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What Does it Cost for Americans Visiting Cuba During the Embargo?
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
Travel to Cuba from Sacramento
Tower of Hotel Nacional de Cuba
One cannot apply Harry Chapin song lyric logic to our experiences of travel to Cuba from Sacramento. It was NOT the going there. But then again, we were not traveling to Cuba on the maiden flight of CTS, which is a charter flight from Los Angeles directly to Cuba. We booked our travel to Cuba in early 2015 through a travel agency in Los Angeles, which routed us through Miami on a Havana Air charter flight. If the travel agency had booked us any other day than a Saturday, we would not have had to leave our Miami hotel at 3:30 in the morning to wade through the enormous passenger lines at the airport to catch a 7 AM one-hour flight. We could have instead slept in and caught a noon flight.
This would not have been so completely unbearable if United Airlines had not changed our flight from Sacramento to depart at 5:30 AM the day before. Crawling out of bed at 3:30 AM two nights in a row was not my idea.
Denver Realtor Joan Cox with Sacramento Realtor Elizabeth Weintraub at Denver Airport
Our connecting flight from Denver gave us a 3-hour layover, and my friend, an agent from Active Rain, Joan Cox in Denver, met us at the airport for a leisurely brunch. I tried to be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and alert, but I probably failed miserably. Afterward, we sat at the gate for another 3 hours as we watched United give away our plane to other passengers and search frantically to locate another.
First Class on United is not really a first-class experience. It’s a few rows separated by a curtain with slightly larger seats. No wonder our roundtrip tickets were so cheap. I cannot begin to fathom what travel in coach was like.
View from Mandarin Oriental in Miami at midnight
We landed late in Miami. Our initial plan was to enjoy a quiet dinner at the Mandarin Oriental, maybe a cocktail or two and retire early. As it was, we were lucky our heads hit the pillow after midnight and then we were back up at 3:30 AM to return to the airport for our charter flight to travel to Cuba. You know what they say about best laid plans . . .
Taxi from Jose Marti International Airport to Hotel Nacional de Cuba
For about $30, we caught a taxi from the airport and was whisked away down the streets of Havana. We zipped past all of the passengers transporting televisions, computers, refrigerators and other large objects wrapped in plastic. And yes, it is true about the 1950s cars. Ubiquitous. Our cab driver could recite the make and model of every vehicle on the road.
Adam Weintraub strolls the lobby at Hotel Nacional de Cuba
As the bellmen in the lobby at Hotel Nacional carted our luggage up the steps, I was counting out uno, dos, tres on my fingers to reach the number 6, seis, so I could let them know we had reservations for the Executive floor, level six. Little did I realize they speak perfect English. Unfortunately, we could not check in at 8 AM and were told to return at 4 PM. We wandered into the courtyard. Below is a short 16-second video:
We listened to music, sat on the hill and tried to shoot photos of 1950s cars driving along the Malecon, but the traffic was moving much too quickly to capture the scene.
Relaxing patio by the sea at Hotel Nacional de Cuba
Later that evening, we returned to the spot you see above to enjoy a daiquiri on the patio after dinner and laugh about how our travel agent messed up our room reservations. After an hour nap on the lobby sofa, at the designated hour of 4 PM, we checked in on the Executive Level and the hotel clerk proudly handed me my key and room portfolio. Then she turned to my husband and handed him a different room key for an adjacent room. We looked at each other in amazement. Why did we have two rooms? My husband blurted, “But we’re married!” The clerk defended her position. It says right here, she explained, you like to stay up late and she does not. Two rooms.
Yes, like a suite, NOT separate. Uh oh, that meant every hotel reservation for us was most likely for two separate hotel rooms. We should get a refund from the travel agency. Two rooms were much less than one small suite.
Tourists in the courtyard at Hotel Nacional de Cuba
The Hotel Nacional de Cuba was built by Americans in 1930, based on The Breakers in Miami. It is a gorgeous hotel, filled with wonderful architectural detailing, art deco blended with other styles such as Moorish, and neoclassical, neocolonial and even California mission. If you travel to Cuba, you should try to stay at this hotel at least for one night.
Artists at work in the courtyard of Hotel Nacional de Cuba
Many artists line the courtyard during the day to paint. The hotel sits on a hill and once held antiaircraft in the 1960s. After the Revolution, much tourist travel to Cuba ceased and did not resume until the mid 1970s. It has since been declared a National Monument, and many dignitaries and celebrities have stayed at Hotel Nacional.
Tarzan Pool at Hotel Nacional de Cuba
As we stood in line to change our currency from American dollars into CUCs, the exchange rate is .87 CUCs to a dollar, I watched a video over and over on the hotel screen. I want my photo shot next to the Tarzan statue, I announced. And we began a search of the hotel for the statue of Tarzan. There is a Tarzan pool, as evidenced above, but there is no statue of Tarzan.
Our guide, Sergio, asked why we thought there was a statue of Tarzan at the pool. Because I saw it on the video. I had to go back to the lobby and shoot the screen capture to prove it to him. Turns out, it was just a photo of Johnny Weissmuller imposed next to the pool. I was so sleepy during our currency exchange that I did not realize this. See below. Still, I could see it, can’t you?
Screen capture of lobby video Piscina de Tarzan at Hotel Nacional de Cuba
