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Dietary requirements for Cuba Guided Walking Holiday
Please contact us as far in advance as possible if you have any specific dietary requirements; we will do our best to accommodate you.
Provision in Cuba may be quite basic and repetitive, so you may wish to consider bringing some snacks with you.
If you require a specific meal on the flight, please let us know as soon as possible, and no later than 96 hours before travel.
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- Hepatitis A and Tetanus vaccinations are recommended. Diphtheria, Rabies and Typhoid vaccines are sometimes recommended too.
- Dengue fever, Zika virus, meningitis and Chikungunya may also occur in-country. Please take suitable measures to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.
Please note: the use or possession of some common prescription or over-the-counter medicines is banned in some countries. If you will be carrying medication, please check with the country’s embassy/consulate prior to travel. As an extra precaution, it is recommended to:
- Keep medication in its original packet
- Take a copy of your prescription
If possible, ask your chemist to write the name of your medication in the language of the country you’re visiting.
Any medication you may require during your trip should be taken with you. It may not be possible to obtain medication such as paracatemol or antihistamine on the island due to national shortages.
General standards of health and health services in Cuba are of a high standard. However, there is no reciprocal agreement with the UK. As with all international travel, medical insurance is essential.
Cuban authorities have strengthened their health screening at entry ports; if you show symptoms of a temperature or infectious disease you may be subjected to a medical examination. The Cuban authorities are carrying out chemical fumigation across the island to control the spread of mosquito-borne diseases; the chemicals used may cause some discomfort if you come into contact with them.
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Vaccinations & health information for Cuba
This information is subject to change. We highly recommend that you consult your doctor before travelling. For further information on country specific advice, visit www.travelhealthpro.org.uk
- Hepatitis A and Tetanus vaccinations are recommended. Diphtheria, Rabies and Typhoid vaccines are sometimes recommended too.
- Dengue fever, Zika virus, meningitis and Chikungunya may also occur in-country. Please take suitable measures to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.
Please note: the use or possession of some common prescription or over-the-counter medicines is banned in some countries. If you will be carrying medication, please check with the country’s embassy/consulate prior to travel. As an extra precaution, it is recommended to:
- Keep medication in its original packet
- Take a copy of your prescription
If possible, ask your chemist to write the name of your medication in the language of the country you’re visiting.
Any medication you may require during your trip should be taken with you. It may not be possible to obtain medication such as paracatemol or antihistamine on the island due to national shortages.
General standards of health and health services in Cuba are of a high standard. However, there is no reciprocal agreement with the UK. As with all international travel, medical insurance is essential.
Cuban authorities have strengthened their health screening at entry ports; if you show symptoms of a temperature or infectious disease you may be subjected to a medical examination. The Cuban authorities are carrying out chemical fumigation across the island to control the spread of mosquito-borne diseases; the chemicals used may cause some discomfort if you come into contact with them.
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British nationals require a full valid passport with six months validity from the date of departure from Cuba, and a visa or tourist card to enter Cuba. Other passport holders please check with your nearest Cuban embassy or consulate for entry requirements.
Visas
From December 31st 2024, visitors from the UK will need an e-Visa to enter Cuba. The cost of the e-Visa is included in your holiday and provided by our local partner. We will provide your e-Visa details via email prior to departure, and your details for how to fill in a D’Viajeros Form (a Health Declaration and Advanced Passenger information form). You much complete your D’Viajeros Form no more than 1 week before departure, and remember to bring the QR code you receive with you to travel into Cuba, either on your phone or printed.
For more details on e-Visas and the D’Viajeros form, please click here.
US citizens should check the current legislation controlling travel to Cuba for the purposes of tourism, what entry requirements are needed.
Those who do not have British passports, or British passports with full right of residence in the UK (‘British Citizen’) should check entry requirements with a Cuban Embassy or Consulate.
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Passport & Visa information for Cuba
Passports
British nationals require a full valid passport with six months validity from the date of departure from Cuba, and a visa or tourist card to enter Cuba. Other passport holders please check with your nearest Cuban embassy or consulate for entry requirements.
