Cuba

[ChinaShrek]

If you do a land tour from Canada or Mexico . There are no restrictions on what you have to do . We have been to Cuba on an all inclusive stay. We could do as little or as much as we wanted.

 

 

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However, you are violating federal law if you do this (assuming you are an American).

[Kamloops50]

Didn't seem to prevent Americans from going with us Canadians. No stamps in passport. Just a piece of paper with Cuban stamp on it as a visa.

 

 

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[slidergirl]

However, you are violating federal law if you do this (assuming you are an American).

 

Kamloops50 is Canadian.

 

(Hint - Kamloops is a town in a very beautiful part of British Columbia, Canada. It's on the CanAm highway - driven through and stayed there on road trips from Calgary to Vancouver)

[slidergirl]

Didn't seem to prevent Americans from going with us Canadians. No stamps in passport. Just a piece of paper with Cuban stamp on it as a visa.

 

 

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Yep. Sometimes, a little civil disobedience is necessary to point out the folly of a governmental policy.

 

The old "passport stamp on paper" trick is used in a few other places where a visit to one place will "officially" keep you from being able to visit another...

[wander]

10 day trip on a small ship, 7 days spent docked when we could be on land most of the day and some evenings. All but one shore day there was a least one 4 - 8 hour tour included in the cruise fare. I went on all of them. However, like most cruise/port days there is time either before or after the shore ex. to wander on your own. Then in Havana and one other port we were there for multiple days and at least half a day was unscheduled several times. In that time, we could do anything we wanted to as far as we could tell. Ship docked in center of cities, so you could take long walks, rides in whatever local options were available (depended on the port), pay someone to take you on a tour (hired on the street), take the public transportation in some cases, etc.

 

While most passengers (in some cases probably all) went on the included shore ex. - as Cuba is not a place where you can easily google private tours and I would not want to either. Plus, there was a certain expectation in the papers you signed to go (For Cuba and For the US) that you would participate in the organized tours, which included some very specific "people to people" experiences. While this included visiting some schools, it also involved several visits to Cuban based educational music and art programs, special schools, etc.

 

In three cities I was able to spend a half day each wandering around urban residential areas, taking pictures, limited talking with folks (limited by language, many middle age and older adults do not speak English - I do not speak Spanish). I really enjoyed these times and cherish the memories. By bus we saw a more varied examples of residences, including some to the old time mansions that only high level or honored folks can live in. Many beautiful old buildings - most with exteriors that were well maintained, some not so but still apparently habitable. In a couple of small villages we were also able to wander around but the time for that was limited as we were always on our way to a larger community with miles in-between.

 

Limits of where we could go (distance wise) - I never heard of anyone with us that ran into any problems but I think most were willing to stay within the cities were stopped in largely because of the unknown as to what was acceptable - AND the limits of the transportation available to folks.

 

An interesting fact to my was that in Havana there are the beautifully restored or maintained old cars. There are car clubs for these types of 1950s Fords, Chevrolets, etc. Some were available for private tours in the city, others were only there to be shown off, but you could have your picture taken sitting in one or standing beside it. They even had several parades of these cars going by our ship - horns honking loudly. The other options for public transportation for visitors were horse drawn wagons, pedicabs (at least that is what the are called in SE Asia. Carts propelled by a human on a bicycle, and a few motorized Pedicabs. All of these latter options were readily available in the public areas and would frequently offer to give you a ride. I choose to walk.

 

There were some newish, "expensive" cars parked in certain areas (like near government buildings), but they were either German or Japanese or Chinese made products (yes, including Audi, MB, Toyota cars). For our tours they used quite new buses from China that matched most tour busses from around the world.

 

In the other cities we visited most public transportation was by "bus", well what they considered buses - we would not.

The vehicles were mainly pick-up type vehicles with chairs filling the truck bed, what we would probably call "dump trucks" with the bed full of chairs lining the sides, and the Vans filled too capacity with folks, even overflowing. I doubt these folks could even accept the type of Cuban money we had to use. It was our understanding that the government simply does not have enough transportation options to fill the need so in some places they have authorized some folks to use their private vehicles for this purpose, thus the interesting vehicles. Your could tell private vs government owned vehicles a one group had all white license plates (the government ones I think) and the others had a blue square on one end of the white plate.

 

In case you do not know this, they have two legal forms of cash payment, the Cuban Paso (CUP or Cuban Paso) that the Cubans must use, and the CUC, Cuban convertible peso, the currency tourists must use. I am under the impression that it is not legal for us to use the pesos nor for them to use the CUCs. This is the "line" but I do not know what actually happens. I do understand that this is enforced at the government currency exchanges located at each sea port and airport. Stores also required that we pay for anything in Cous.

 

How many of my experiences were actual official changes, a general loosening, or how many were simply folks just "looking the other way" I do not know. I do know that we did not have to sign anytime a affidavit that we would not go off on our own. There were limits on no taking pictures of police or military installations, common in many countries, particularly in "3rd world" countries.

 

I do know I felt perfectly safe walking the city streets in the daytime. Never felt threatened, was never panhandled, did not see any sign of "street people" anywhere we went. Of course under their regime, each person is paid a certain amount a month and had some assigned work to do in return. While this is a very low income rate - it is the same as about 90% of the other folks get. Free healthcare (very highly rated internationally), free education and some ration coupons each month for eggs and grains among other things. Now this does not allow a standard of living anything like even some of our near minimum wage folks, it will be on par with their neighbors and friends. This is something that will surely change if private enterprise is let loose in Cuba, but for now it remains with some exceptions (high management and high government folks we were told.). Now tipping was allowed for our bus guides and drivers, but as also were told that they did not have these jobs just because they were smart of nice, they had to share their tips (i.e. pay to have the job). Otherwise folks would "kill" to get the jobs as each day they did full day tour their "tips" would typically equal about 3 days of their pay, on top of their pay. Any tourism is only growing there even beyond the addition of US travelers.

