Who did we use?

I wanted to go to Cuba since it made the news years ago. This secret box of treasures locked away for so long intrigued me. The

Our Classic American Taxi (in front of the Hotel Nacional)

history fascinated me and the colors caught my eye. So after a stressful start to 2017, I thought I deserved a vacation. I researched Cuba until I was blue in the face. What to do, what not to do, what to eat, what not to eat. I read about the currency, the laws traveling to Cuba and the laws about bringing stuff back. The foods we should eat and avoid so on and so on. I read other blogs and articles of peoples personal experiences and found everything helpful but not up to date. Part of the reason why we started this blog! Anywho, I started looking on yelp at travel agencies that went to Cuba. I looked over several and one caught my attention. Americas Cuba Travel had 29 Yelp reviews and I read every single one of them. Turns out only 1 of those 29 reviews were negative. After reading that one, I disagreed with the authors projected issues she had with the agency. So I emailed the travel agent. Mercedes responded rather quickly and began putting out all my fiery questions. Her professionalism and knowledge put this first time travel seeker at ease. After hearing my wishes if I did go to Cuba, she put together a general itinerary for Michelle and I. We wanted to travel around in an American classic car, we wanted to stay in casa particulars ( Bed and breakfasts), see Havana and Vinales, and of course tour a cigar plantation. Because what else do you think of when you think of Cuba!? After I showed actual interest in going forward with this, Mercedes started going to work for us. I bet I emailed her 1,000 times asking questions, getting her advice etc. She answered every single one of our questions and in a timely manner. This would be the first time either one of us traveled without our families, and for sure the first time I've left the comforts of the good ole USA. After a couple months of mitigation, everything was in place, our passports were on their way (see our last article "What you need to go to Cuba"). She had a complete personalized itinerary made for us and it was at that point we wrote the check to pay for our week in Cuba. When you pay though, I would suggest doing it with a credit card. We sent a check because it was cheaper as they charge a small percentage for credit card transactions, and the nervousness of a 2,667 dollar bill being lost in postal translation was there. It was not worth the small percentage we saved! The travel agency handled everything. From our transportation to and from every activity,  every city we explored,  the casa particulars we stayed in, most of the places we ate at and all the details in between. The only part of the trip they did not supply was flight tickets. Although they did recommend Spirit airlines and gave us tips when to go so the tickets were cheaper!
   Once we landed in Cuba, got through security, got our bags and made our way the front doors of the Airport, we met our first taxi driver. He was scheduled to drive us to our first casa particular. We chose casa particulars because in all of my reading and research I found that these Cuban bed and breakfasts were the best way to experience Cuba and its hospitality and it was a bonus that they are cheaper than the Government owned, tourist filled hotels! 

Our first Casa Particular, and our favorite!

The 3 casa particulars we stayed in during our week of adventure were all great! I would use them all again, and we most likely will!  In our itinerary, breakfast was included in our stay at all 3 of our casa particulars and let me tell you one thing... We ate like kings during our prepared breakfasts. Breakfasts varied but were all similar at the casa particulars we stayed in. Fresh fruits such as plantains, grapefruit,  papaya, guava, fresh bread and butter, fresh fruit smoothies, fresh Cuban coffee with fresh milk and sugar, fresh fruit juices, ham and fresh cheese, tortillas (which we found out was not the flat Mexican bread we were use to), Tortillas in Cuba are egg omelets! But sometimes you'd get Cuban pancakes, which was just like our Mexican tortillas except you douse it with fresh honey! We could of paid our casa owner to make us lunch and or dinner but we chose to eat out during those meal times, except for our last night in Havana, we had our favorite casas host fix us dinner. This table filling meal consisted of the traditional Mexican fajita staples, sautéed onions and peppers, chicken, black beans and rice (Cuban staple) the best sliced tomatoes I've ever had and I'm not even a tomato guy! She even attempted to make us Pina coladas with some rum we bought. They were delicious! And for dessert was this oddly sounding but mesmerizingly good dessert of a pickled orange peel in a sugary syrup and fresh cheese. I think I paid 22 CUCS for that meal. which is not bad! Our rooms were always clean and tidy, toilet paper and towels were always provided thankfully, because all the outdated reading I did before hand said otherwise! We had hot water everywhere we went and bottled water was available. There is a lot of material out there that talks about the tap water in Cuba. We never tested it as drinking

Chilling in our Casa!

water but we used it to brush our teeth and of course bathed with it without any issue. We never felt unsafe about our items back in our room if we were out. Everyone was exceptionally nice and trustworthy. But I will go into the items we took and how we protected them in another article. I read an article before hand explaining that Cubans pride themselves on their good name. So they would not do anything to tarnish that! We found that to be true. The few drivers that were apart of our itinerary were all very nice and accommodating. We used a classic American car to tour the town for a little while, the picture we used in the "About us" article is of that car. That driver allowed us to take plenty of pictures and showed us all the neat places along the drive. The icing on the cake was that none of them were bats out of hell! They all drove safely.  We had 2 taxi drivers that were nice and again accommodating. At the end of our trip I changed up the plans and took us in a completely opposite direction. Something that was not apart of our itinerary. We agreed on a price, and actually it came out cheaper once I traded him a container of hair gel! Yes trade is good, I'll get into that later as well. We never had a sketchy driver, never had a bad driver and for that we are thankful. To make a long story longer, we were very pleased with the accommodations Americas Cuba Travel provided. We recommend them to any and everyone wanting to go to Cuba, but are leery of that first step and need a little nudge.          

