Captivating Cuba Reviews 252

Recently back from a brilliant and active holiday in Cuba and delighted that the weather was on our side ! Having been to Havana before it was great to return and enjoy a city that has only changed slightly since we were there last , which was before the scourge of Covid ! Taking up the offer of pre booking some amazing restaurants with Gemma at Captivating Cuba was well worth it as we really enjoyed the three restaurants we booked . The Asian one I think was called Hama and it was absolutely amazing and a real shock for us that the Cubans can cook Asian so well !

One big focus on our holiday was cycling and the biking in Las Terrazas was fantastic with some great scenery and a few challenging and potholed inclines on the back roads and in hindsight we would have liked to have an extra day to do some more cycling outside of the immediate area (ie cycle to Soroa or the coast), but it was still worth doing as it's a beautiful area.
We had two excellent day trips in Vinales, going west towards Pinar del Rio and visiting the Caves at Santo Tomas one day and then a lovely circular route through the Valley of Silence and the Ancon Valley the next, both around 26-30 miles. They were also great here for getting to the hotels where we could spend post-cycling recovery in the pools!
Juan Carlos came up with the inspired idea in Trinidad of putting the bikes on the valley train and cycling the return journey, and managed to squeeze us and them into a carriage which had an estimated double the capacity in day trippers already booked into it! It was a very good outing all round.
Although we had no specific guides for the cycling we found all the local tour guides on our other sightseeing trips very helpful with advice on where to go, terrain and directions.
Thanks so much to the team at Captivating for helping us get cycling in Cuba !!

Chris and Marie

I had an amazing experience whilst in Cuba, exploring everything that the country had to offer. The trip covered a wide range of areas including foreign affairs and health systems, alongside enjoying time to relax and enjoy the sightseeing and beach. I would definitely consider doing this trip again.

Thanks to their arrangements we enjoyed a fascinating trip - very good tour guides on site, good venues for the meals. While travelling on my own the second week of my stay, I also appreciated that a representative of Captivating Cuba came at my accommodation to confirm the tour the next day. In the end all transfers were perfect, good quality cars, nice drivers. Captivating Cuba also provided quality advice before the trip. I would not have expected more from a travel agency. I would definitely recommend this agency to anyone travelling to Cuba.

Organisation was fantastic. Service on the ground terrific. Value for money spot on!

The trip was amazing and Captivating Cuba made the whole organisational and logistical side of things so easy! All I had to do was pay and they took care of the rest!

Would highly recommend!

A truly incredible trip. I found Cuba to be a really special place, full of character and charm. I am grateful to captivating cuba for their role in delivering such an unforgettable experience.

Captivating Cuba ensured my trip to Cuba was smooth from start to finish. If it had not been for their expertise, planning and organisation, I am sure my trip would have been a lot more stressful and I would not have got as much out of it as I did! The driver my group had, Jonnie, who was sourced by Captivating Cuba, was wonderful. He was never late, always got us to the various places we visited around the island on time and was a very joyful, funny guy! I certainly would not have wanted to drive around Cuba myself as its very busy and chaotic so a major thanks to his fantastic driving! I would also like to mention that Captivating Cuba was very flexible and altered our itinerary for us when we were out in Cuba. The alteration we made was a trip to the beach and a beautiful beach it was! Our whole group loved this beach day so many thanks for changing the itinerary for us at such short notice.

I would highly recommend Captivating Cuba to anyone thinking of a trip to Cuba. It is a wonderful, unique and special country that this company has an immense amount of experience on. Everyone would benefit from booking their trip to Cuba via Captivating Cuba to get the most of it and see all the sights. Their organisation and planning of this trip made it all the more special for my group. We all learnt so much and are very sad to be home because we had such an amazing time.

Thank you Captivating Cuba. A great experience booking through you. Simple, responsive, adaptable, attention to detail, quick and informative response to queries. All my additional mobility needs were met without any fuss.
Everything went smoothly to help give us an amazing family holiday experience. We explored Cuba, all transfers were on time and brilliant days with lovely local guides. We saw and experienced loads and then relaxed a bit at the end too. What a fabulous experience. Our thanks to everyone involved.