Visas
From December 31st 2024, visitors from the UK will need an e-Visa to enter Cuba. The cost of the e-Visa is included in your holiday and provided by our local partner. We will provide your e-Visa details via email prior to departure, and your details for how to fill in a D’Viajeros Form (a Health Declaration and Advanced Passenger information form). You much complete your D’Viajeros Form no more than 1 week before departure, and remember to bring the QR code you receive with you to travel into Cuba, either on your phone or printed.
For more details on e-Visas and the D’Viajeros form, please click here.
US citizens should check the current legislation controlling travel to Cuba for the purposes of tourism, what entry requirements are needed.
Those who do not have British passports, or British passports with full right of residence in the UK (‘British Citizen’) should check entry requirements with a Cuban Embassy or Consulate.
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string(1394) "It's best to be prepared for all weather conditions. To make it easier, here is a list of items you should consider packing.
Essentials
- Walking boots
- Waterproof jacket
- Waterproof trousers
- Insulated jacket/top
- Walking clothing
- Walking socks (plus spares)
- Sunhat
- Gloves/mitts and warm hat
- Water bottle (minimum 2 litre capacity)
- Headtorch
- High-factor sunscreen (minimum SPF 30)
- Sunglasses with a dark lens
- Rucksack (15-30 litres)
- Mobile phone
- Personal first aid kit (containing your medication, blister plasters, etc.)
- Passport
- Visa (if applicable)
- Copy of your travel insurance policy
- UK Global Health Insurance Card (formerly known as EHIC)
Recommended
- Collapsible walking poles
- Swimwear and travel towel
- Snacks
- Dry bags
- Rubbish bags
- Insect repellent
Optional extras
- Camera
- Sit mat
- Flask for hot drinks
- Durable lunch box
- Gaiters
- GPS device (excluding Bhutan, Georgia and India)
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Packing list
It's best to be prepared for all weather conditions. To make it easier, here is a list of items you should consider packing.
Essentials
- Walking boots
- Waterproof jacket
- Waterproof trousers
- Insulated jacket/top
- Walking clothing
- Walking socks (plus spares)
- Sunhat
- Gloves/mitts and warm hat
- Water bottle (minimum 2 litre capacity)
- Headtorch
- High-factor sunscreen (minimum SPF 30)
- Sunglasses with a dark lens
- Rucksack (15-30 litres)
- Mobile phone
- Personal first aid kit (containing your medication, blister plasters, etc.)
- Passport
- Visa (if applicable)
- Copy of your travel insurance policy
- UK Global Health Insurance Card (formerly known as EHIC)
Recommended
- Collapsible walking poles
- Swimwear and travel towel
- Snacks
- Dry bags
- Rubbish bags
- Insect repellent
Optional extras
- Camera
- Sit mat
- Flask for hot drinks
- Durable lunch box
- Gaiters
- GPS device (excluding Bhutan, Georgia and India)
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If you choose to book your flights with us, we automatically include return transfers between the destination airport and hotel.
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With flights
Book your holiday ‘with flights’ and you can choose to depart from a range of UK airports* to your destination. For latest flight times and prices please call us on 0203-974-8865 or email reservations@hfholidays.co.uk
If you choose to book your flights with us, we automatically include return transfers between the destination airport and hotel.
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string(1081) "If you prefer to book the holiday without flights and make your own travel arrangements you will still be able to make use of the return group transfers between the airport and hotel, which are included in the cost of your holiday. You must contact us on +44 (0)20 3974 8865 or email reservations@hfholidays.co.uk at least 8 weeks before your holiday start date to provide your flight details if you wish to join the transfers. If you do not contact us, we will assume you are making independent travel arrangements.
If you are arriving ahead of the group, and are meeting them at the first hotel, please leave a message at the hotel reception for the HF Holidays’ leader or local leader, detailing your room number, and a mobile telephone number if possible. The leader will contact you once the group arrives. If you are arriving after the group, a message will be left for you at the hotel reception, welcoming you and giving details of the time and place to meet the group.
