Cuba Libre!

Here we are back from Cuba. It's been a few weeks and I thought it best to write about the experience before specifics fade into revisionist history. In particular I want to focus on the logistics of traveling to Cuba with young children. There is still much I need to process regarding the country itself, the history, modern day Communism, etc. That will need to be another post.

We traveled to Cuba under the "Support for the Cuban People" visa. As someone else in our group procured the visa's I'm not sure the detailed process...what I do know is that we were 'required' to have an agenda/schedule that included 8 full hours a day of 'cultural exchange'.

Cultural exchange included historical, guided tours; museum visits; and musical shows (we went with a group of musicians that performed a few different nights whilst there). We also took a significant amount of material to donate to the people - everything from first aide items; coloring books; musical instruments; clothes; and athletic equipment (think baseball!).

The latter bit wasn't required but we wanted to be sure we had a lot to donate to the folks we knew we'd be interacting with.

In reality, the schedule came in very handy as we were entering Cuba. Due to all the donations, customs did stop us to ask what was in our bags (note the group was large and nearly all of us wear all black, are covered in tattoos, and have dyed hair in non-typical styles). After showing a print out of our accommodations list and schedule, they let us go without much trouble. Immigration on both sides was without any to do - no one asked to see proof of our sticking to our schedule, looked through our phones (as we were told might happen); or anything else of the sort. It was just like going in and out of Europe - in fact, I'm pretty sure I get harassed more coming/going from London.

That experience seemed to match the rest of what we read: overstated. It certainly wasn't like traveling to a first world country but the situation with regard to food and drinks wasn't nearly as dire as most books made it out to be.

That said, we did take a significant amount of snacks, plus some quick meals (think: instant oatmeal; top ramen; etc). We didn't eat everything we took but I chalk that up to us overestimating general food consumption more than anything. We did rely on these a lot - so TAKE SNACKS.

We took things like: Clif bars; granola bars; trail mix; crackers (like indy bags of goldfish and Chex mix); dried fruit; instant oatmeal; and top ramen. Due to tastes, adults mostly ate the Clif bars and kids mostly ate everything else. Store and hole in the wall food stands are aplenty - both in Santa Clara and in Havana - however, the food quality is low and mostly it's just ham and cheese sandwiches. When we were on long tours or on the bus, there weren't options to stop or buy things so having the snacks was essential. When walking around town, as noted, there were government run snack shops/'cafeterias' but the menu is limited and mostly just cheese, ham or cheese and ham together.







We stayed in Casa Particulares in both cities - though the one in Santa Clara was more of a hostel set up; and the one in Havana like a B&B. Breakfast was the best meal for the kids. Lots of bread and fruit. Fresh (really fresh!) blended fruit juices and some cheese and ham dishes were served. Sometimes eggs.

Usually, you need to tell the host the day before if you desire meals and which ones. This affords them time to shopping the day of. We only ate breakfasts in - they were CUC5 - 10 each person.

For lunch, there were plenty of acceptable eating establishments to get food, or the tours we booked included lunch (or a pit stop at a recommended restaurant).

Keep in mind there are a range of food cuisines. We heard about privately run restaurants vs government - but were never really told how to distinguish between the two. We only knew after ordering/eating based on the quality of food and service.  Government places had rude service and very cheap (quality) food.






Dinner was much like lunch. There are folks who will try and solicit you to eat at their restaurant. Sometimes they are obvious and other times they sidle up to you like they are curious locals...only to end up suggesting, fairly aggressively, that you HAVE to go to X restaurant because it's just the best. We generally avoided the 'recommendations' and chose our own spots to eat based on guidebook info.

The quick meals we brought did come in hand though. There were two different situations when we were glad to have instant food: (1) when we were all just having a hard time getting out of the house. As happens when traveling with a group, the schedule of the group and your child's needs don't always align. So having something quick to put in their bellies while we waited to sort out what was actually happening, was necessary. (2) One of the last nights we were in Havana, there was a torrential rainstorm that lasted well beyond the typical tropical daily shower. In fact, it began late afternoon and didn't let up until 9-9:30p that night. During that time NO ONE is out on the streets. Barely any cars are driving and everyone is mostly just huddled together on a porch or at home not going anywhere. We made the mistake of trying to find a restaurant to eat at during this time and ended up driving around Old Havana with a "taxi driver" for 2 hours, just to end up back at the Casa. Ramen saved us that night. My only recommendation is that you bring a variety of meals that are add hot water only - the women at our Casa Particulares were very helpful and let us just use their kitchen (they were amazed by the ramen - "Es sopa?") - but it was kind of an ordeal and just adding water to something (or having MREs) would have been much more convenient.

 Water. Bottled water was actually a lot more available than we were made to believe. Most stores we went into had bottled water for sale. The Casa Familiares replenished bottled water every day for us to buy/have. However, we only used these to supplement our own supply. We took our own reusable bottles and a UV water purifying pen (https://goo.gl/RMZVJf). It's small and portable and great for when you don't have access to buy water somewhere. Though, fair warning, water pressure is non-existent so it may take a while to fill the bottle. Also, purifying doesn't change the taste, so there were times when the little one didn't want to drink the water due to smell/taste that lingered - nothing gross, just not "clean" like bottled water. Miraculously, everyone but the kids got sick. The adults had varying degrees of something but not the kids. We used the purified water for all things so it must have been something in one of the alcoholic beverages. Go figure.

Juice was typically only available at breakfast at the Casa Familiares and at full fledged restaurants. Otherwise it was just water or soda (clear or brown). Milk was also available but only at the Casas.



In terms of activities - most of the tours we were on were not tailored for kids. So my little one (4yo) wasn't amused by most of what we were doing. There were plenty of places to run around but the walking and history were a bore. We spent one day at the beach which was amazing both for the kids and us. However, this was by design of the group we were with. If I were to go on my own with my family, I would definitely plan the activities differently and I believe that there is a way to strike a balance of history/'boring' sites with kid-themed activities. If nothing else, the country really does seem to love their children, so there are playgrounds everywhere.

So just think about taking the time to allow your kid to have fun and be a kid. Regardless of your visa type, you have that flexibility since no one really checks up on what you really did hour by hour, day by day. It makes sense, Cuba wants the tourism and the US - once you're returning - just wants to be sure you didn't touch a cow or get Zika.

In the end, the conclusion was that traveling to Cuba with kids isn't very different than traveling with kids in EU; and similar to traveling with them in Mexico. Travel safely, be aware and know there will be the normal ups and downs - they are just kids after all.

Viva!

Note that this summary expounds on areas that I was most curious about before going, due to insufficient information I found in guidebooks and online. It is not meant to be comprehensive but a supplement to any other information you read. The bits about Cubans loving kids, grabbing and kissing them is true. The bits about currency, safety, etc are all important so read up in your guide books.