Just been to Cuba for mi hol's with Thomas Cook for 3 weeks it's been horrendous for the last week and a half in trying to get out of the country, Thomas Cook had not paid the hotel our board and they wanted me and the wife to pay again about 3 grand, got in contact with the British Embassy in Havana they told me not to pay, ho the stress anyway we did get home today on a Spanish airplane been a holiday from hell.
Do you reckon the hoteliers are taking advantage of the furore by charging more than they'd get through Thomas Cook?
Cuba is the safest country I have ever been and I've been to almost every country that does package holidays, it is really a beautiful country the beaches are out of this world and the people can not do enough for you as poor as they are, I would recommend Cuba to anyone, pity about Thomas Cook.
And in that time I managed to just finish reading one of Red Rain's posts Cuba is a beautiful country, by the way. Loved it.
I was talking to someone that's just been on a coaching holiday to Scotland. They stayed in a hotel the locals call Faulty Towers. Food was so bad they ate elsewhere and on last day coach driver thought it would be good to take the party on a tour of a scrap yard for oil rigs!
Got married in Cuba about 14 years ago. Fantastic place, pure white beaches and crystal clear sea. Loved it
Went to Cuba a few years ago. We did Havana, Santiago, a beach resort near Holguin for a few days and finally Trinidad. We used their equivalent of National Express to get from place to place. It was hard work (the trip from Havana to Santiago was 18 hours) but we'll worth it. A great experience. The country is very poor and the roads outside Havana are virtually completely empty due to the lack of commercial activity. Havana is partly renovated but mostly hugely run down, sometimes romantically so, mostly not. It's well worth a few days though. Trinidad is very pretty and the place that delivers what you probably have in your mind's eye of quintessential Cuba. We had 17 days there, planned and booked it all ourselves despite the travel agents telling us it couldn't be done and, despite the travelling not being easy, it was a highly memorable.
Estimated cost to Cuba of US embargo is $130bn since its inception. Cuban estimates are $685m a year. Yet despite that... "Cuba has developed the first meningitis B vaccine; treatments for the eye disease retinitis pigmentosa; a preservative for un-refrigerated milk; and PPG, a cholesterol-reducing drug gobbled up by foreigners for its side effect: increased sexual potency. And last summer Cuba released CimaVax EGF, the first therapeutic vaccine for lung cancer. The drug triggers an immune response that extends life in lung cancer patients and can ease breathing and restore appetite.
They've done amazing things yet if you listen to the western capitalist narrative you'd think it was a hell hole. It isn't. It's the safest place you'll ever see. Everyone is so educated and the health care is world class. Went there with ironically with Thomas cooke a few months back and would recommend the County to anyone
That's the way to do it and by doing so putting money where it needs to go. Unlike those who book a beach package in an A/I hotel owned by a multi-national company.
If wanted to go for years but wanted to do it properly. We went into a couple of the more adventurous type travel agents and they said it just couldn't be done and tried to palm is off with the usual all inclusive stuff. We went home and had booked four hotels online in the space of a few hours. Easy. I'd intended to hire a car and driving anywhere outside Havana would be a fiddle as there's virtually nothing in the roads. A late health scare meant we almost didn't go so the hire car didn't get booked but we managed with the bus instead. Although 18 hours to Santiago where the bus tv was looping John Wick and The Fast and the Furious was hard work! We're heading to Colombia next year to visit Washington's sister and I'm hoping to have a week in Cuba again on the way.
That's the way to do Cuba. Its easy to assume because it's caribbean that it's somehow unsafe especially if you get frightened about communism, but it's the most friendly, safe and welcoming place you could go. Therefore booking yourself or even staying in locals home is great great way to do