Duramis, our AMAZING tour guide!!!!

[Hurlymcgurly]

Posted a lot of this as a thread response, but figured it is worth embellishing on and giving its own post! We went off a recommendation of a Cruise Critic member who went for 2 days to Havana in July and were thrilled with our guide on our August 15/16 visit! Her name is Duramis Carrillo Sosa and she is a professional photographer also so we got some wonderful pictures for a great price too! She is totally fluent in English, French and of course Spanish. She works with Genuine Cuba and you can email her at duramis@nauta.cu

 

She was very knowledgeable about the history and culture and took us everywhere we wanted to go and everywhere she thought we should see that time allowed. There was plenty to keep us busy the full 2 days we were with her! There were 3 of us, myself, my husband and our 17 year old son, and we were an hour late to meeting up with her due to our boat arriving an hour late and the long lines getting off the boat (Plan on at least 1 to 1 1/2 hours to get off ship first time! After that, getting on and off is a breeze) so she just gave us an extra hour the second day. We did a 3 hour walking tour and an hour in a convertible on day 1 and she arranged tickets for us to a show that evening and took us to exchange money when we met with her. Day 2 we did 2 hours walking tour, 1 hour in a convertible and 3 hours in an air conditioned car. All our cars were classics and we got to pick which convertibles we wanted out of a big string of amazing cars. The air conditioned car was gorgeous and we would have picked it if it were in a line up!

 

We had a fabulous journey with her! Just a heads up on emailing to Cuba. We saw the long lines of people outside a shop waiting to get cards for internet as it isn't something they can just pay for monthly like most of us do and they generally have to go to internet parks where you see tons of people sitting around trying to get on line instead of just being able to hook up anywhere they go, so be patient with any of the companies you get with as it may take at least a few days before they can get someplace to check and reply to you.

Oh! 1 more note!!!! It does rain heavily there on occasion! We were very fortunate to just miss a huge downpour, but the group she had after us was not so lucky! The boat does NOT sell umbrellas or rain ponchos and we could not find anyplace off ship that did either! Make sure you bring them with you on the ship for just in case!!!!

 

Have a GREAT trip!!!!!

[sr5242]

Can I ask how much she charged?

 

 

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[Hurlymcgurly]

Can I ask how much she charged?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

I'm not sure if she quotes the same for everyone as it is probably based on how many people and maybe the time of year, but she charged us $120 a day for the 3 of us and did pictures for $75 and gave them to us on an SD card at the end of the trip. We got some fantastic pictures from her! The show was booked by her separately and was $60 apiece for a dinner show.

[Cruising Photographer]

We also had her guide us for our tour August 13th. Very nice and knowledgable!