Tom2

Thank you, I knew I could find the answer here.

We are on the Disney Fantasy June 8th sailing. How many days before the cruise can I expect to get the documents. Luggage tags, airline tickets booked by Disney etc. Thank you, Tom

The guides were excellent although they talked the Socialist Party line but when you talked to them one on one, they all seemed to have an exit plan to some day leave Cuba. Our guides as a whole where highly educated Doctors and Engineers that could make more off tourist tips than they could their government capped salaries. We did at least one people to people exchange every day we were in port. The ship had reserved up front seats at the Tropicana and the show was outstanding. The on-board lecturers were extremely knowledgeable and prepared us for what awaited us in Cuba. Enjoy your trip.

we docked at every planned port and where we docked big ships wouldn't fit other than Havana and there we were docked next to some big ships but there was plenty of room.

My wife and I took that same trip on the Sea Bird in March 2011. Here is a link to the travelogue we posted while on the trip and a short video slide show I put together after the trip. Great trip. http://www.tomjed.com/index.php/whales Tom

We put the recommended ships gratuities on our ships bill and it was really the only thing on the bill because everything on the ship is free. The ship gratuities came to $440 for the two of us. The ship will tell you the recommended amount and how to handle guide and driver tips but as I recall we tipped the guide 10 CUCs and the driver 5 CUCs for each tour. They were all outstanding.

There was a vegetarian entree offered on the menu at every meal.

I hope you enjoy Cuba as much as we did. The Cubans were amazingly friendly and helpful. Now is the time to go before they start allowing all of the big cruise ships in and Cuba becomes just another touristy Caribbean Island.

The Pearl Mist is completely smoke free in all public areas, rooms, and balconies. There might have been an area on one of the outside decks where smoking was permitted but I didn’t see it. I was also concerned before we left because of the availability of Cuban Cigars but it turned out not to be a problem. We changed $400.00 into CUCs at our first stop in Santiago de Cuba and then another $200.00, which it turned out we didn’t need to do, when we got to Havana. It was very easy converting the CUCs back to US Dollars before we left Havana. There is no charge converting CUCs to dollars only in converting dollars to CUCs.

My wife and I just returned from a 12 day Cuba Cruise with Peal Seas and were very impressed. There were 150 on the ship and the guest lecturers’were outstanding, both in presentation and knowledge. All of the tours were included as well as lunch at private restaurants on many of the tours which were all very good. Drinks on the ship were included and plentiful and the food was some of the best we have had on a ship. Here is a link to a short video slideshow we put together after we got back plus the daily blog we posted while on the trip. http://tomjed.com/index.php/cuba Tom