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Travel independently
If you prefer to book the holiday without flights and make your own travel arrangements you will still be able to make use of the return group transfers between the airport and hotel, which are included in the cost of your holiday. You must contact us on +44 (0)20 3974 8865 or email reservations@hfholidays.co.uk at least 8 weeks before your holiday start date to provide your flight details if you wish to join the transfers. If you do not contact us, we will assume you are making independent travel arrangements.
If you are arriving ahead of the group, and are meeting them at the first hotel, please leave a message at the hotel reception for the HF Holidays’ leader or local leader, detailing your room number, and a mobile telephone number if possible. The leader will contact you once the group arrives. If you are arriving after the group, a message will be left for you at the hotel reception, welcoming you and giving details of the time and place to meet the group.
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- Good day - ‘Buenos días’
- Good afternoon - ‘Buenas tardes’
- Good evening - ‘Buenas noches’
Cubans typically greet strangers with a handshake, and if you’ve met them before may greet you with a kiss on the cheek (men to women and women to women)
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Travel Insurance
Travel insurance is a condition of booking. Therefore, if you have not already arranged insurance, it is imperative that you do so, and advise us of the insurance company and policy number.
We work with Campbell Irvine to provide you with competitive single and annual multi-trip insurance. Please see our website for more information and details of how to contact them for a quote: https://www.hfholidays.co.uk/about-us/booking-information/insurance.
For more information about healthcare abroad and its costs, please visit: https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/healthcare-abroad/.
If you are arranging your own travel insurance, please ensure it is adequate for your specific itinerary. Generally, this should include cover for walking at altitudes up to 2,000m.
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Introduction to accommodation in Cuba
Cuba's infrastructure cannot be compared to that of other Caribbean destinations. While city hotels are generally good 3 and 4-star standard, accommodation in rural areas is in guesthouses where the facilities are more basic. All star ratings are the Cuban rating and should not be compared against more internationally recognised star ratings.
Cuba is still a developing country and and some of the accommodation is not of a standard that is perhaps expected from a Caribbean destination. The accommodation is all air conditioned and in excellent locations and what it may lack in some respects, you know you’re enjoying an authentic Cuban experience with all the warmth of a Caribbean welcome.
As Cuba becomes more popular, hotels are generally only confirmed 2 or 3 days prior to travel. Even then, things could change during the tour: we recommend not to have your heart set on staying in particular hotels in case of changes and you’ll have a fantastic time.
Many of the hotel facilities are still as they were 60 years ago, and money is only recently and slowly being invested in improving the hotels or the infrastructure. If you can see past the accommodation problems, and really travel with a sense of adventure, then the locals and the scenery will more than win you over.
Although we use the best available hotels in these areas, standards of service can be leisurely, but this is easily compensated by the warm welcome and Cuba's unique culture and scenery.
Food
Until recently the simple answer to any question about Cuban food was to say that it was not great! Meals of rice, beans with chicken or pork and a cabbage salad is what the Cubans have eaten for decades so it’s easy to see why Cuban chefs have got into a bit of a rut. Things are changing, however, and there are now some decent paladars (private restaurants) in most towns. True, the menus can be a bit repetitive but what’s not to like about cheap lobster?!
Don’t expect spicy food as Cubans hate anything with a hint of ‘picante’ but do expect plenty of gutsy home cooking with an emphasis on creole cooking: black beans, fresh fish, lobster, roast pork and chicken dishes are the staples with more and more restaurants trying to do something a little different with the limited range of ingredients available locally.
Vegetarianism is a relatively new concept in this part of the world, and vegetarian cuisine may therefore be rather basic.
What is Cuba really like?
The following is some information to help you be prepared for your trip to Cuba, the country that is ready to simultaneously delight and confound.
Havana is no longer frozen in time, at least not completely. With Cuba’s guarded openness to private enterprise taking hold, classic American cars and salsa singers now share the cityscape with new and inventive offerings in food, culture, night life and hospitality. No other city in Latin America, or perhaps the world, can claim to be having just the kind of moment that Havana has been experiencing in recent years after so long in isolation from the rest of the world.
