The all day catamaran trip which includes swimming with dolphins is a good trip. Also the drive yourself speedboats half day trip.
Havana is a must in Cuba but although we have been to Cuba twice we haven't done that trip as we have always been too far away and as flights are involved the excursions were expensive.
Santiago is Cuba's second city and is at the Eastern end of the Island and is suposed to be well worth a visit ifyouare interested in architecture.music and the revoloution.

Cuba is a very big island and Holguin is some distance to the east of Havana. I doubt that it's feasible to think of doing it in a day unless you fly - around 45 mins flight time but that's why it's so expensive. If you are interested in the colonial expereience then as suggested, Santiago could be a good substitute which is much closer but it's still a something like a 2hr drive away becasue Holguin is on the north coast and Santiago on the south coast.

Whichever way you go you'll find that it will cost you the same regardless of whether you book via your TO or book direct. The 2 state agencies- Havantur and Cubanacan - have the monopoly and the TOs simply act as booking agents. Unless your Spanish is up to scratch it's probably not a good idea to think about doing it independently. There are regular coach services between the cities but the bus stations aren't always easy to find - they're rarely in the centre - and journeys by road can take forever. the roads are simply in too poor condition to drive fast on them.

If you want to visit Havana whilst on holiday in Holguin then taking the TO excursion is probably your best bet. You will barely scratch the surface in 2 days anyway. I spent a whole week there on my first visit and still didn't manage to see and do everything I wanted.

SM

Hi we flew from houlguin to havana it is a 2 hour flight but well worth it we did the day excursion and loved it, found out from people who did 2 days they did not do as much sightseeing as us but saw the tropicana show.

I'm really surprised to hear that it's a 2 hour flight from Holguin to Havana (it's just over the hour from Santiago - guess it depends on what sort of a plane they use) but it proves just how big the island is. A big plus of a 2 day trip is that Havana Vieja at night has an atmosphere all of its own. It's a wonderful place to walk around of an evening, having a drink here and listening to a band there :-) A day trip wouldn't give you the same chance to do that.

SM

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Now a self drive speedboat sounds like my kind of day out!!

Can anyone give me the information on this? Is it a tour operator excursion that I can book? Or is it a direct jobbie?

I was aware of the swimming with dolphins but are you saying the Catamaran one allows you to swim with wild ones?!

any price Guides welcome

Thanks again guys

I don't have direct experience of either the catamaran excursion or the self drive speedboats so this is a more general answer with regard to your questions and especially about whether the latter is booked through your TO or a 'direct jobbie'. The thing to remember in Cuba is that in the end, regardless of whatever it superficially looks like, as a tourist you are always dealing with a state bureaucracy and there is little scope for private enterprise, mainly because the locals don't have access to the finance that would enable them to purchase speedboats for renting out.

What privately run ventures as there are, are very small such as the 'casa particulares' system which enables people to let out rooms to tourists and the 'paladares' which are small restaurants run in people's front rooms. Both are still highly state regulated and controlled. Such ventures are, in Cuban terms heavily 'taxed' in the form of a monthly registration fee that must be paid to the state registration agency regardless of whether a room has been let or how many meals sold. And you can't open up your casa or paladares without being registered But most people are happy to pay it because the potential income can exceed the monthly salary paid to docters.

And one of the important things to remember is that if you buy into or from anything other than the state regulated ventures then you're dealing with a black market and not a free market. If anything goes wrong then you'll not only have no comeback but everybody involved will deny everything because the penalties are potentially large if they've been engaged in unregulated activity. Even within the the state regulated systems you cannot rely on the sort of health and safety standards that apply here being even remotely applicable. If staying an casa particulare, it's best not to dwell too long on the state of the electrics powering the shower pump!

This also applies to ventures such as the dolphins, I can well imagine that it might enable you to swim with wild dolphins but the question is whether you should. Standards at Cuban wildlife and sealife attractions are not the same as you'll find in Europe and the US and some of the wildlife charities would like to see tourists boycotting some of them. You'll find details elsewhere on the forum. Swimming with wild dolphins is not allowed in many countries and can result in prosecution on animal cruelty grounds because of the fact that it can cause distress. So do please think carefully about this.

Even all the hotels are state-owned in that, despite the fact that they might be branded with the names of the big European chains, they are really joint ventures and the Government owns a minimum of 51% in all such ventures, in some cases even more. For example, the last time I checked this out, Sol Melia only actually have a 30% stake in the hotels which trade under their name - they operate them as agents for the Government, provided the investment funds which enabled them to be built and get a 30% share in the profits. You might be wondering why they do this and it's because the Cuban hotels are the most profitable in their entire operation. Local labour costs etc are very low and they get a much better return on their investment than in mainland Europe as a result.

SM

Hi the trips I mentioned speedboats and cat/dolphins were booked through the rep I think it was about £120 pp for both trips the cat being the more expensive The swimming with dolphins is in the Dolphinarium, Now I am no expert on dolphinariums but from what I could see this one must be one of the most eco friendly in the world it is located in a lagoon and the dolphins are in large pens as opposed to the concrete tanks you usually see at these sort of places. Swimming with dolphins was never on my to do list but it was for others in our party and was the highlight of their trip you also get a meal at the dolphinarium restaurant which again was one of the best meals of the holiday (chicken not fish ) while out at sea on the cat there is an open bar and thy also anchor up to do snorkeling.
The speedboats are just good fun and quite fast you drive yourself through the mangroves and out into the bay.
We were there in NOV unfortunately the weather wasnot too kind to us there is some further info and links to photos on my website (unfortunately non of the speed boats.)

nick

check out the Playa Pesquero 10 page thread as it covers a lot of the excursions and also gives more insight into the hotel. See the Cuban money sticky as that caught us out at the last minute as the travel cheque sellers were very misleading to us.