Very disappointed! Bad business practice!!! We booked a Special Cuban Dance Holiday with 2 friends of mine for Easter 2020 which obviously got cancelled due to Covid. Now, this is not their fault but to keep our money until today without any recompensation certainly is. Nobody even bothers to answer to our emails nor phone calls any more. Matthew O’Sullivan, Vanessa Hirons: This is not how you treat customers.

A professional, competent and experienced company - just the sort of partner you need to help plan and execute a memorable and fascinating holiday. Five destinations in a variety of Casas and hotels, numerous excursions and a plethora of experiences - all executed on time, with highly knowledgeable and interesting guides and bags of good humour. The one glitch that arose was addressed immediately by our guide and followed up by the representative in Havana; that's the measure of excellent customer service. Cuba as a whole was truly captivating, but places of particular note were Casa JM432 in Trinidad, the evening gun ceremony in Havana, swimming off the dock at Casa Camilla in Cienfeugos, Vinales Valley, flamingos on the Guanaroca lagoon, the Che Guevara Museum and our few days at the Royalton Hicacos at Varadero. Thank you Nikki and the team at Captivating Cuba for making a special birthday wonderful.

A superb holiday experience, guided by the expert advice from Nikki & the Captivating Cuba team here & in Cuba. The Iberostar Park Central Hotel in Havanna was perfect & the Rialton Diamond Club Team went out of their way to make us welcome & look after us during our stay at the beautiful Rialton in Valedero. Culture, cocktails, good food & great weather. Well worth a visit especially if you use Captivating Cuba, we felt very well looked after throughout the trip.

Plenty of contact when needed. All connections and travel as expected. Some further info on currency and payment could be useful. Would use this company again.

Captivating Cuba were great from start to finish. Quoting for our trip of a lifetime to Cuba, making changes were requested and all within our budget (which no one else seemed able to do). We spent 4 nights in Havana, 2 in Trinidad and 7 in Varadero. All the places we stayed in were lovely, transfers they arranged were good and all the guides were very nice. Their reps in Cuba were very helpful, knowledgeable and friendly. My contact in London was Nikki and she was amazing, even responding to emails on her day off when we missed our connection in Madrid on the way there. She called me to check what was happening and rearranged our airport pick up for the next day. We asked to change our itinerary (at our request) because of the delay and, even though I emailed her on Sunday and said I did not expect her to action it until Monday she did and rearranged everything for us. I cannot recommend Capitivating Cuba enough and will definitely use them again is we get the chance to go to Cuba again.

Team here are very helpful, on the whole. Sales process person hands you over to a trip co-ordinator who is helpful and responsive, very quickly into the process.

In country team, guides and properties are very good.

Only one negative is their guidance on things like travel, use of mobiles and money in country is out of date/irrelevant, so do your own research. Lots of good advice on internet forums and US and EU govt websites.

Cubacell offer tourist 4G SIMs, which hugely improve your travel experience (never mentioned by CC to us). If you’re travelling around much, local currency cash is essential and quite hard to get in country (few atms but they do work when not empty). EUR are useful in the tourist areas, but we found most locals in smaller enterprises and towns weren’t that interested in receiving them.

If you do take / use foreign currency, do have some CUP (50:50 split perhaps) and go for USD as the local exchange rate is €1 = $1 = £1 …… which clearly favours taking USD

Casa’s are way nicer than hotels generally, private vs state and in most cases cleaner, better maintained and better run.

We enjoyed our trip, liked (mostly) the Captivating Cuba experience and their excursions, found them helpful and their in country team excellent.

Expect the unexpected in Cuba and go with it …..

We had an absolutely breathtaking time in Cuba. Captivating Cuba organised all the accomodation, transfers & trips for us and they were all first class. A couple of things went wrong, but the staff on the ground were very quick to put things right. Cuba is a fantastic place to visit, but it is very different to anywhere we have been before. I'm not sure that we could have managed the trip without Captivating Cuba's help, and we certainly wouldn't have seen as much.