For visitors, the capital is a mash-up of past and present, freedom and restriction. It’s a city of architectural decay, but also creativity, where artists have turned a defunct cooking-oil factory into a performance space, bar and music venue that on any given night makes Brooklyn look as cool as a suburban IKEA. It’s a city where finding ingredients for a stellar menu requires feats of Promethean ingenuity; where opera is subversive, and kitschy too; where the Internet is just arriving, fully formed and censored; and where young Cubans without money are fleeing, while those with connections and ideas await great success.
Until recent changes, Americans were flocking to the island, wanting to savour the “forbidden fruit” before Starbucks and McDonalds arrived. Adventurous Europeans have been travelling to Cuba for years but it’s only recently that Cuba has become so popular that travellers might mistake it for a mainstream destination.
Expect the unexpected
The first rule of any trip to Cuba is that nothing is set in stone. Even though your booking may have been made a year ago and HF Holidays has confirmed that all is in place, things can change quickly and at the last minute. Please understand that we and our local agent in Cuba will do everything within their respective and collective power to get the best possible solution and most enjoyable holiday experience for you.
The Cuban tourism industry continues to be controlled almost entirely by the State and its reservations systems are fallible and rickety. By law, most of your services will have to be booked through the central reservations systems – designed for the good old days when barely a European or an American came to the island. Now that Cuba is so popular, the system is critically overstretched, and things do have a frequent tendency to go wrong. To enjoy the holiday to its fullest, we recommend you go with the flow and take it as part of the authentic Cuban experience.
Enjoy Cuba for what it is, a gloriously disorganized, original and off beat place. If your guide does announce a last-minute change of plans, rest assured that everything possible has been done to try and avoid it.
As you will be staying in Casas Particulares (Cuban bed & breakfasts) and eating meals in paladars then you will experience the beginnings of private enterprise in Cuba and you’ll appreciate how efficient, warm and hospitable Cubans can be when they are given the opportunity to run things for themselves.
Health and Safety
Generally speaking, health and safety hasn’t come to Cuba yet. The basics are there so you don’t need to worry about whether your bus is safe to travel in: it is. In general, there is no obsession with health and safety and many of the safeguards we take for granted are not in place, so expect some or all of the following:
Potholes - part and parcel of any road trip in Cuba.
Cracked pavements - most pavements have their fair share of cracks and uneven surfaces so take care when walking – even in the centre of Havana – and wear comfortable shoes.
Jineteros - this is the local Cuban word for a hustler. Offering to take you to eat at their cousin’s paladar, to drink a mojito in their home or offering you cut price cigars they are the most charming band of hustlers in the world and can usually be batted off with a polite “No thanks”.
Electricals - loose wires and electric showers are part and parcel of a Cuban home. It’s not unusual to see loose wires in hotels and some of the Casas Particulares still use the electric showers. We would love to eliminate all of them but these risks to health and safety will probably be part of Cuba for several years to come.
Dehydration - it’s quite easy to get seriously dehydrated, especially during the first few days of your trip as you acclimatize to the heat and humidity. Make sure you drink plenty of mineral water, more if you’d like to enjoy a few mojitos!
It is recommended to take a water filter bottle so that water can be filtered and drank from any location. This then negates the need for single use plastic bottles.
Standards of hygiene – Cubans are extremely clean and house proud but lack the cleaning products which we take for granted. This can make it extremely hard to give the impression of a well cleaned bathroom when, for example, the bathtub is stained by hard water deposits.
Replacement taps, toilet seats or broken tiles can be very difficult or impossible to buy due to importation embargos which still makes importation prohibitively expensive; some hotels even sometimes lack the basics or fail to replace leaking taps or faulty toilets.
This can give the impression that high standards of hygiene are not being demanded of cleaning staff, but they are. No matter what standard of accommodation you’re staying in, expect some of the equipment to be faulty!
