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Does anyone happen to know if His Orangeness actually changed anything with Obama's Cuba rapprochement? As far as I can tell all the commercial flights from the US are still going as normal. Was his announcement of a policy change, like most of his other announcements, a meaningless twitter post that he immediately forgot about, or is it now not so easy to just buy a plane ticket from Miami to Havana and then hang out for a week in Casas and generally going around? It seems like staying in casas would have previously been fine for the "people to people" meetings, but I can't tell if you're practically supposed to apply for the spending licenses in advance or if it's a technical law that no one gives a poo poo about, like the International Drivers Permit. As far as I can tell, the official US treasury department has not changed at all since Trump's June announcement ( https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/cuba_faqs_new.pdf )
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Aug 13, 2017 20:57
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Well, for anyone interested no nothing has changed yet. Trump's announced change looks like it will be exclusively to shut down the "support for the Cuban people" exchange category ( https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/cuba_faqs_new.pdf ; specific regulation is 31 CFR § 515.574). This is the category which essentially legalizes individually-managed cultural visits to Cuba, i.e. if you stay in casas particulares and go around to cultural events instead of just sitting at the beach on Varadero. So, this is the exception that almost everyone is taking unless they bend the truth (I have a blog so 'journalism') or have family/professional reasons for being there.
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Sep 3, 2017 16:50
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Saladman posted:Well, for anyone interested no nothing has changed yet. Trump's announced change looks like it will be exclusively to shut down the "support for the Cuban people" exchange category ( https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/cuba_faqs_new.pdf ; specific regulation is 31 CFR § 515.574). This is the category which essentially legalizes individually-managed cultural visits to Cuba, i.e. if you stay in casas particulares and go around to cultural events instead of just sitting at the beach on Varadero. So, this is the exception that almost everyone is taking unless they bend the truth (I have a blog so 'journalism') or have family/professional reasons for being there. So I can go just aslong as I go to a cultural event once during my stay?
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Sep 6, 2017 22:05
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Cbear posted:So I can go just aslong as I go to a cultural event once during my stay? Unless your stay is one day, that would probably fall under the "excessive free time" clause. I think you have to go to a cultural event basically every day you're there and you have to document it. Marco Rubio went on Twitter after Trumps june announcement and said that paying for an Airbnb apartment counts as "support for the Cuban people" so it's a pretty broad category though.
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Sep 7, 2017 09:01
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Trump's new Cuba policy came into effect a little over a week ago for US citizens and US residents. It does not greatly change anything for tourists, except that MANY hotels are now not permitted (i.e. you have to go to Casas Particulares / use AirBnB / or be careful of which hotel you stay in). Summary is here: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/cuba_fact_sheet_11082017.pdf And full regs are here: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/cuba_faqs_new.pdf I doubt I'll go back to Cuba any time soon, but I figured I'd post all this in case anyone else was interested. It is quite difficult to find up-to-date Cuba information, especially as a lot of it is utter bullshit, including NYTimes summary ( https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/us/politics/trump-tightens-cuba-embargo-restricting-access-to-hotels-businesses.html ) which is replete with falsehoods and half-truths. In particular their summary line: "Americans wishing to visit Cuba will once again have to go through authorized tour operators, and guides will have to accompany the groups — making such trips more expensive" is absolutely false, so much so that I can only imagine that they are intentionally lying. For which "category" of visitor you are, the "Education" subsection called "People-to-People" is no longer permitted unless you go with an organized tour group. Individual travelers going to Cuba out of their own personal interest, and not family or mission-based, now should select "Support for the Cuban People" when they check off their airline travel form at the airport (e.g. see https://www.alaskaair.com/~/media/Files/PDF/QT-07-Cuba-Affidavit.pdf for an