Havana Day Two

Havana Day Two

At 8 am we left on the People to People (P2P) tour of Havana. This is required by our Department of State as the only legal way to visit Cuba by ship. This will of course all change as relations normalize and more ships come to Cuba but we had to go with the flow.  This was very different than the first tour which cost us money. On that one we had a lot of space on the bus and it was easy to get everyone on and off since it was only half full.  Not on the P2P tour. There were twenty buses and all of them filled and all of them doing the same sightseeing.  It took forever to get everyone aboard our bus since a good number of our fellow travelers are not very mobile due to age, weight or disability. When finally on board we had a quick tour of the seaside of Havana and around the edges of the city before heading to the Grand Theater, where we found that there were ten other busloads all trying to get into the theater. So in the grand wisdom that can only be found on cruise ships that are feeling their way around new venues, they combined two buses of people for a tour with one person translating what the local guide was saying. The upshot was no one could hear anything.  Wasted time and energy.  They then marched us out into the heat of the day to walk us through some historic park of some sort and then across busy streets to show us La Floridita, which was closed, Sloppy Joe’s, which was closed, and the Bacardi building, which was closed.  People were fading quickly from the heat, humidity and foul air - and complaining bitterly. Not a well designed tour at all.

Our next stop was supposed to be at a folkloric crafts area but it turned out to be a large open shed, the length of a football field filled with vendors selling tourist crap. These were aggressive people getting into your face to sell you something which appeared to be made in China. They all spoke English and despite my trying to speak Spanish, they continued in English. Not exactly P2P!  We lasted ten minutes and headed for the doorway. We tried to salvage something of the experience by getting a Cuban coffee at a stand with local folks drinking, smoking and talking. It was the worst coffee in the world and they were certainly not friendly.  We had had it!  We found our guide and told him we would make our way back to the ship.  We had to sign some release forms and we took off on our own.

It was hot but we were on the Malecon and there was a slight breeze for our walk back to the ship.  We were approached many times with offers of taxi rides, horse drawn carriage rides and some pedicabs but we were more than content to amble back to the empty ship, which we enjoyed very much.  We decided at lunch that the next stop, which was Cienfuegos, was one that we would do on our own and I made the arrangements with the tour desk which handles the P2P experiences.

Since the next day was a sea day we had made arrangements to dine late in the one restaurant that requires a fee. It was a rather disappointing experience since the food did not seem any better than the normal restaurant, and in fact we had a hard time ordering since almost everything was spicy this or spicy that.  After dinner we spent the next three hours dancing, dancing and dancing until the music finally stopped and we had to head to bed where we had the luxury of sleeping in until 9 am the next morning.