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Cuba: Discovering its People and Culture

Overview
Highlights (Bullets)
- Discuss historic preservation with local experts, and meet residents as you explore Old Havana and Trinidad.
- Witness Cuba’s shifting cultural and economic landscape on visits to schools, art studios, and privately owned businesses.
- Soak up rhythms of all sorts—from Afro-Cuban to award-winning a cappella.
- Meet with local dancers and musicians in the colonial city of Cienfuegos.
Short Description
Experience Cuban culture the most authentic way possible— through its people. On this unique and inspiring program, get acquainted with Cubans in diverse settings, from Old Havana to colonial Cienfuegos. Engage the local people directly in discussions about their lives and work, culture and traditions. Meet with Cuban historians, teachers, students, artists, naturalists, and others, and experience this fast-changing island nation through their eyes.
Itinerary
Day 1 : U.S./Havana, Cuba
Depart from Miami on a charter flight. Upon arrival in Havana, enjoy a traditional Cuban lunch. Visit with an Afro-Cuban dance group this afternoon and enjoy an energetic performance before transferring to our hotel. Gather for a welcome reception and dinner tonight.
Hotel Parque Central
Day 2 : Havana
Learn about the restoration and changing landscape of Havana from a local preservation expert. Then set out to explore Old Havana, stopping in at local businesses and meeting the workers. After lunch, explore a community project at Muraleando, where local and international artists have been changing a downtrodden neighborhood into a living work of art. Tonight, attend a special musical performance after dinner.
Day 3 : Havana
Engage in a specially arranged question-and-answer session with Cuban professionals, discussing education, economics, the role of government, and other topics of interest. Later, meet the instructors and students of La Colmenita, an after-school program that uses song and dance performance as a social development tool.
Day 4 : Cienfuegos
Leave Havana and head to Cienfuegos, a port city with architecture that reflects its French colonial roots. Enjoy an orientation tour of the city and meet local residents in Parque Martí. See the statue commemorating José Martí, a renowned author and a leader in Cuba’s quest for independence from Spain. Engage local cuentapropistas (self-employed), who are part of an expanding private sector, on Cienfuegos’ main commercial street. Then visit Benny Moré Art School to meet with teachers and students of music, dance, and art.
Hotel Jagua
Day 5 : Trinidad
Travel to Trinidad, where we explore Cuba’s best-preserved colonial city with a restoration expert and interact with local community members, including a Santería priest. Then meet Julio Muñoz, a local photographer and “horse whisperer” whose wife and niece appeared in an October 1999 National Geographic magazine article, and learn about his casa particular (guest house). Visit Julio’s colonial-era house and stables, the base for his program promoting equine care.
Day 6 : Cienfuegos
Near Cienfuegos, visit Cuba’s oldest botanical garden with a botany expert. Stop in a former sugar mill town and interact with the town’s present day inhabitants. Later, enjoy a choral performance and discussion with a world renowned a cappella group, the Choir of Cienfuegos. After dinner, there will be an opportunity to meet with local residents in Cienfuegos.
Day 7 : Bay of Pigs/Havana
Today, head to the historic Bay of Pigs. Set foot on the famous Playa Girón, one of the two landing sites for the 1961 U.S.–backed invasion. Visit Australia, a former sugar mill town and Fidel Castro’s headquarters during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Here, meet with former mill workers and join locomotive engineers aboard an old steam train ride through the sugarcane fields.
Hotel Parque Central
Day 8 : Havana/Jaimanitas
This morning, travel to the charming fishing village of Jaimanitas to visit the workshop and home of ceramic artist José Fuster, called the “Picasso of Cuba.” Then attend a question-and-answer session with American author and Havana resident, Marc Frank. Meet with Marc and a Cuban journalist to discuss their perspectives on Cuba’s past, present, and future. Celebrate our Cuban experience together at a farewell dinner tonight.
Day 9 : Havana/U.S.
After breakfast, visit an organopónico (urban organic farm) to learn about the growing agrarian movement and Cuban cuisine. Later, transfer to the airport for your flight back to Miami.
Availability
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30 National Geographic Expeditions Travel Reviews & Ratings
Cuba: Discovering its People and Culture
Company Reviews
Inconsistent information, No Refund
How to Ruin a Trip to Norway
TOO MUCH TOO FAST
We arrived in Luxor, were taken to the hotel, deposited our luggage (the room wasn’t ready), had breakfast, and then met our tour guide at 10:00 AM for our first tour. We were exhausted, but mustered our energy for the occasion.
Is there a good reason why Cairo wasn’t the first city on our tour? In retrospect, it should have been for many reasons, not the least of which was the logistics described above.