example). "Support for the Cuban People" is a very broad category, and "staying in a Cuban's AirBnB listing" is explicitly part of "Supporting the Cuban People" (direct from Marco Rubio's twitter account, post Trump announcement). The OFAC report also has a summary of what "Support for the Cuban People" means, and clearly they know that people will be using it: In accordance with the NSPM, OFAC is requiring that each traveler under this travel category ["Support for the Cuban People"] engage in a full-time schedule of activities that result in meaningful interaction with individuals in Cuba. Such activities must also enhance contact with the Cuban people, support civil society in Cuba, or promote the Cuban people's independence from Cuban authorities. Renting a room in a private Cuban residence (casa particular), eating at privately owned Cuban restaurants (paladares), and shopping at privately owned stores run by selfemployed Cubans (cuentapropistas) are examples of authorized activities; however, in order to meet the requirement of a full-time schedule, a traveler must engage in additional authorized Support for the Cuban People activities. The list of "restricted entities" is: https://www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/cuba/cubarestrictedlist/275331.htm and it should be surprisingly easy to avoid falling foul of these laws because "Entities or subentities owned or controlled by another entity or subentity on this list are not treated as restricted unless also specified by name on the list". This seems to mean you can rent a car even though all legal-in-Cuba car rental agencies are owned by the government. Other than Gaviota and the hotels, I don't think anything on this list really affects visitors although it might always get updated and include things like car rental companies. Two brands of rum are banned, but I think this just means you can't buy directly from the company. IANAL and I would not take either of those bottles back in my luggage, though. Apparently no one has been audited by the OFAC in 10 years (apparently fines are published, but I can't find it right now), but even in the off chance that this changes in the new Trump admin, it should be pretty easy to stay on the right side of the law. Maybe this is obvious, but if you just want a beach vacation don't go to Cuba, as there are better, cheaper, and more legal places to go, but if you want to check out Cuba for cultural reasons it seems that you're still good to go under the Trump admin. Saladman fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Nov 17, 2017 |
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Nov 17, 2017 10:25
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Saladman posted:Trump's new Cuba policy came into effect a little over a week ago for US citizens and US residents. It does not greatly change anything for tourists, except that MANY hotels are now not permitted (i.e. you have to go to Casas Particulares / use AirBnB / or be careful of which hotel you stay in). Thanks for this. Been thinking about visiting Cuba since flights are dirt cheap.
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Nov 30, 2017 21:14
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Everything went fine. No questions at all on return for either of us, one flying back to Atlanta and the other JFK, just a "welcome back" despite looking obviously non-Cuban and visiting over Christmas. Cuba was interesting, and a lot more developed and modern than I expected. It was also way cleaner than I expected, minus the cars spewing out clouds of smoke. I guess full employment means they pay like 5000 guys to walk around every city collecting garbage at $1/day. It's not Japan clean, or even the US/Western Europe clean, but it's on par with like Argentina and Chile in terms of random trash scattered about. People were surprisingly open to talk about, and criticize, the government. Apparently they still have to worry about secret police bothering them, but mainly for either being public about their discontent, or for more mundane (but serious) crimes like having two homes, or two cars, or an unlicensed shop/taxi/etc. Commerce sounds like a pain in the rear end there for locals even with the liberalization. Grocery stores sucked even in the richest part of the country (Miramar) and even though you can buy an $11,000 85'' 4K OLED Samsung TV and a Galaxy S8 and whatever else you want, good luck buying spices. Another big surprise was how many American brands were available (coke, pepsi, cheerios, ...) and how many people had American flags prominently displayed on their cars/clothing/etc, even though everyone hates, or at least dislikes, Trump. I didn't really feel nearly so much like I went into a time warp, as there are really a fair number of newer cars around, and WiFi is now pretty ubiquitous (although still somewhat of a hassle). We had 3G too, but it's pretty expensive ($50 for 300 MB). Also I definitely believe that 2% unemployment rate in Cuba, because every store and every place will have like 500 guys working when two or three people could do the same job.