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Language Information on the Cuba Guided Walking Holiday
Spanish is the predominate language – many casa particular owners, for example, speak only limited or no English and most museums only print explanations in Spanish. Cubans working in the tourist industry are generally quite proficient in English but knowing even some basic greetings in Spanish won’t go amiss:
- Good day - ‘Buenos días’
- Good afternoon - ‘Buenas tardes’
- Good evening - ‘Buenas noches’
Cubans typically greet strangers with a handshake, and if you’ve met them before may greet you with a kiss on the cheek (men to women and women to women)
Travel Insurance for Cuba
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance is a condition of booking. Therefore, if you have not already arranged insurance, it is imperative that you do so, and advise us of the insurance company and policy number.
We work with Campbell Irvine to provide you with competitive single and annual multi-trip insurance. Please see our website for more information and details of how to contact them for a quote: https://www.hfholidays.co.uk/about-us/booking-information/insurance.
For more information about healthcare abroad and its costs, please visit: https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/healthcare-abroad/.
If you are arranging your own travel insurance, please ensure it is adequate for your specific itinerary. Generally, this should include cover for walking at altitudes up to 2,000m.
Introduction to Cuba
Introduction to accommodation in Cuba
Cuba's infrastructure cannot be compared to that of other Caribbean destinations. While city hotels are generally good 3 and 4-star standard, accommodation in rural areas is in guesthouses where the facilities are more basic. All star ratings are the Cuban rating and should not be compared against more internationally recognised star ratings.
Cuba is still a developing country and and some of the accommodation is not of a standard that is perhaps expected from a Caribbean destination. The accommodation is all air conditioned and in excellent locations and what it may lack in some respects, you know you’re enjoying an authentic Cuban experience with all the warmth of a Caribbean welcome.
As Cuba becomes more popular, hotels are generally only confirmed 2 or 3 days prior to travel. Even then, things could change during the tour: we recommend not to have your heart set on staying in particular hotels in case of changes and you’ll have a fantastic time.
Many of the hotel facilities are still as they were 60 years ago, and money is only recently and slowly being invested in improving the hotels or the infrastructure. If you can see past the accommodation problems, and really travel with a sense of adventure, then the locals and the scenery will more than win you over.
Although we use the best available hotels in these areas, standards of service can be leisurely, but this is easily compensated by the warm welcome and Cuba's unique culture and scenery.
Food
Until recently the simple answer to any question about Cuban food was to say that it was not great! Meals of rice, beans with chicken or pork and a cabbage salad is what the Cubans have eaten for decades so it’s easy to see why Cuban chefs have got into a bit of a rut. Things are changing, however, and there are now some decent paladars (private restaurants) in most towns. True, the menus can be a bit repetitive but what’s not to like about cheap lobster?!
Don’t expect spicy food as Cubans hate anything with a hint of ‘picante’ but do expect plenty of gutsy home cooking with an emphasis on creole cooking: black beans, fresh fish, lobster, roast pork and chicken dishes are the staples with more and more restaurants trying to do something a little different with the limited range of ingredients available locally.
Vegetarianism is a relatively new concept in this part of the world, and vegetarian cuisine may therefore be rather basic.
What is Cuba really like?
The following is some information to help you be prepared for your trip to Cuba, the country that is ready to simultaneously delight and confound.
Havana is no longer frozen in time, at least not completely. With Cuba’s guarded openness to private enterprise taking hold, classic American cars and salsa singers now share the cityscape with new and inventive offerings in food, culture, night life and hospitality. No other city in Latin America, or perhaps the world, can claim to be having just the kind of moment that Havana has been experiencing in recent years after so long in isolation from the rest of the world.
For visitors, the capital is a mash-up of past and present, freedom and restriction. It’s a city of architectural decay, but also creativity, where artists have turned a defunct cooking-oil factory into a performance space, bar and music venue that on any given night makes Brooklyn look as cool as a suburban IKEA. It’s a city where finding ingredients for a stellar menu requires feats of Promethean ingenuity; where opera is subversive, and kitschy too; where the Internet is just arriving, fully formed and censored; and where young Cubans without money are fleeing, while those with connections and ideas await great success.
