Coming Home

Sunday morning I’ll fly from Cayo Santa Maria airport to Havana. On Tuesday I’ll catch a flight to Canada. The fact that no flights were available between the time things wrapped up here (today) and the day my visa expires (Tuesday) works out quite nicely as this way I’ll have about two days to see Havana.

The hotel population has increased dramatically in the last 2 weeks, coinciding with the end of hurricane season. This week we got a lot of tourists from Toronto, and the general tone has generally decreased. I’m glad to be leaving, and embarrassed on my countrymen’s behalf. They really are showcasing the worst that Canada has to offer. But then, who would come on a vacation like this anyway? It’s the travel equivalent of a TV dinner.

Hotel complaints:

-       My room was broken into while I was falling asleep last week. I woke up to see a guy 2m from my bed. When I yelled, he ran out through the patio door. Hotel security came within minutes, but the next day no report had been made nor any sort of apology issued.

-       No hot water on 6 days of my 27 day stay.

-       My room was not cleaned twice for no apparent reason.

-       I was forced to change rooms 3 times during my stay. On the second occasion, a Saturday, I eventually said “OK, I’ll take 2 hours of my time on my half day off to change rooms, but when I get to my new room, I expect to find a nice bottle for my troubles.” Their answer: “Why? We’re not mind readers.” This is a 5 star hotel.

-       Hotel front desk staff was generally unhelpful and even rude, and everything takes 4 times as long as it would anywhere else.

-       You have to pay for your room up front, unlike everywhere else in the world. When the money runs out, your room key stops working. If you do laundry, that money comes off your total, so your room is ‘checked out’ before you expect it to be. Stupid, stupid system.

-       Internet access sucked, and after multiple run-ins with the hotel IT staff, I dealt directly with the hotel manager who said “this is not a business hotel, it’s a tourist hotel. We are under no obligation to make things convenient for you.” Again, this is a 5 star hotel (here in Cuba at least, nowhere else I’m sure).

-       I had bugs in two my three rooms. I complained, the cleaning staff sprayed, the bugs would not die. Yuck.

-       The toilet in my third room filled continuously.

-       Hotel staff drive all over the grounds in oversized golf carts, shuttling people around. They drive like maniacs on the narrow paths.

-       I found it too cold in my room so I pasted a note to my air conditioning control asking cleaning staff to please not turn it on. The next day, the note was gone and the AC was on.

-       I tried to find out what it would cost for M to come for a week of my stay. After trying to negotiate with the front desk, it turned out that it would be cheaper for her to book a package trip from Canada with her own room than to stay in my room.

If I had to summarize the problem with Cuba, it’s that there is a complete lack of personal accountability. Thus, no one goes out of their way to be helpful or fix problems. Therefore, the situation only gets worse, or improves very slowly. Also, due to the messed up financial system they have, a hotel waitress earns in one day what an engineer at the power station earns in one month. No exaggeration. That figure, by the way, is about $60CAN.

Waitresses, cleaning staff, groundskeepers, etc. were all friendly and helpful. The workers at the plant were some of the most enthusiastic and eager operators I’ve ever worked with anywhere. They really want to learn everything they can about new projects, something which is very rare among North American operators I’ve worked with.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing a bit of Havana and then coming home.