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Jan 2, 2018 13:42
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My buddy is talking about taking a week long trip to Cuba in October. It sounds like a good time, we’ve previously done the gringo trail in Guatemala together with no issues, and he’s done all kinds of sketchy solo trips by himself. I’m curious how a couple of Americans get into Cuba at this juncture, what kind of things to look out for if that’s even possible, are we gonna get hosed by hurricanes, or just generally any information anyone has to offer. I’m excited about the idea, but I don’t know if it’s feasible or wise.
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Feb 10, 2018 10:14
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Real Mean Queen posted:My buddy is talking about taking a week long trip to Cuba in October. It sounds like a good time, we’ve previously done the gringo trail in Guatemala together with no issues, and he’s done all kinds of sketchy solo trips by himself. I’m curious how a couple of Americans get into Cuba at this juncture, what kind of things to look out for if that’s even possible, are we gonna get hosed by hurricanes, or just generally any information anyone has to offer. I’m excited about the idea, but I don’t know if it’s feasible or wise. You can still just buy a ticket and go even after the new Trump rules came out in November, and nothing has come out since. Your airline will require you to fill out a form saying which of the 12 OFAC categories of travel you fit into, and unless you have some specific reason to go (like family, journalism, etc and it sounds like not) then you will have to select "support for the cuban people". When you go back, on the incredibly unlikely chance that you are interviewed, just make sure you never ever say "tourism" when they ask about what you did. The major change from the previous Obama rules was that previously you could select either "education" OR "support for the Cuban people" as your travel category, and Trump eliminated the "education" exemption except for people going on organized tour group trips. But, since there is still a category that easily fits anyone who goes there, this major change is totally irrelevant in practice. Minor changes include that there are specific businesses you can not spend money with, e.g. a bunch of hotels, but honestly how is the OFAC going to know you stayed at those hotels or not? It's not like the Cuban government is going to report your expenditures to the US government. That said hotels in Cuba are almost exclusively overpriced garbage and you shouldn't stay in them, as they're often around -10 times- the price of staying in a casa particular (±$250/night instead of $25/night). You might get hosed by hurricanes but probably not. Anyway Cuba is a massive island so if part of it gets hurricane alley'd, you can just decide to go to a different part of Cuba. We spent more time on the south side of the island because the north-central side got wrecked a couple months before we went.
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Feb 10, 2018 11:06
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Hey Saladman just checking - you're referring to prices in USD right?
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Mar 6, 2018 20:02
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I went to Cuba last year under the person to person thing and it was a blast. I recommend it to everyone.
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Mar 19, 2018 03:50
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Riptor posted:Hey Saladman just checking - you're referring to prices in USD right? Yeah, all prices in USD (edit: 1 CUC, the most common currency a tourist will use, is US$1 so the conversion in prices is easy, although changing USD to CUC carries a 10% penalty, annoyingly, so depending on where you come from and how your bank works it might be better to go with GBP/EUR/CAD). Casas are usually around US$20-US$40/night/room, so with 2pp it's pretty cheap. There are a handful of stand-out casas that are significantly nicer, but really only a handful, like e.g. https://www.cubaccommodation.com/cienfuegos/cienfuegos/apartment-casa-buena-vista-cienfuegos-vacation-rentals https://www.cubaccommodation.com/ and airbnb both work pretty well, with a significant amount of overlap between the two services. Also you can just get there on the spot and wing it, but in my wife's experience you get slightly lower quality places doing that, with the main difference in our relatively limited experience (2 trips of 2 weeks/ea) being the breakfasts vary dramatically in quality. Everywhere has A/C and almost everywhere has a fridge in the room. I found the Lonely Planet forums the best place to find up-to-date and correct info for Cuba. A LOT of articles published online, even by reputable places like NYTimes, are full of wrong information, and also some things change surprisingly fast, like unfortunately the 3G cell network that existed for the past year has now been shut down and there no longer appears to be any easy way to get 3G> Saladman fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Mar 19, 2018 |
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Mar 19, 2018 10:51
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