Michelle and I with our last Casa owner Carlos!

                                        

What you need to get to Cuba!

Since we had never traveled outside of the country, we had no idea where to start when it came to paperwork... A friend of mine had gotten his passport early last year so he directed me to start our journey at our county courthouse, so I found myself asking the deputies where I should go to talk about a passport. They pointed me to the passport office of all places and I picked up the document each one of us needed. They were laying in a stack on a table for the taking. I didn't even have to talk to anyone. Later that night I began to fill out the necessary paperwork, it turned out to be only about a page worth of your parents and your personal information. You have to include a certified copy of your birth certificate and a fee when applying for the passport. So I paid $22 for a certified copy of my birth certificate at the courthouse. They can come up with a copy as long as you were born in the state of Texas. Michelle was born in California so we had to get in touch with her county of birth and have them send us a certified copy of hers. This cost considerably more and took awhile. Since it took so long for hers to come in, we ended up having to expedite our passports. If you need to expedite the process, you have to schedule an appointment at the Federal Courthouse in Dallas. You can do this by calling a number provided on the document we picked up at the courthouse.  Be sure to bring your passport form, the trip confirmation ( we used our itinerary provided by the travel agency), a photocopy of  your ID, a copy of your flights and $195 for each passport to be expedited. Oh and you have to have your reason for going to Cuba ready. The travel restrictions are still in play, but no one ever seemed to take them seriously. It was very lax. The lady behind the glass at the federal courthouse asked us our reason for going and we told her to "help the Cuban people", which was not a lie, we spent money thus helping the Cuban economy. You must find yourself traveling to Cuba for at least one of the 12 reasons which are listed all over the internet. But for your convenience here they are:

1.Family visits

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2. Official business of the U.S. government, foreign governments, and certain intergovernmental organizations

3. Journalistic activity

4. Professional research and professional meetings

5. Educational activities

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6. Religious activities

7. Public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other competitions, and exhibitions

8. Support for the Cuban people

9. Humanitarian projects

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10. Activities of private foundations or research or educational institutes

11. Exportation, importation, or transmission of information or information materials

12. Certain export transactions that may be considered for authorization under existing regulations and guidelines.

When you arrive at the Federal courthouse in Dallas, please... Remember to take out all weapons you may carry. I am a certified peace officer and I have my LTC, but I know no one cares there. So I de-armed myself before we exited our vehicle. As we were nearing the building my hand brushed my pocket knife I had over looked in my pocket! Not wanting to walk all the way back to our vehicle Michelle had a bright idea, There is a little park just about a block east from the courthouse and between the sidewalk and the park is about a 4 foot tall concrete planter. I hid my knife in the planter very casually but not expecting to see it again. Anyway, we made it into the courthouse and started our strip to enter the metal detector. Well... I had completely forgot about the credit care knife I also had in my wallet placed and forgotten there years ago. They found it though and bam! It was like a movie. The world stopped and all attention was on me... They walked me out and told us to get rid of it. So we went back to that park and collected my knife that was still hidden thankfully, and we went back to the vehicle and I unloaded the rest of my weapons.. It was then,  this time we made it through security and found the elevator we needed to take to the passport office. Since we had an appointment we walked in and were lead to the line for folks with appointments which was just a line to cut in front of the people without an appointment. We did not wait before we were called up and we were asked for all the required paperwork. There she organized our papers and verified everything, gave us a number and sat us down. We weren't seated for 5 minutes before our number was called and we walked up to the lady behind the glass and forked over all the paperwork we had. That is when she asked our reasons for going, we filled out a few more lines of info, and paid our bill. She said our passports and the required certified copies of our birth certificates would arrive 1 week from now. And they did! During this same time, the travel agency we used sent us our Cuban visas, our copy of the itinerary and other papers. The same time, our check to pay for the itinerary and services landed at the agency. It was all falling into place! And it was feeling more real than ever!