Great knowledge, great recommendations. We had an amazing holiday thanks to Captivating Cuba. They were flexible, extremely helpful, quick to respond. I would recommend using them if you are thinking of booking a trip to wonderful Cuba.

Our first visit to Cuba but hopefully not our last. This was one of the most interesting countries we’ve visited, Cubans are just lovely people. Both our guides in Havana were very knowledgeable - we did did the Ultimate Havana and Hemmingway tours. It was a pleasure spending time with Anya and Liberty, they told us so much about the history, the Hemingway links and about every day life in Havana (such a beautiful city!) Without exception, the Captivating Cuba team were fantastic. We thoroughly enjoyed the various sightseeing transfers, learning so much yet it didn’t ever feel we were being lectured or that they were just following a script. Genuinely felt like we were travelling with friends, the guides were happy to answer all our questions. We were fortunate to have Loki on two of the transfers, his knowledge is just amazing! We were really sad to say goodbye in Varadero - we thoroughly enjoyed his company. The accommodation throughout was much better than we expected, all extremely clean and hosts were friendly and helpful. The organisation of our trip was fantastic, Havana, Vinales, Cienfuegos, Trinidad to Varadero. In a country where transport (or lack of) is a major problem, every single transfer, trip and guide was there waiting for us. Captivating Cuba are obviously so professional, they have just the best guides and a format that really works. Truly, a most memorable holiday.

Knowledgeable guides, good organisation from the outset. Very patient with any changes we wished to make prior to travel.

The transport on one of our transfers was not good but the company made sure this was noted and all subsequent travel was far better.

The food at our final hotel was dreadful, inedible at times and the all inclusive experience was not what we were expecting. This was not a reflection of Captivating Cuba but the hotel itself. The customer service at the all inclusive resort was faultless.

Captivating Cuba were great at planning our holiday and creating all the connections between the places we wanted to visit.

It was however a shame that they allowed us to book Cayo Levisa when the pier to get to the island was still damaged from a hurricane from 4/5 months ago. We weren't told it was a risk until 2-3 weeks before we travelled when it still hadn't opened back up and we had to replan 2 nights elsewhere. They recommended 2 more nights in Vinales and have a driver take us to Cayo Jutias both days however it was a 1.5 hour journey as there's no hotels there, so 6 hours travelling in total across both days and compared to an all inclusive private beach island in Cayo Levisa, it didn't feel too appealing. We did visit Cayo Jutias on 1 day, it is a beautiful beach paradise but the roads are very bad and with the long journey there and back I wouldn't recommend anyone do this 2 days in a row. They also quoted us £80pp for the journey per day which we declined and arranged ourselves for £80 in total.

After we arrived in Cuba we realised they could've been better at recommending hotels, perhaps providing a little more information. You really need to do your own research on locations and hotel facilities if you don't want to be let down on arrival. The casa's they recommended in both Vinales and Trinidad were amazing though.

They didn't push any excursions on us which was nice but we enquired on a few. After arriving in Cuba and going on the free walking tours, it's evident that the excursions we reviewed and considered are real tourist traps. The locals didn't recommend them, especially the Buena Vista Social Club, avoid at all costs, you can find better experiences in Cuba! There's also no need to pre-book restaurants, there's lots of availability at the moment and we found the descriptions from Captivating Cuba are now quite outdated following the pandemic.

Overall, great for booking locations, car's and hotels however don't rely on them for local knowledge. We'd highly recommend going on the free walking tours and take a guide's recommendation on live music, restaurants and experiences for a more authentic experience of Cuba.

Captivating Cuba were extremely helpful and efficient in making our booking to Cuba. As regular travellers to the island we wanted up to date advice on the current economic situation coming out of lockdown. The company provided an adviser who was very au fait with the situation there, helping us prepare effectively. All paperwork arrived on time accompanied by comprehensive notes. Agents also gave last minute help negotiating increase in weight limit with TUI, and supplied knowledgeable Cuban travel agents based in Havana. We will use them again.