Strawberry Tours - Historical Centre Tours or Food Tour?

[Bridetobe88]

We are definitely going to do one of the free Strawberry walking tours in Havana and are torn between the Historical Centre Tour or the Food Tour. Is there anyone who has done both and which would you recommend? 

[HOSKI]

Let us know when you get back.  We have booked the food tour with them for May.

 

[Bridetobe88]

On 3/16/2019 at 11:17 AM, HOSKI said:

Let us know when you get back.  We have booked the food tour with them for May.

 

 

You'll actually be going before me, so let me know how it is!

[travelingtink]

I booked the food tour for mid April, as well as the night bar tour. 

I'll try to remember to post when i get back. 

[Dboots]

I am going on the nightlife tour week of April 8th, i will also try and remember to report back.

[Priszm]

If anyone has done one of these, how much actual walking is being done? 

[travelingtink]

On 3/20/2019 at 3:43 PM, Dboots said:

I am going on the nightlife tour week of April 8th, i will also try and remember to report back.

 

Thats the same week I'm going!

[Dboots]

I am going on the nightlife tour week of April 8th, i will also try and remember to report back.

[Dboots]

Cool....getting excited...Are u going on the nightlife tour on Thursday nite?

[travelingtink]

Just back and quite enjoyed the food tour. 

We started the morning with a stop for coffee. There were so many choices, hot, cold, with milk, with rum, with chocolate. All options were $3-4 CUC. 

Next up was street corn (this was a last minute choice because the pizza place wasn't ready yet). For $1 CUC I got a corn on the cob topped with butter, mayonnaise, salt, avocado sauce and hot sauce. Very similar to Mexican street corn, minus the cheese. 

Pizza shop was open now and our guide purchase one pizza for us and had it cut in to pieces. It was a basic cheese pizza on a fluffy dough with very little tomato sauce (we were told it was about half tomato half water and used very sparingly) and a white cheese. The guide warned us it would not taste like regular pizza but not in a bad way. I enjoyed it but have seen other posts saying they did not. It tasted more like cheese bread than pizza, but still tasty. 

Next was gelato, but again we were warned, it was not truly Italian gelato. There were about 20 flavors to choose from, and you could have free tastes before deciding. A single scoop was $2 CUC. 

Last stop was a restaurant for lunch. Pricing ranged from about $8 - $20 CUC. I choose lobster and shrimp skewers for $12 CUC. I was just going to have lobster which was $15 CUC but the waitress recommended the skewers instead. It came with mixed vegetables (I detected zucchini, carrots, white potato or maybe yucca, and sweet potato). We were also given bowls of white and brown rice for the table to share. 

 

Our guide was more than willing to answer any questions we had, but didn't focus too much on history, just more on the local life. We even stopped at an old mansion that had been converted to apartments so we could see what the living conditions were. I very much enjoyed this tour. 

[HOSKI]

travelingtink

Thank you so much for the review.  I cannot wait to go.  May I ask what you suggest to tip the guide? That pizza sounds like something the kids and I will enjoy as we aren't much for sauce. 

[travelingtink]

1 hour ago, HOSKI said:

travelingtink

Thank you so much for the review.  I cannot wait to go.  May I ask what you suggest to tip the guide? That pizza sounds like something the kids and I will enjoy as we aren't much for sauce. 

 

I gave the guide $20 CUC. I had seen suggestions of generally $10-25 per person while some suggested tipping the cost of a similar paid tour. I didn't feel the need to tip that much. 

Havana was the highlight of my cruise and I can't wait to go back.