 

How we got to Cuba

We wanted to start out by talking about means of travel. Usually when we camp with my parents, we are riding with them in our diesel pulling our travel trailer. We scope out state parks or nice camp grounds before hand. Some times we reserve a cabin or beach house, in that case its a Hall family convoy since we all can't fit in one vehicle. When we traveled back in time to Cuba in March 2017, we chose to fly "Bare Fare" through Spirit Airlines. We were both surprised at the huge financial difference between spirit and the bigger name brand airlines! We both could fly to and from Cuba cheaper with spirit, rather than 1 of our tickets to and from with a bigger airline. I'll be honest, Michelle was skeptical from some talk she heard at her work. And after seeing the major price difference, I envisioned flying in some cargo plane holding a chicken, sitting on some crates and staring at some old man farmer across the way. BUT, we were pleasantly surprised that it was far from that! Spirit airlines is the newest name in flying, and as a friend of mine who works there told me, their biggest fans are college age and young adults. She said it was because we read instructions! Spirit much like Cuba can be cheap, or it can catch up with you and be expensive or cost as much as the next airline. The key is traveling light and preparing everything before hand. This means, only packing essentials and checking in online before you arrive at the airport. When scheduling your flight, be sure to add your bags before hand. If you wait until the day of, it will cost more. 1 "personal item" is included in your ticket purchase. Their definition of a personal item is "something like a laptop bag or purse smaller than 18"x14"x8". Michelle took a backpack under those dimensions and we filled it with snacks and our selfie stick, her purse, our money,  phone chargers and all our important documents such as passports and our identification. I actually carried our only checked bag. It was a huge bag but under their size limits, so we didn't have to pay. But, since both of our belongings for 1 week abroad were in this bag it surpassed their listed weight limit of 31 lbs. Anything over that weight would start to cost you. I am not sure if it was luck or what, but for some reason we never had to pay the over weight fees for our bag on any of the 4 flights we had to take. Hopefully you are as lucky but prepare/pack for the worst. Bring snacks, or expect to pay for them on the flight. Our first flight was from DFW to Ft. Lauderdale Florida, because there were no direct flights to Cuba from Texas (yet). The airlines will tell you upfront, you are flying bare fare, and they are able to offer bare fare because they fill the plane with seats thus leg room is whittled down. But I was never uncomfortable. We signed up for the $9 fare club that spirit offers, which gives incentives and special deals. Doing this made our carry on and checked bags cheaper, another thing with Spirit is you pay to pick your seat, being apart of the fare club makes this cheaper.We checked in online and printed or boarding passes 24 hours before our flight which was cheaper than checking in at the gate. Before entering Cuba, you must have health insurance. When we purchased our tickets to Cuba it was included in the price.

Cuban health insurance paper work provided by Spirit Airlines

It was $25 per person and it only lasts 30 days. Just before we landed we were handed the paperwork to fill out. Be sure to have a pen to write with! When you land in Havana the health insurance paperwork is taken from you by someone at the airport. So once you land, you follows signs for immigration and customs where you will find lines.. Lots of lines! We stood in line for maybe 30 minutes, when a group of women from Jamaica tried cutting in front of us in line. Oh heck no! Then they wanted to argue! But we stood our ground and finally made it to the booth where they stamped our passports (super exciting and addictive!) and took our picture to make sure it matched our passport photos. Be sure to have your travel visas filled out before you get to the booth or they will send you back! Our visas were included in our travel package. Then you go through Cuban security which was a breeze, After you are in like flint, you pick up any of your checked bags. We never had any issues with our luggage thankfully! When we were heading for the front doors, we met our driver who would escort us to our first Bed and breakfast. If you do not have transportation through your travel guide, it is no sweat getting a taxi of any sort. From a classic car, a foreign economic car, or even a motorcycle with a side car the choice is always readily available!                

About us

This picture of us was taken in Havana, Cuba at a local park in a 1957 Buick. Pink and white baby!

My name is Ty Hall, and my girlfriends name is Michelle Munoz. We've been together for almost 3 years. Hand in hand we have traveled with my family around our great state of Texas camping and experiencing what the lone star state has to offer.  Most recently we have traveled abroad. I am 22 years old, but I have an old soul, I love anything of old. Antiques, classic cars, the outdated way of doing things. And Michelle? Well, I think she has learned to love these things too. Either way I appreciate her tagging along and entertaining my ideas. December 2016, I completed my peace officer certification and hope to soon serve and protect. In 2015 Michelle completed her CNA (certified nurses assistant) certification and is now a nurses assistant at a local hospital. We met in college, both apart of the same club doing community service projects around town. With this blog we wanted to share our experiences good and bad to help the first time traveler. We hope to provide tips and knowledge to make your experience smooth and enjoyable!         
Our inspiration to bite the big boy bullet and travel abroad came from 2 quotes i found on pinterest. "One day or day one. You decide" which is what we decided to name our URL, and "Life is short. Take the trip. Eat the cake. Smoke the Cigar." This is our first blog, so bear with us. Hope we can help!