Until recent changes, Americans were flocking to the island, wanting to savour the “forbidden fruit” before Starbucks and McDonalds arrived. Adventurous Europeans have been travelling to Cuba for years but it’s only recently that Cuba has become so popular that travellers might mistake it for a mainstream destination.
Expect the unexpected
The first rule of any trip to Cuba is that nothing is set in stone. Even though your booking may have been made a year ago and HF Holidays has confirmed that all is in place, things can change quickly and at the last minute. Please understand that we and our local agent in Cuba will do everything within their respective and collective power to get the best possible solution and most enjoyable holiday experience for you.
The Cuban tourism industry continues to be controlled almost entirely by the State and its reservations systems are fallible and rickety. By law, most of your services will have to be booked through the central reservations systems – designed for the good old days when barely a European or an American came to the island. Now that Cuba is so popular, the system is critically overstretched, and things do have a frequent tendency to go wrong. To enjoy the holiday to its fullest, we recommend you go with the flow and take it as part of the authentic Cuban experience.
Enjoy Cuba for what it is, a gloriously disorganized, original and off beat place. If your guide does announce a last-minute change of plans, rest assured that everything possible has been done to try and avoid it.
As you will be staying in Casas Particulares (Cuban bed & breakfasts) and eating meals in paladars then you will experience the beginnings of private enterprise in Cuba and you’ll appreciate how efficient, warm and hospitable Cubans can be when they are given the opportunity to run things for themselves.
Health and Safety
Generally speaking, health and safety hasn’t come to Cuba yet. The basics are there so you don’t need to worry about whether your bus is safe to travel in: it is. In general, there is no obsession with health and safety and many of the safeguards we take for granted are not in place, so expect some or all of the following:
Potholes - part and parcel of any road trip in Cuba.
Cracked pavements - most pavements have their fair share of cracks and uneven surfaces so take care when walking – even in the centre of Havana – and wear comfortable shoes.
Jineteros - this is the local Cuban word for a hustler. Offering to take you to eat at their cousin’s paladar, to drink a mojito in their home or offering you cut price cigars they are the most charming band of hustlers in the world and can usually be batted off with a polite “No thanks”.
Electricals - loose wires and electric showers are part and parcel of a Cuban home. It’s not unusual to see loose wires in hotels and some of the Casas Particulares still use the electric showers. We would love to eliminate all of them but these risks to health and safety will probably be part of Cuba for several years to come.
Dehydration - it’s quite easy to get seriously dehydrated, especially during the first few days of your trip as you acclimatize to the heat and humidity. Make sure you drink plenty of mineral water, more if you’d like to enjoy a few mojitos!
It is recommended to take a water filter bottle so that water can be filtered and drank from any location. This then negates the need for single use plastic bottles.
Standards of hygiene – Cubans are extremely clean and house proud but lack the cleaning products which we take for granted. This can make it extremely hard to give the impression of a well cleaned bathroom when, for example, the bathtub is stained by hard water deposits.
Replacement taps, toilet seats or broken tiles can be very difficult or impossible to buy due to importation embargos which still makes importation prohibitively expensive; some hotels even sometimes lack the basics or fail to replace leaking taps or faulty toilets.
This can give the impression that high standards of hygiene are not being demanded of cleaning staff, but they are. No matter what standard of accommodation you’re staying in, expect some of the equipment to be faulty!
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1 piece checked-in luggage (max 23kg).
Please check details of your airline’s baggage allowance, as shown on your e-ticket. Remember to also check any connecting flights you may have booked.
Lost/damaged luggage
If your bag or its contents are damaged or lost while in the airline’s care, this should be reported to the baggage service agents at the airport on arrival. They will assess the damage; in some cases, the airline may decide to settle your claim immediately.
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Luggage information for Cuba Guided Walking Holiday
Luggage allowance
1 piece checked-in luggage (max 23kg).
Please check details of your airline’s baggage allowance, as shown on your e-ticket. Remember to also check any connecting flights you may have booked.
Lost/damaged luggage
If your bag or its contents are damaged or lost while in the airline’s care, this should be reported to the baggage service agents at the airport on arrival. They will assess the damage; in some cases, the airline may decide to settle your claim immediately.
