What Does it Cost for Americans Visiting Cuba During the Embargo?

Published January 16, 2016 | By Elizabeth Weintraub

Statue of Jose Marti pointing an accusing finger toward the United States Embassy in Havana, Cuba.

Are you wishing to be an American visiting Cuba during the embargo? If you are thinking about a true vacation in Cuba, apart from engaging in, say, an adventure, and do not want to overpay for your trip to Cuba, then you might want to wait until the United States lifts the embargo on travel. The cost for Americans visiting Cuba during the Embargo is very high. The reason many vacationers from Europe and Canada visit Cuba is because it’s inexpensive for them. It’s more inexpensive for those foreigners because they are not Americans, and Americans, according to our travel agency, tend to get overcharged by the Cuban government for travel.

However, there are travel agencies like Intrepid that charge around $2,000 for a week in Cuba. Of course, you are probably shuffled into a large tour group, stuffed into a tour bus, and you might not get air conditioning at every hotel, but it doesn’t seem like a bad way to go. A better way, most likely, is to book your travel with an agency outside of the United States, book directly with the hotels, hire your own driver and guide. Or, like I mentioned earlier, just wait for the Embargo to lift. Cuba is not really ready for American tourists.

Not anybody right now can travel to Cuba, but I imagine unless you pose a threat and are breathing, you can go. The most common way to visit Cuba during the Embargo is on a People-to-People exchange. For this, you need a visitor VISA and a letter of authorization, which you can obtain from a travel agency. Our Los Angeles travel agency charged $600 for these documents. Combined with delivery charges, travel agency fees and transfer fees, that fee amounted to $1,520 for the two of us.

About the People-to-People Exchange in Cuba

I’d like to report that we met many local Cubans but we did not. Except for the occasional clerk, we did not really meet anybody. Our travel itinerary promised such interactions as “Havana, Official Presentation of Modern Havana, interact with the locals as you see the Bacardi Building, the Capitolio and other Historic Landmarks,” except we stopped at one vacant parking lot (a place for political gatherings), drove by all of the historic landmarks and met no one. Or, our trip to Brisas Trinidad del Mar, “Exchange ideas with local fisherman who make a living from Cuba’s waters” or “dialogue with a local marine expert about Cuba’s reef preservation.” Every tourist attraction was labeled “interact with local people,” yet we interacted with not a soul except perhaps a bartender who presented us with a cocktail or a hotel desk clerk who tried to fix our messed up reservations.

Hotel Accommodations in Cuba

The cost to stay in an upper-end hotel, which isn’t on par with a U.S. 4-star or 5-star hotel, is about $200 to $300 for a single room. Don’t expect to call the front desk for service. Meals at private restaurants, which are better than pre-paid at government restaurants, are about $10 to $20 per person. Often wine is not included but cocktails are. A daiquiri will cost $3.00 to $5.00. Rum and coke is about $1.50. Although my husband was charged 6 CUCs at a beach bar for a daiquiri at all-inclusive Brisas Trinidad del Mar before he realized they did not notice his orange wristband.

I recommend the Hotel Nacional, but be sure to request a high floor away from the courtyard if you don’t want to be kept awake past 10 PM. The Executive Level on the 6th floor offers a quiet breakfast that is much nicer than the basement.

Internet in Cuba

I was warned not to try it but I bought several internet cards anyway. You can buy them at hotels. The cards cost $2.00 for an hour of internet in most places, a little bit more in smaller towns. You have to find a WiFi spot and stand in exactly the right place, and hope to god nobody else is trying to get online. Telecommunications by Etecsa. You can also buy 5 hours for $10.00, which is what I recommend, because by the time you actually get online, are able to download your emails and begin to respond, you will get kicked off and, when you sign back on, you will undoubtedly quickly run out of internet minutes.

Air Fare to Cuba

When we initially booked our trip, the airfare for a charter flight on Havana Air from Miami was $450 per person. Since then it has gone up to $600 per person for a 60-minute flight. Havana Air also charges additional fees by weight. It will weigh your checked luggage and all of your carry-on luggage, and charge you $2.00 for each pound exceeding 44 pounds per person. There are also exit fees to pay. They charged us an additional $156 to leave Miami, yet nothing when departing Cuba.

There is a new American charter flight that leaves directly from Los Angeles and flies to Havana on Saturdays (among other cities). You can book your flight through Cuba Travel Services. Flights leave LAX around noon and arrive Havana at 8:30 PM. We instead flew on United out of Sacramento at 5:30 AM, which was a huge mistake, into Denver, waited 6 hours for a transfer flight, and arrived at our hotel in Miami near midnight only to have leave again at 3:30 AM for the airport. Our airfare to Miami was not included in the travel agency package. For Americans visiting Cuba during the Embargo, it seems easier to fly direct through CTS.