All right, so now we’re in Luxor, and by afternoon we’re ensconced in a luxurious hotel with a magnificent view of the Nile River. There’s a swimming pool that we’re looking forward to relaxing by the next day during some much needed down time during the free time described in the itinerary; exactly what we expected from National Geographic. But instead, that evening we were told by our guide that we needed to have our luggage ready to check out of the hotel the next morning to relocate to the Nile River ship Minerva (coincidentally, owned by the same company as the hotel). We obliged, and in the morning we were taken on a tour with the luggage in the car, and then brought to the ship in the early afternoon. Our four suitcases were put in a room that was barely large enough to contain the bed, but the view of the river from our room was good enough to overlook this inconvenience, at least for the moment. I looked forward to resting in our cabin in the afternoon because I was exhausted. In fact, I was so tired that I have little recollection of that morning’s tour until I look at the photos to affirm that I was actually where the itinerary said I would be.
We went to lunch in the ship’s dining room and returned to our cabin to find that our view of the Nile was obliterated by a ship that had tied up alongside our own. This is now our view (see photo) and the blackout drapes that were drawn to hide it made the small cabin a crowded, dark dungeon.
Furthermore, that ship’s bunker oil fumes were now in the air conditioning system of our ship and flowing freely into our cabin making me nauseous and giving me a headache. I complained but there was nothing to do about it.
And if this wasn’t bad enough, the sound of the neighboring ship that accompanied the smell was intolerable.
Other issues I had with our cabin on the ship included;
- The bypass closet door wouldn’t stay shut
- There was a leak under the bathroom sink
- The carpet in the area near the bathroom was wet
- The toilet seat lid came off repeatedly
- Wifi on board the ship was only in the main lobby area, and was poor at best
I talked to the ship’s desk clerk, and he assured me that things would be taken care of shortly. They never were.
This doesn’t take into consideration that the buffet style food served on board was repetitive if you didn’t take the offered main course, which was usually meat (I don’t eat meat).
Oh, and I didn’t yet mention that our ship wouldn’t be leaving its mooring until the next day! We had traded a luxurious hotel for this!
With that said, it begs the question of why we were taken out of a luxurious hotel 24 hours in advance of the ship sailing away from Luxor? No pool to sit by, no view of the sunset over the banks of the Nile, no quiet room in which to sleep, and no dinner of delicious food. Certainly not what we expected from a Nat Geo Private Tour for which we had paid a premium price!
Unrelated to these issues, NatGeo’s survey asked if we felt that our health was well-protected. “No” is the short answer. A fuller reply is that we both got Covid on this trip; my husband first, then inevitably, myself three days later. We had avoided catching it for more than 2.6 years, and now we had it. I realize that one takes risks when going out in the world, and I certainly don’t blame NatGeo for our getting sick. But their people weren’t wearing masks until I asked them to, mostly to protect themselves from us. One agent who met us at the airport when we arrived back in Cairo from Aswan, now openly sick with Covid, disappeared for 10 minutes to purchase a mask when I told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to wear one around us.
Overall, NatGeo profited from our illness as we were too unwell to utilize the dining allowance at the Cairo Ritz Carlton or to go to out for most meals offered with our guide. The one restaurant I was taken to for dinner without my husband was a touristy place with fake grapes leaves hanging from fake arbors. When a 35 person tour group trouped in past us it told me all I needed to know. My bowl of pasta with a tomato sauce not much thicker than tomato juice certainly couldn’t have cost more than $10, if that much. Then, the next day I was too sick to go out at all, my husband, who was feeling better by then, went out alone with the tour guide for the day, but it’s my understanding that they skipped all meals.
All in all, there were many aspects of the trip that were memorable for all the right reasons, but also memorable for the above mentioned wrong reasons. For us to have paid as much as we did begs the question, “Was it worth the expense for this private tour experience?” As seasoned world travelers, I’m hard pressed to reply in the affirmative.
Best Part of Trip was Cancelled
Cancel my trip but no refund
DO NOT BOOK WITH NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - LOST MY TRIP MONEY
They have not refunded any portion of my money. They said the airfare was non-refundable and that I couldn't even have a flight credit. But they are the ones that canceled the trip. However Delta told me that a refund check was sent to the agency. Then they said they would refund the other portion of the trip expense, but it may take 6 months. It is completely unacceptable. The entire 100% of the trip should be refunded and should have been refunded the day they canceled the trip.
The business is not responsive to this. I filed a complaint with the BBB and they did not respond. I sent a 30 day demand letter in preparation of filing in court against them. So far no resolution.
I expect a 100% refund AND I share this story to strongly advise against anyone ever booking a national geographic trip of any kind.
I will be posting this review online in every spot I can find.
Details
Flight & Transport Inclusions
All internal ground transport
Group Size
Standard Group - 25 + people
Maximum Number of People in Group: 25
Trip ID#:
cubdisnat
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