Port Facilities in Havana

We disembark a ship in Havana early March and need to arrange a long distance taxi transfer to a hotel. We are wondering what facilities there may, (or may not be) at the port to wait for a prearranged taxi to arrive.

Toilets and somewhere to sit would be useful as we do not want to arrange a transfer too early in case we are not off the ship. I know Fred do not disembark there, but people who have been would have passed through the terminal to go ashore.

If anyone can help, I would be most appreciative.

I've not been to Havana but it's supposed to be one of the best places to visit. I hope someone can help answer your question.

The current cruise on Braemar called there a couple of days ago, so I am hoping someone may see my question after the passengers from that cruise return in a few days time.

Havana is good, we were there for 3 days a couple of years ago (coupled with a beach stay) and are returning for !0 nights, a one week cruise round the Island and 11 nights on a beach (where we will be travelling out from). So one month in all and looking forward to it a lot.

Hi, I wish I had seen this question before last week. I would have paid more attention.

There was some seating, but not a great amount. There was a couple of small "Duty Free" shops, one of them for cigars. A money exhange. One, or maybe two, car rental desks. Ship agents and various other offices. Maybe twenty check-in desks. Plus Customs and Passport and Security (both entering the country and when returning to the ship).

Surely with that number of people there must be toilets! But as I said, I wasn't paying attention.

Is it the Celestyal Crystal you're going on? It was embarking (and presumably also disembarking) on our second day there.

Sounds like a great trip. Colin.

Thanks very much for that, It is greatly appreciated. I was wondering if everything was more or less just set up on the quayside - you never know in Cuba!

Yes, it is the Crystal we are going on, it does a regular one week cruise for a few months, so timings should be much the same each cruise. It seems there were delays getting into most ports late Dec/Jan, mainly because of sea conditions, which should settle by late Feb/March when we are on board. Most passengers this year are from the US on what they call, 'People to people' group tours, which are a sort of cultural experience. Standard tourism is still not legal for them as yet. Those groups and some other passengers embark/disembark in Montego Bay, which I expect to be by far the biggest turn around day. Sounds like the ship's trips go before the disembarkation people in Montego Bay, so it will likely be the same in Havana.

Looking again at the details we have been sent, it seems the ship is not due in port until 9.30am and they expect to get clearance about 11.am when they hope to start disembarkation. They expect everyone to be disembarked by 1.00pm. For embarkation, we are told that starts at 1.00pm (until 11pm). Do you know if those timings seemed to be how things were going when you were there? I realise you will have been off the ship for most of the day, but you may have seen the Crystal docking or returned for lunch. We will be in Havana the Monday before we sail, so should be able to see what happens that week.

We do not even know the ships disembarkation priorities - the ship sounds fairly chaotic and the Cuban authorities seem to take everything at a leisurely pace. People talk about having to have their temperatures taken by the Cubans at every port and that any disembarkation, even when it is just a day long port call, takes quite a while. You have no doubt experienced that.

Hope you had a good cruise, it should have been interesting if it was your first visit to Cuba and the docking location in Havana is excellent, being right in the old town.

Thanks again,

Barbara