Rum & Revolution-live from the Spirit, February 22, San Juan to Ft. Lauderdale

[jollyjones]

And good riddance. 

I am on the Wind toward the end of a Cuba cruise and it is by far the worst cruise itinerary I’ve been on. 

The crew are as great as ever, but the rest has been problematic.  

Usually if something doesn’t go well, I take that as an excuse to do the cruise again in the future. I will never do this one again. 

Now I am worried about having two large and very obvious Cuba stamps in my passport - I transit frequently through the US, I just hope there won’t be problems with the CBP if things really tighten up. 

[Tothesunset]

This is a concern. We are booked on a 7 day Wind Cuba itinerary next March. If it's cancelled we don't really mind except that I need to book flights at some point and obviously don't want to do that if we might have to cancel. 

 

Its a bit of a poser. 

[Master Echo]

Dear jollyjones,

 

Interested in your comments regarding your cruise to Cuba.  What exactly were the problems you encountered?

 

At least you will have had the opportunity to visit Cuba, problems notwithstanding, whereas it is extremely unlikely I will get the chance!!  Like so many people,, the cruise was booked specifically to see Cuba.  I also have flights already booked and paid for, which of course would be forfeited!😕

 

With regards your concern over the Cuban stamps, as a prolific traveller, put paperclips in your passport covering several used pages.  If queried, you can say you have done it to make it easier for them to find an empty page. 

 

Kindest regards

 

Master Echo

[jollyjones]

46 minutes ago, Master Echo said:

Dear jollyjones,

 

Interested in your comments regarding your cruise to Cuba.  What exactly were the problems you encountered?

 

At least you will have had the opportunity to visit Cuba, problems notwithstanding, whereas it is extremely unlikely I will get the chance!!  Like so many people,, the cruise was booked specifically to see Cuba.  I also have flights already booked and paid for, which of course would be forfeited!😕

 

With regards your concern over the Cuban stamps, as a prolific traveller, put paperclips in your passport covering several used pages.  If queried, you can say you have done it to make it easier for them to find an empty page. 

 

Kindest regards

 

Master Echo

 

The problems were partly of my own making and partly of the itinerary - some of which were caused by SS and some by bad luck.

 

I bought the cruise as a b2b W Carib and E Carib 18 months ahead of time. 6 months ahead of time SS changed the W Carib to Cuba - by then I had the plane tickets bought and multiple other arrangements made around this cruise and other trips so it would have been a major problem to cancel, nor could I change to another cruise because of timings. So I already felt a bit trapped before I started.

First stop was an overnight at Santiago de Cuba where the dock had been damaged months before but not repaired so we were anchored ... rather too close to some sort of industrial plant belching out foul black smoke which smelt revolting. It was a 30 minute tender ride which I was unwilling to do - I find tendering very unpleasant even for a short ride, it's a claustrophobia type thing - so I felt trapped on the smelly ship for two days, didn't see anything of Santiago apart from the haze of pollution hanging over the town in the distance.

Then we turned round and went back the way we'd come to Havana for a single day (8am - 5.30pm) stop. I, as had everyone, had signed the affidavit to say I'd do a person-to-person cultural thing to satisfy the US rules so I went on a qualifying SS tour supposedly a 'panoramic overview of Havana' (sounded good on paper) which turned out to be an endless drive around Havana's suburbs. The coach stopped and we got off periodically but it was difficult to concentrate on whatever we were supposed to be looking at because of the overwhelming clouds of black exhaust fumes from all the vehicles both old and new - no emission controls here! I felt I couldn't breathe for five hours and I have no respiratory problems. The old American cars were the worst culprits and they were everywhere but once you'd seen one you'd seen them all, they were of no interest to me. The tour should have had a health warning.

Back at the ship, once I'd recovered from the exhaust fume headache and nausea, it was too late to go into Old Havana and wander around which was the only thing I actually wanted to do.

It's a shame I didn't grasp until too late that all you have to do to satisfy the US is sign the affidavit - you don't have to actually do a person-to-person cultural thing (unless your conscience insists) - the Cubans couldn't care less what you do, I could have just gone wandering around Old Havana on my own all day with no problem. There should have been an overnight at Havana rather than Santiago.

Then we had the joy of Nassau because you can't sail directly back to the US from Cuba and there's no good cruise ports in the Bahamas. Ugh, Nassau is such a dump, I gave up getting off the ship there many visits ago. But wait, there's more - our final stop was meant to be Bimini - I knew that'd be a long tender but I thought I'd stay on the ship, a 'sea day' at anchor in the ocean breezes would be OK. But at the last minute we were told that the sea might be making up a bit so the tender ride (which was 55 minutes) would be difficult so it was cancelled and instead we had two full days in Nassau docked with massive ships and thousands and thousands of cruise pax.

 

So my Western Caribbean 9 day cruise turned into just one five hour drive around Havana's suburbs. 

 

PS The weather has been mostly glorious, and I am cruising, and I am optimistic about the Eastern Caribbean leg that we have just commenced so life is, on balance, very good. Just a shame about Cuba, I feel kinda cheated out of seeing what I wanted to see.

[Master Echo]

Oh dear how sad - I can quite understand what a nightmare it must have been,

however I am pleased to know that you have a second leg to look forward to in the "balmy" West Indian breezes.

 

Thanks so much for your detailed report,

 

Kindest regards

 

Master Echo