Colourful Cuba! (Cuba)

Member Name: pphb

Product:	Cuba
Date:	06/06/02 (591 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Locals, rum & cigars

Disadvantages: The flight

Hello again! At last back from my two-week adventure in the Caribbean! This is going to be a long one so you can turn back now if you wish!! After reading the six million emails I had waiting I thought I'd get down to telling you all about my lovely trip...

My man and I were getting the feeling that our last holiday was about 20 years ago so on goes the telly, flip to ITV, pop on the text and straight to page 224! We always use teletext to book our holidays; we get last minute deals and save a fortune so we can have another holiday later in the year. The book price for this holiday is £1300 but we payed £580 per person all inclusive, bargain.

We wanted to get a named destination as it’s nice to know where you are going before you get there, especially if you’re going a bit further than normal. There were some cheaper options than the one we took but we did want to know where we would be staying. Apart from the four hotels on the Island there is not much more. All the hotels are all-inclusive and range from 3-5*. We stayed in the Iberostar Daiquiri, other hotels on the Island included the 5* Melia and the 3* Sol Club

We visited the north side of Cuba, a couple of Islands that make up the Cayo’s. There is Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo.

Cayo Guillermo is where we decided to go as it’s less developed and joined to Cuba by a 68km causeway. The Cayo’s are in no way the real Cuba, if you go here you must take trips out of the Cayo’s.

The Cayo’s are shut off from all locals and the only Cubans allowed in have to stop at a checkpoint and they make sure they are employees of the four hotels that are situated on Cayo Guillermo. Apart from the four hotels on the Island there is not much more, lots of mangroves and shrubs, animals on the loose and all that!

We decided on Cuba, as it’s one of the less developed, less commercial Islands in the Caribbean. We looked on the in
ternet for information and found that the Cayo’s are fairly new, they are purpose built tourist resorts but the trips you can go on will show you what the country is really like.

We arrived at the airport, which was very, very small and only manages two planes at most. The drive to the resort took about an hour and 30 minutes, on the drive there we go over the causeway and were greeted by pink flamingoes! How lovely!

The resort consisted of blocks of rooms in a sort of Spanish/Mexican style; the rooms have two small double beds, TV, balcony, en suite. There are three shops, two restaurants (Mexican and Cuban) Main buffet and the beach bar that serves snacks and burgers. The food is all very nice with a wide range of fish, veggies and meats. The only thing they seemed to fail on was the sweets, for some reason they thought pink or green icing was attractive on cakes!! Never mind, there is always fruit and ice cream!

There was entertainment every night, each night was different for the full two weeks. The entertainment was brilliant, all members of staff work really hard on the productions and they are very well put together and the costumes are fantastic.

Now, the beach and the sea was lovely, Cuba have the second largest barrier reef after the Great Barrier Reef. We did take a trip on a catamaran that was great, we had lobster for lunch and snorkeled. The reef was wonderful, I had been snorkeling in the Maldives but all the reefs had died due to a large storm a few years ago. This on the other hand was so colourful and bright, the fish selection wasn’t as nice though… there were massive fish, with big teeth and big eyes…barracuda I think they’re called! Yuk, nasty things, how scared was I? VERY!! This trip cost about $60, which was well worth it as all food, drink and equipment, was included.

The best trip and almost a must if you visit the more touristy areas is the trip to Havana itsel
f, you need this to know what Cuba is really about. This did cost around $290 so quite expensive but includes everything. You can go for the day only for less but I can imagine this would be half as good. It starts with a coach journey to the airport then a 50-minute flight to Havana, Cuba is about the size of the UK, so quite large really! Only go on the trips that are backed by your tour operator, as a lot of their planes are not maintained very well.

We got to Havana and visited many places including Revolution Square, where the very famous freedom fighter Che Guevara has his picture up. We visited rum factories and museums, the old cars and the buildings were amazing, it almost seems like they have stopped the clock in the 1950’s and nothing has changed since! The city is very tatty but they are now restoring a lot of it. The houses there are very colourful and decorative, chunks are falling of most of them though! (nothing a lick of paint couldn't have saved about 40 years ago!)

A lot of the buildings and sites you visit are World heritage. We stayed in the Cuba Libra hotel while in Havana, this is one of the nicest hotels in the city. Built by the Hilton Group and taken off them when the country moved to communism (or socialism as they like to call it!) The hotel doesn’t look much from the outside as it was built in the early 50’s but the inside is fantastic, the rooms are absolutely beautiful.

The highlight of that trip for me was the famous Club Tropicana, previously the Copacabana (remember the song? Barry Manilow…. why do I know that?!) The dancers and the costumes were just amazing, well worth the trip.

My other half is a bit of a diver and said that here was the best place he had dived yet, due to the coral reef’s and the range of fish and sharks…!

If you want to buy presents for family and friends you will be limited, they do produce very good rum (Havana Club) and
also the world’s finest cigars! Very cheap too, I'll have to tell you about them another time... so much to tell you all!

The country’s leader is still Fidel Castro, the country still have a full trade embargo on them from the USA. Cuba played a massive part in the cold war hand in hand with what was the USSR. Once the USSR collapsed Cuba has turned to tourism to keep going, they often have petrol problems as they pay an absolute fortune to Mexico for it. They use the dollars brought in from tourists in exchange for goods. The Cubans are not allowed to use dollars.

The Cubans cannot leave Cuba unless they are invited. The process is very lengthy and not one that would be easily done. The only way to leave Cuba would be to escape, as often is seen in the Florida Keys.

All Cubans earn the same amount of money, around $20 per month. This would not matter if you were a teacher, doctor or bell boy – the latter being the best job in the country, you could earn treble your wage a week in tips! They all have free health care, they have excellent education, and there is one doctor per 150 people! They also get their housing, their cars allocated and food vouchers, all transport and bills are paid for them.

If you're thinking of visiting Cuba know that they do not accept American credit cards, these include the Abbey National & Sainsbury's Bank.

Cuba is a wonderful place to go, the people are friendly and the scenery is fantastic. Do be careful when you go as we had a weeks worth of rain! The rainy season is from May to November.

The only bad thing about the holiday was the flight with JMC, they used a large plane with 9 seats so all are squished together!which should be used for short haul flights to Spain etc not 12 hour flights to Cuba (due to a stop over in the Bahamas – we were not allowed to get off either!) The JMC rep was wonderful and the only other complaint I had was a bit
of a dodgy belly! We won’t go into that though….!

So much to say but I think this has gone on long enough!

Bye bye for now

Paula

Summary: