Cuba

Karlrove

I'm considering going with a friend or 2 friend in 2/3 weeks. Is it hurricane season? We're 25 years old,will it be a good holiday with just 1 or 2 friends? Last question,how do I go about booking flights and accomadation?? I want to keep cost of flights down. Cheers for any help

mikedragon32

Cuba ain't cheap to get to. Most travel agents can hook you up with flights, so there's no worries there. If you're under 26, have a look at USIT.

Weather will be incredibly hot and you'll get some fantastic thunderstorms, but no hurricanes. September and early October is hurricane season.

Gran Hermano

http://www.cuba-junky.com/cuba/general-info.htm

Just check both rainy and hurricane season before booking dates, see link
above for info on not only climate but other useful tourist info.

tdp-carol

Most people I know who have been to Cuba went on all-inclusive package deals. This seemed to work out really good value for money. Not for everybody, I know, especially if you are used to youth and independent travel. I think with Cuba though, it is one of those cases where doing it independently actually costs far more.

Karlrove

looking up packages....suntravel etc.....they all seem to range from a week but i was thinking 2 weeks,1 week enjoying and other travelling about and renting a car and travelling about....ant advice from those who have gone? also,names of places you rekon are a must would be great. Also,is there cheap flights from cuba to mexico??

pvt.joker

Do you have any links to packages you're looking at?. Im thinking of going there also at the end of july

ncmc

mikedragon32 wrote: »

Cuba ain't cheap to get to. Most travel agents can hook you up with flights, so there's no worries there. If you're under 26, have a look at USIT.

Weather will be incredibly hot and you'll get some fantastic thunderstorms, but no hurricanes. September and early October is hurricane season.

Hurricane season is mid-June until November, Sept and Oct are the worst for hurricanes, but the Carribean got pretty bad hurricanes in early August last year, Jamaica in particular got quite a beating.

I wouldn't worry excessively about hurricanes, I was there in October and it rained one day for about 10 mins! It's just the luck of the draw!

Board-in-work

I went with Thomson Holidays.

All inclusive. 5 star resort. Hotel Playa Pesquero - very highly recommended.

Was actually cheaper to go all inclusive than try to get flights, and arrange accomodation. You can travel around the island easily. Local buses run from all towns. Car owners have to by law offer lifts. There's an organised stop in the towns, where you can queue for a lift - organised hitch hiking!

People are very friendly, and happy - a little Spanish will get you a long way. No-one really speaks English outside the big resorts / towns. Accomodation on the island if not going all inclusive, is payed for in tourist pesos - i.e US dollars, and can be pricey (tourist prices). Usually accomodation in government approved B&B type places.

Cheaper to go all inclusive, and then do side-trips. You can fly from Cancun to Havana.

theCzar

I spent 3 weeks in cuba two summers ago, well worth the trip. I have some time to kill, so I'm just going to let my mind wander back and rattle my keyboard for a while.

Flights: I flew with Iberia via Madrid, was expensive compared to say, the east coast of America, I believe 900 return.

We stayed in people's homes the whole way. Its hard to get the first place, for the first few days when you don't know the area but some have email addresses. Because everything is priced in "Pesos Convertibles", it can be quite expensive for what you get. In old havana (and who'd stay anywhere else) you'll probably pay 20-30 dollars per night per room, and conditions are pretty basic.

Once you get a foot in the door in first place, they'll have have referral deals with other places that you can arrange in advance if you like (they'll call to book for you... and fix price).

After a few days in country, you'll notice a small symbol above many doors, indicating that they provide accomadation. The further you go form Havana and the Disney Land Cuba of Varadero, the cheaper it gets. A good tactic is to make the touts at the bus stations fight amongst themselves in a price war to get your custom, keep bouncing one of their prices of the others and when you're happy with the price, ask if they'll throw in breakfast.

At the far end of the country in Santiago de Cuba we got the price down to 10 dollars for double room with AC, breakfast included.

Contrary to some of the things I heard before I went, the tourist buses were great for us. AC, comfortable, reasonably priced and they go to all the major cities. If you don't speak spanish, this is the only realistic way to travel around the country. We actually took a taxi from Havana to Santa Clara, if there's 3 of you or so, they'll probably offer you the same price as the bus but honestly, its probably not as comfortable.

Spanish is a big bonus, mine is very limited but just knowing your numbers and basic hotel/restaurant/bar vocab will take you a long long way.

Food is very limited outside of resort hotels. It will consist almost exclusively of Fried chicken, rice and beans. As a rule I would avoid anything claiming to be beef outside a resort, and even inside tbh.

Music... you like Buena Vista Social Club right? You'll probably be sick to tears of it by the end of the trip!

For the local tipple:
Bucanerro Max ftw, a dollar a bottle, 6.5%. Bucanero Fuerte is 5% I think, and a bit more palatable whereas Crystal is a wussy 4.7% and probably the more drinkable still! Be sure to savour some Havana Club "Anejo" brown rum, if you're not into your rum, that'll change your mind. Forget those Batista's at Bacardi. Drink is very cheap in shops, and open bottle laws are lax so you can crack a bottle of rum and some cans of TuKola anywhere the fancy takes you.

For money, you'll be scalped. For everything beyond the very very basics like fruit and veg in a market or a sack of rice which have an incredibly low price fixed in Pesos Cubanos, you have to pay "Convertibles", which are permanently pegged to the dollar at a 1:1, however to compensate for how hard Cuba has it for buying stuff with those dollars (America stamps real hard on anybody trading dollars with little neighbour) you have to pay a 10% charge so a dollar will actually buy you 0.9 convertibles... less any exchange fee.

I brought only euros because of this, thinking myself real smart. However, when they change euros, they convert them to dollars first and THEN into convertibles so you only get about 80% of the value of your money. Likewise with bank cards. Even though your cards are euro, they'll withdraw dollars, and then take their cut so you'll pay your bank's commission, you'll pay their bank commission, and you'll pay the government its 10%. I don't see a way around this unless something has changed.

I would never go on a package really, and cuba's not hard to do independently. Varaderro is the tourist island, a peninsula of western style hotels, many of them all inclusive, its a resort like any other although shabbier and cheaper. The beach is stunning. There's a bar about half way the along peninsula down a street running east from the main one that opens at 10pm or so, its 10$ in and all you can drink with caberet. Great night.

The problem with the all inclusive packages is that you've essentialyl paid for your food and drink in the hotel your staying at, and so going anywhere else means your paying twice. It'd be alright for a while, but I wouldn't like to be so restricted.

The best beach though is the playa Ancon, the one near Trinidad on the south half of the island, its a great town too. My favourite bars were the one in Varadero above mentioned above, and the "Case de Musica" in Vinales and Trinidad.

Well, that sure passed the time