I am so excited to share my recent Cuba experience with you and my suggestions. I sat down to write my first post and decided I needed to start from the very beginning; how to go to Cuba. It is a big discussion that was had with my friends and it actually was a very, very easy process. I really wanted to not get a visa and enter illegally because I didn’t want to give money to the government but that was not an option if you are flying on a US carrier from the states, the airlines make you buy one—part of the reason why it is so easy. Most airlines you can get your tourist visa the day of but since we flew Spirit and they have such great service they couldn’t guarantee us that the visa people would be there the day our flight was departing…interesting. So we bought ours ahead of time for $85. Normally at the gate it is $50. It is a piece of paper that has two sides, one is taken when you enter Cuba and the other you hang onto till you leave. Nobody in our group lost their departure half so I can’t tell you what would happen if you do.
You are purchasing a tourist visa but you still have to fill out a form for the people to people visa purpose of your trip; I put down journalism, as did most of our group of 15. When coming back into the states, US customs asked no questions.
Where to go and where to stay? We decided to do 3 days in Havana, one travel day down to Trinidad, two days in Trinidad, and then one travel day back to the states; Wednesday to Wednesday. We flew into Havana on Spirit and flew out of Santa Clara on Jet Blue.We stayed at AirBNB in both locations and our total cost for accommodation was $127 per person. Our Havana house is shown below!
Stay tuned for my next Cuba post about touring Havana!
