuda and had to swim for his life, no one else saw that or him.

[Tokyo-Saint]

Did you tell him you were better than him Turks or do you think he just knew from the stories you told?

[Turkish]

Did you tell him you were better than him Turks or do you think he just knew from the stories you told?

 

I asked him why I didn't see them and why no one saw him 'swimming for his life' he said it was because he was an experienced snorkeller who'd been at it for years and knew where to look and how to react.

[a1ex2001]

When do you go? I went last September and was looking forward to seeing no Coca-Cola, yet it was everywhere! I was mildy disappointed.

 

Was five or six years ago now and we only saw one can of real coke in 11 days and that was a dodgy mexican import. No McDonalds, No Starbucks, No KFC was fantastic! Some cigars drink rum (Mojito's!) and soak up the atmosphere of a great country.

[Junior Mullet]

Been there, loved it and would go back. Stayed at an incredibly plush adult-only hotel full of honeymooners. We ate as much fillet steak and meat as we could and loads of gorgeous fresh fruit. You then step out of the resort and visit local shops and see locals collecting their rations for the week (small portion of chicken and no beef - beef is reserved for tourists and the government), get speaking to the barman and realise that at 21 years of age he makes several times more than his old man who is a doctor etc. It's a country like no other. Full of hipocracy, pride and colour.

 

So glad I went before it changes.

[derry]

The Melia Hotels in Varadero were good, some poor hotels, Holguin was a ****hole. As there was only one flight a week we stayed there for a week or slipped to Montego bay/Cancun half way through and vice versa. I went there for about eight years on multiple occasions.

[Tokyo-Saint]

Holguin was a ****hole.

 

This is what I experienced, mostly lazy staff pottering around trying not to catch guests eyes in case anyone asked for something. Only 1 out of the 5 pools open at any one time until the last couple of days when the army arrived, everything was then opened and in perfect condition. Some big shot smoking a cigar in the pool with a teenage girl straddling him. Would love to go back and stay somewhere good as others seemed to have enjoyed it. I think a lot depends on the resort and even then down to pot luck, some places are good sometimes and bad others.

[belgrave]

Went to camaguay province about 15 years ago. Fabulous beaches, locals, music...etc. Santa lucia I think. Had a very impressive coral reef. Pretty unspoilt at the time. One of best holidays I,ve had. Friendly locals. Good beer / rum / bananas / music / cigars. Cheap. Travel was an adventure - but very safe place to wander around.

[Glasgow_Saint]

Going to book 2 weeks in Varadero and take 2 nights in Havana.

 

Thanks for advice all

 

Hopefully wifi is widely availble or might not be able to post as much

[Tokyo-Saint]

Going to book 2 weeks in Varadero and take 2 nights in Havana.

 

Thanks for advice all

 

Hopefully wifi is widely availble or might not be able to post as much

 

 

I'll cover for you.

[buctootim]

 

I'll cover for you.

 

Who'se going to cover for the others?

[Hamilton Saint]

Havanna is worth a trip, the daquiris in hemming ways bar are excellent. Go to club tropicana, the drinks really are free. Upside - no yanks, downside - the Canadians have stepped up to fill the obnoxious tourist void.

 

Don't know what you have against Canadians, mate. Canada was one of the first countries to support Cuba (thanks to Pierre Trudeau, back in the 1970s), when the U.S. was bullying everybody not to go there. You're the one who sounds obnoxious, to tell the truth. Your main interest seems to be alcohol ... sound like a typical Brit tourist.

 

I've always found Canadian tourists to be friendly, courteous, easy-going, and keen to help the locals.

 

I've been to Cuba with my family three times - Jibicoa, on the north-coast about 45 minutes east of Havana. Had a great time each year. Cuba is a welcoming place, with fiercely proud and enterprising people. Things are slowly changing for the better, as Castro's brother has liberalized the rules to allow more private enterprise.