You will be given a reference to quote to your insurance company if an immediate settlement is not possible - in many cases, baggage claims can only be accepted in writing. A baggage claim form must be obtained from the airport.
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Restaurants and cafes in Cuba often display prices in CUP but will be happy to give you the bill in USD/EUR.
We recommend you exchange a small amount (say USD or EUR50) into CUPs for emergencies, your local guide will be able to assist with this as we recommend you exchange only at official exchange bureaux. Do not exchange money at the airport as the rate is poor.
Bring your bank card just in case. A few Government-owned establishments will accept bank card payments, and more ATMs will appear, but for now assume your bank cards won’t work in Cuba. Before heading to Cuba, check that your bank card can be used in the country (if your bank is US owned, then your card won’t work in Cuba due to the US Embargo on Cuba ).
You can use bank cards in government-owned shops throughout the island (to buy rum, coffee, souvenirs, and cigars) and you can use them in most large hotels and some restaurants too. Your bank card will also be accepted in the Duty-Free Shops to stock up on cigars and rum as you leave Cuba too.
Find more information on currency in Cuba here.
Selected tips are included in the price of your holiday. Included are tips for site-specific local walking guides, porters, musicians, and restaurants. Your local leader can therefore allocate the appropriate tip as per Cuban culture and expectations.
Not included in your package are tips to local staff accompanying group throughout your trip (for example your local leader and driver). We recommend budgeting £50- £60 to spend on tipping. Please note that any tips for your local leader are entirely at your own discretion.
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Local currency for Cuba
The legal currency is the Cuban Peso (CUP) and prices are now displayed in this currency. Though in spite of the new official currency, Cubans still want USD/EUR cash, so we recommend for your holiday bring USD or EUR in cash and bring them in small, useful denominations (£5 or £10 are best). You’ll be able to buy food and drinks not included in your package in USD or EUR.
Restaurants and cafes in Cuba often display prices in CUP but will be happy to give you the bill in USD/EUR.
We recommend you exchange a small amount (say USD or EUR50) into CUPs for emergencies, your local guide will be able to assist with this as we recommend you exchange only at official exchange bureaux. Do not exchange money at the airport as the rate is poor.
Bring your bank card just in case. A few Government-owned establishments will accept bank card payments, and more ATMs will appear, but for now assume your bank cards won’t work in Cuba. Before heading to Cuba, check that your bank card can be used in the country (if your bank is US owned, then your card won’t work in Cuba due to the US Embargo on Cuba ).
You can use bank cards in government-owned shops throughout the island (to buy rum, coffee, souvenirs, and cigars) and you can use them in most large hotels and some restaurants too. Your bank card will also be accepted in the Duty-Free Shops to stock up on cigars and rum as you leave Cuba too.
Find more information on currency in Cuba here.
Selected tips are included in the price of your holiday. Included are tips for site-specific local walking guides, porters, musicians, and restaurants. Your local leader can therefore allocate the appropriate tip as per Cuban culture and expectations.
Not included in your package are tips to local staff accompanying group throughout your trip (for example your local leader and driver). We recommend budgeting £50- £60 to spend on tipping. Please note that any tips for your local leader are entirely at your own discretion.
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Electricity information for Cuba
110V, 2 pin flat or round blade plugs. 220V may be achieved in more built up areas.
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ATM availability for Cuba
ATMs are more common but not everywhere
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- Lonely Planet, Cuba (2017)
- Sasha Korniak, Cuba Wanderer (2015)
- James Kavanagh, Cuba Birds (2016)
- Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
Maps
Although you won’t need them, if you’d like any maps of the destination, you can obtain some in advance from The Map Shop: www.themapshop.co.uk
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Suggested reading and maps for Cuba
Suggested reading
- Lonely Planet, Cuba (2017)
- Sasha Korniak, Cuba Wanderer (2015)
- James Kavanagh, Cuba Birds (2016)
- Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
Maps
Although you won’t need them, if you’d like any maps of the destination, you can obtain some in advance from The Map Shop: www.themapshop.co.uk