Cuba firms as a top new tourist hot-spot

Carnival Cruise Line will add Havana to select Carnival Paradise voyages from Tampa beginning in June.

The overnight visits to Havana will feature on 12 four-day and five-day cruises. They will include a daytime and overnight visit as well as a stop in either Cozumel, Mexico, or Key West, Florida.

In Havana, travellers can choose from shore excursions offering an authentic Cuban experience of music, art, history and culture.

On board, guest lecturers will deliver compelling presentations about Cuba’s past, present and future.

OCEANIA will have extra journeys to Cuba in November and December.

Ranging from six to 13 days with departures from Miami, the voyages include the line's first calls to Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba, as well as Havana.

Known for its fine cuisine, Oceania will serve authentic Cuban dishes based on generations-old family recipes while experts will deliver lectures on Cuban history, art, and music.

Passengers will alight at Cienfuegosin the heart of Cuba’s fertile agricultural region, and Santiago de Cuba, the country’s second-largest city, which has played an instrumental role in the evolution of Cuban music, literature and architecture.

ROYAL Caribbean’s Empress of the Seas has new sailings to Havana through to November 4.

The company has expanded its Caribbean itineraries sailing from Tampa to include new four-night and five-night cruises with day and overnight visits to Havana along with stops in Key West and Cozumel.

Shore excursions include a tour around Havana in a 1950s classic American car and a walking tour to the city’s most famous locales, including the old quarter and the Havana Club Museum, a renowned rum producer housed in an 18th century colonial mansion. There is also an excursion to novelist Ernest Hemingway’s favourite haunts, including where he lived, fished, dined and sipped his favourite cocktails.

In the evenings, passengers can visit the famous Tropicana Club to see the Buena Vista Social Club or witness the ceremonial cannon firing at El Canonazo.

Onboard there will be cortaditos and cafe con leche in Cafe Royal and salsa music and dancing in the Boleros Latin Lounge.

LAST but not least you can see the delights of Cuba on The Senior's exclusive readers’ tour to New Orleans and Cuba in October.

The fully escorted tour, in association with Travelrite, also takes you to Cuba’s Isla de la Juventud, Trinidad and Varadero.

Quirky Isla de la Juventud is very different to the rest of Cuba. A refuge from the law, it was once a haven for pirates and gangsters. It has also been heavily influenced by the Americas and has no ties to sugar or tobacco production, unlike the rest of the country.

Trinidad is a perfectly preserved Spanish colonial settlement. It’s also the base of the Valley of the Sugar Mills, an area once known as the world’s largest producer of sugar.

The tour includes a seven-night cruise aboard MSC Opera, travelling to Honduras’ Isla de Roatan, Mexico’s Coata Maya and Belize City in Belize as well as Cuba. It is priced from $9690 per person, twin share, including airfares.