 

Now all of this is rapidly changing, and will continue to do so unless the US clamps down on our ability for us to travel there as we can now. So, I suspect reports from next spring will be quite different than mine, which I know is quite different from US folks who went there a year ago under the then "People to People" plans. Much stricter controls were experienced by my friend who went there last Spring.

 

Well, this is FAR more information than you asked for, but as I got writing I just kept going. I really appreciated visiting there. While I certainly do not agree with many things about the Cuban Government, in my fortunate travels to many places in the world including many third world countries, countries controlled by dictators and countries where folks are living in what we would call abject poverty, few freedoms, etc. I would pick Cuba any day if I had to move to one of them. Thankfully I do not.

[3rdGenCunarder]

Wander, that may be more information than I asked for but it's exactly the kind of information I've been looking for! I'm willing to do the people-to-people stuff, but I want to have time to just look around and take pictures without being herded. It's hard to find out what sort of balance there will be. So thank you for your insights!!

 

In Havana, what about hiring a car and driver for a day in order to see what we want? Someone who was on Fathom said they did that and it was a great way to see more of Havana than in a large tour. Did anyone on your cruise do that?

[wander]

In response to the issue of passport stamps, we were on a totally US trip. At each port they looked at our passports, both when we disembarked in a port and embarked back at the end of the day, but NEVER stamped them. They never even tried. Some passengers wanted a stamp in their passports and they actually had to hunt down someone with the stamp. I would guess they would have stamped an insert sheet as well but perhaps not.

 

Another thing, we did go out several evenings, but it was always on a bus provided by the ship. Looking around while we drove around the cities I thought I would be most comfortable walking around myself. If course with No TV to watch and few movies - going out for strolls to meet friends, to see and be seen, etc, were apparently popular activities. We did get to see several cities after dark and went to entertainment venues (The two I went to were TERRIFIC, one more of a flashy show but very reminiscent of they type of places copied for Ricky in the I Love Lucy TV series (for those that remember that show). Excellent - really reminded me of some Las Vegas shows - but with more modest but flashy costumes. Since this was included in our cruise fare - most went. The other was an absolutely outstanding Jazz group - terrific!!!! The drums player was only 15 and already a winner in International Competition. I could have listened to them many nights. Several days our visits included sites where traditional Cuban dance and music was performed.

[wander]

3rdGen---

 

 

 

 

regarding photographs - while on the "free" tours we were on large buses and had the usual problem seeing something along the way we could not get a good photograph, meaning a well planned shot. I did get a number of great snapshots. At the places we got off the bus, there was plenty of time to take all the pictures you wanted, including often time to wander off a bit on your own. When I was walking around alone there were all the opportunities in the world to take photos of anything you wanted. Again not photos of military or police situations - but we did not see ANY military situations, even uniforms on the streets. In the cities there was the occasional police officer - but few and far between. Of course there may have been many plain clothes officials - but they were no problem as we could just take pictures as we wished - no problems. One day in Trinidad I was waiting for a friend on a street corner and postponed myself next to an armed guard for a Armored truck collecting money from storekeepers. He held an "AK-47 looking gun" in a ready to shoot position. I was hoping my friend would get a picture of us together but when she went to take a picture he motioned NO, so she quit while ahead. Guess Security Guards are a no-no as well.

 

Regarding private cars in Havana, I do not know of anyone who did that - but there may have been a few. If I were considering that I would research it well before leaving home. I simply did now see any cars waiting around the pier, except for the beautiful old cars and the horse wagons. My understanding was that the "old" cars were not what you could rent for a day but rather take for a shorter spin where the car was the interest factor, not sightseeing. Do not know if this were true or not. Also, due to supposed travel restrictions, perhaps cars of the sort you want simply meet their passengers somewhere near the port rather within view of the ship, again only a guess.

 

The more I think about it the more I would try to find the information BEFORE I got to Cuba and be ready. In terms of on the spot options, it could be tricky finding folks with good enough English, enough factual knowledge of what you are seeing and what you want to learn, and with a reliable car. Remember the cars are generally very old and kept running with a assortment of parts. Those that are "newer" (say 20 yrs old versus 50) are mainly brands many of us have never heard of and primarily from Russia and China. Also some from Korea. Now, they can still be very functional cars - just old and unknown. Also, the cell phone is almost not existent there at least in terms of people on the street and in cafes. It was very strange going for days never seeing a young person (or older person) with a cell phone, iPad/Tablet or laptop in their hand or earpiece in their ear. We were told that there were a few wireless sites (with the number increasing) but that the cost for the locals was prohibitive for most to use at all. Some of this of course in based on what we were told, not verified. I suspect things will be different in a year if not sooner. Cubans not know such things exist.

 

One interesting thing we learned about was that there was nor a sort of Black Market business in Cuba where folks would arrange for USB sticks to be brought in from the states that were loaded with movies, TV shows, News, etc and that these Cuban business men/women had the equipment to play the programs in their homes. So, for a small fee you could go to their homes to watch recorded programs for the evening. My only concern with this is what movies and TV shows are played?

[3rdGenCunarder]

Thank you again, Wander! When I said rent a car and driver, I meant one of the oldies. (the car,not necessarily the driver ;)) We're on Azamra, and their "ride in an old car" tour does't give you a lot of time in the car. You are driven to some sight or other and then a bus takes over from there. I want more car time than that.

 

I've already got a few Cuba tour books, and haven't even started on Tripadvisor or the Cuba boards here. Not going until March, so plenty of time to do my research, which I enjoy almost as much as the actual travel.