Oceania Havana evening show excursions

Has anyone gone to Oceania Havana evening show excursions? Please share your thoughts on the shows.

There are 3 evening show excursions for our sailing:

Buena Vista Social Club At The Habana CA (HAV-005)

Os- The Legendary - Tropicana Cabaret (HAV-006)

Parisien Cabaret At The Hotel Nacional D (HAV-007)

The excursion time listed for all the above shows is 8 PM to 11 PM. However the duration of the tours shows 3 1/2 hours! I don't know how Oceania will be able to squeeze 3 1/2 hours to 3 hours!!! Our ship sails at 11. Also my understanding is some of the shows starts late e.g. doesn't Tropicana have their show start at 10? For the Havana Club Buena Vista Social Club show TripAdvisor shows a start time of 9 PM. Is the show only 1 hour or 1 1/2 hours long? May be Oceania will hold the ship for those taking these excursions and just let everyone know that they are sailing at 11 PM but in actuality the ship doesn't sail until later?

The Buena Vista Social Club At The Habana itinerary shows that we will have some interaction with the performers before the show probably to make the tour OFAC compliant.

Here is the description of the excursion:

With the tight time to port the only way we can safely go to one of the evening shows without missing the ship's departure time is to take an Oceania excursion.

BTW, for the BVSC show I found out that the club charges only 20 cuc for the show if you bought the ticket yourself. Oceania price for the excursion is $159. We are taking the tour as one of the OLife excursions. There's cost for transportation and staff however I think Oceania will still make a nice profit on this excursion.

FYI, I have posted info I found on the many Havana BVSC shows here: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2684808 If you are not taking an Oceania excursion to see the BVSC you may want to check out the Buena Vista Social Club at Cafe Taberna 5 minutes walk from the port. Cost: 30 cuc which includes free drinks.

Laurence

On our April 2017 cruise, we paid for the Parisienne Cabaret At The Hotel National. The show is great and the hotel is iconically beautiful. You sit at tables/chairs in the theater. The theater is very hot and crowded . I thought the “included “ drinks were awful..... so my DH drank mine[emoji6]

Sent from my iPad using Forums

On our April 2017 cruise, we paid for the Parisienne Cabaret At The Hotel National. The show is great and the hotel is iconically beautiful. You sit at tables/chairs in the theater. The theater is very hot and crowded . I thought the “included “ drinks were awful..... so my DH drank mine[emoji6]

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

I booked this from home for an AZ cruise. The show was 10 to midnight. No ship includes dinners and in general not good food.

I love this show and it cost me about 40 american -paid at home. Taxi RT 25 CUC's. drinks were bad. I drank water.

Has anyone gone to Oceania Havana evening show excursions? Please share your thoughts on the shows.

 

Buena Vista Social Club At The Habana CA (HAV-005)

The excursion time listed for all the above shows is 8 PM to 11 PM. However the duration of the tours shows 3 1/2 hours! I don't know how Oceania will be able to squeeze 3 1/2 hours to 3 hours!!! Our ship sails at 11.

 

For the Havana Club Buena Vista Social Club show TripAdvisor shows a start time of 9 PM. Is the show only 1 hour or 1 1/2 hours long? May be Oceania will hold the ship for those taking these excursions and just let everyone know that they are sailing at 11 PM but in actuality the ship doesn't sail until later?

 

The Buena Vista Social Club At The Habana itinerary shows that we will have some interaction with the performers before the show probably to make the tour OFAC compliant.

 

 

With the tight time to port the only way we can safely go to one of the evening shows without missing the ship's departure time is to take an Oceania excursion.

 

BTW, for the BVSC show I found out that the club charges only 20 cuc for the show if you bought the ticket yourself. Oceania price for the excursion is $159. We are taking the tour as one of the OLife excursions. There's cost for transportation and staff however I think Oceania will still make a nice profit on this excursion.

 

FYI, I have posted info I found on the many Havana BVSC shows here: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2684808 If you are not taking an Oceania excursion to see the BVSC you may want to check out the Buena Vista Social Club at Cafe Taberna 5 minutes walk from the port. Cost: 30 cuc which includes free drinks.

My friend and I took this excursion and it was fantastic!!

Our ship (Insignia) stayed overnight but got back to the ship at about 10:30pm.

We were picked up from the ship in a new air conditioned bus. We drove about 10 minutes to the Melia Cohiba hotel so I doubt you could walk it in 5 minutes.

We first went into the lobby and saw the beautiful hotel, then went into the Habana Cafe. We were seated near the stage and each served a plate of nice appetizers and a drink of choice (apparently came with the tour). The show did start about 8:45-9pm and was so good....singing, dancing, and great Latin music. One of the musicians was an original member of the Buena Vista Social Club! I think it was over at about 10:15. Bus back to the ship. We loved it. I wouldn't have paid $159, but it was one of our OLife perks. And the Habana Cafe is very interesting....does look similar to a Hard Rock Cafe with lots of memorabilia all over.

The Buena Vista Social Club at the Melia Cohiba a sister hotel to the Melia Habana. It was fun, had audience members up dancing, and quite a bit of variety. I don't remember how much we paid but as hotel guests I think we paid less than walk ins.

I haven't seen the others--but we had a fun evening.

I booked this from home for an AZ cruise. The show was 10 to midnight. No ship includes dinners and in general not good food.

 

I love this show and it cost me about 40 american -paid at home. Taxi RT 25 CUC's. drinks were bad. I drank water.

I just was in Cuba on Royal Caribbean in September and booked the Parisian Caberet through the cruise ship for $103 pp. (no meal) we had a fantastic new bus (Chinese are buying these buses and investing a lot in Cuba) and a terrific guide on the bus. The ride was comfy and easy. The show was great and it was not overly crowded nor warm, in fact cool in the show room. Have fun and please report back. The Tropicana show is a lot more $ and outside, it was moved indoors do to rain the night we went. I felt the price was worth no hassle getting myself there and yes the drinks were awful, no choice they just served everyone the same.