Land Package All-Inclusive to Cuba

Our “land package” cost $11,600 for 12 days for the two of us. This is separate from the charter flight, the travel documents / people-to-people visa, and it includes hotel accommodations, all meals, tours, and a private driver and separate bilingual guide. I believe the land package was arranged through Havanatur, which is owned by the government. It might cost less to pay for your own hotels, meals and hire your own car / guide. You can directly hire a tour guide and a driver for about $100 a day, according to online sites, although our guide said the government pays him about 20 CUCs a month.

The cost is not the main factor, though, for visiting Cuba during the Embargo. You can see the change happening in the country; witness its contradictions in person and experience a different type of Cuba, albeit it’s a bit rough. Cuba will change more dramatically after the Embargo is lifted. When we visited the National Museum of Fine Arts, we came across an installation in the lobby. I wish I had shot a photo. It was a Cuban man pulling a cart overloaded with baggage. Our guide asked us what it meant. The Cuban had a long nose, like Pinocchio. Our guide said the Cuban represented the government, and the baggage is the Cuban residents who want to travel but cannot. To me it said the people of Cuba did not get what they bargained for.

Our guide is in love with HBO’s Sex and The City. His dream is to visit New York City. Cuba won’t let him go.

Below are the last of my photographs of our trip to Cuba:

Statue of Famous Cuban musician Benny More stands in Cienfuegos, Cuba.

Coming into Cienfuegos, Cuba, with private driver Saul and guide Sergio in the front seat.

A kid goofs off in a Coco-taxi for tourists in Havana, Cuba.

Elderly woman with crutches sits with her dog on broken cement steps in Havana, Cuba

Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub Canon SX50

Photo Tour of Old Havana, Cuba

Published January 14, 2016 | By Elizabeth Weintraub

Elizabeth Weintraub and Adam Weintraub at La Guarida Restaurant first floor, Havana, Cuba.

In my imagination, being stranded on a deserted island sounds like a lot of fun, but the images that formed in my head as we rounded the corner of island Cayo Blanco near Trinidad in Cuba — carefully balancing our trek across bleached coral, ankles stressed, soaking wet from head-to-toe in direct sun, covered in mosquito bites, blood dripping down scratched legs from my abandoned short-cut, sunburned and suffering from heat exhaustion — were not the pleasant type of pictures I would normally associate with this particular vision. Wiping sweat off my forehead, I glanced up and saw our boat was no longer docked. It had left without us. In fact, it was almost halfway across the horizon.

I began to picture ourselves curled up on the floor of an open air hut where we earlier had enjoyed lunch, huddled together in terror of the creepy clattering crabs crawling about in their stolen shells, eyes wide open searching for lizards, armed with nothing but a palm frond to keep us warm at night, hungry as all get-out. Maybe they would not send a rescue boat until morning. Of course, I still had my camera, which we could use to attack any wild pigs that stumbled across our path.

When we reached the beach hut, a Cuban ran out to tell us the boat was turning around. Apparently it had not abandoned us but was circling the island, searching for its lost passengers. Cold beer, shelter from the sun awaited. Eureka! We were saved. I was so elated and relieved. This excursion cost us a bigger tip than usual. Further, it wasn’t the worst thing to have happened to us in Cuba. We still had another week in Havana, Cuba, to enjoy.

Our room at Hotel Capri in Havana, Cuba, was a suite, after fixing once again the screwed-up reservation. A duplex, with a large living room on the first floor, and a bedroom loft ensuite on the second. The drapes did not open on the second floor, which made the room feel like a cave, but at least it was carpeted. It proved to be the perfect place to spend 3 days in bed, sicker than a dog. I played rotating positions on the toilet. When it comes to dysentery, I’m like a canary in a coal mine. I always get it first. We were so careful not to drink any water, to brush our teeth using bottled water, to eat only hotel foods. I felt like a colonoscopy patient. I always thought the burning sensation came from the horrible stuff they make you drink beforehand but now I know better.

My husband was not as ill but he suffered his share of difficulties. He searched all of Havana for Imodium AD and there was none. We always pack it but forgot this time. The best the doctors or hospital could offer us was a bottle of Pepto Bismol, which I immediately consumed in its entirety. My appetite vanished. Bland foods from there on out. Most of the food they serve tourists in Havana, Cuba, is either red snapper, roasted chicken, lamb or beef, and none of it was especially good. I could no longer consume rice or beans because much of it had been suddenly deposited into the bathroom sink.

When we met our guide Sergio in the lobby on the third day, he seemed elated to see us. Asked how I was feeling. It’s amazing how great you can feel after vomiting all night, I exclaimed, and gave him a big hug. We went on to tour Old Havana, Cuba.

A highlight of the Old Havana, Cuba, tour was lunch at La Guarida Restaurant. The Oscar-nominated Cuban movie Fresa y Chocolate was filmed there. The exterior is deceiving, a dilapidated building, appears abandoned, crumbling concrete walls inside, chunks of marble missing from the steps, and the second floor looks like a laundry filled with sheets drying and flapping in the breeze on clotheslines. On the third floor is an elegant restaurant. Due to my slow recovery, I requested pasta, which was not on the “approved prepaid list of meals,” and yet they accommodated me. This was my favorite restaurant.

Below are photos from Old Havana, Cuba.