Cuba – flight to Havana…. Via Madrid :)

We begin our coverage of the trip to Cuba! As we mentioned earlier, we chose to fly from Madrid, so we were left to buy a flight from Poland to Spain….

Welcome to our coverage of the trip itself to the sunny Caribbean.

A cheap flight to Madrid?

After buying tickets to Cuba, we were left to buy tickets to fly to Madrid. It turned out that it would be best and most convenient for us to fly to Madrid on Norwegian Air, and spend the return to Warsaw aboard Ryanair.

We flew to Madrid the day before to be sure to catch our flight. We wanted to avoid a repeat of the adventure on the flight to the Canaries(thanks Enter Air!), where the delay was more than 6h! In this case, it would mean a lot of trouble for us to get to Cuba. In the other direction, we left ourselves only 4 hours to transfer, but here the delay would not hurt us so much anymore.

Transfer in Madrid

So we flew to Madrid the day before on Norwegian Airlines, buying the option with baggage. By the way, I don’t know why, but we didn’t have much luggage…. Less than 20 kg for two people…. until it’s a shame not to use even half of the limit! :)

For that others made up the limits for us…. :)

The flight to Madrid passed quite comfortably, with quite a bit of legroom to note. Norwegian Air advertises itself as the first European airline to introduce WiFi on board – indeed, the network was there, but there’s no counting on anything being done online. Connection very slow and weak, but what to expect at such an altitude :)

In Madrid, we spent the night near the airport (at least that’s what we thought when we bought the accommodation). It was supposed to be about 20-30 min on foot, but with our backpacks it worked out to almost an hour :) Getting to the airport by public transport was only possible through the center of Madrid, so it would have probably worked out similarly for us. Especially looking at these traffic jams….

We spent the night in a modest room with a shared bathroom. Since all we needed was a shower and a bed to sleep in, we did not complain. It turned out that there was also a kitchen at our disposal, and there is a large shopping center 20 minutes away on foot, so we also had somewhere to eat dinner and make some supplies, plus buy what we forgot ;) We didn’t even think about exploring Madrid :)

The next day immediately after breakfast we packed up and headed for the airport. Packed to the ears… ;)

Our attention was drawn to the huge queues of cabs waiting outside the airport. One wonders how drivers can be profitable to stand in traffic, when not even an inch has moved for 30 minutes!

Air Europa flight to Havana

The flight to Havana was long, very tiring and unfortunately we were disappointed with Air Europa. Ok, this is a low-cost airline, but still, on trans-Atlantic routes, comfort should be a little better. We flew in an old plane with very little legroom.

According to the information on the website (which is nomen nomen) there was supposed to be an entertainment system on board, so based on our experience we expected something similar to Emirates, or at least to Edelweiss Air, the airline we flew to the Dominican Republic. At least we already know what makes Emirates recognized as one of the best airlines ;)

So the flight passed us by listening to music, solving Sudoku and reading newspapers.

The carrier did not lie – there were movies: played on several screens spread throughout the plane (including the Oscar-winning – Birdman)…. ;) This is not what we expected, well, but there is nothing to complain when you pay so little for the flight. The important thing is that there was a hot meal and something to drink :)

And the food even, even. from experience we took the special meal and definitely recommend it. The portion was better, and there was even tofu in the vegetarian version. Drinks during meals free, outside served water and juice, and the rest for a fee.

The flight was delayed by more than an hour (flew a little around), which meant almost 10 hours in the air. So we had a lot of time to… well… to get acquainted with the bureaucracy. It promised to be innocent. Ot fill in the entry receipt….

Hello Kubo! :)

After a rough landing in Cuba, we were greeted by rain, thunderstorms and…. bureaucracy. However, the first thing that struck us upon exiting the plane was the high humidity. Before we crossed the exit of the airport we had a long and slow queue at customs, baggage search, photo at the entrance…. well, you have to stick out your own, and this was just a foretaste of Cuba :)

At the airport, the girl who organized transportation to the casa (private accommodation) was waiting for us. We went for a quick money exchange (EUR for CUC and CUP – which can only be done in Cuba) and drove in an old Cuban car to the apartment. It was already dark, the storm was raging, so we didn’t manage to take pictures of the car, but there will be time for everything :)

We spent the night in the very center of Havana, from where everywhere was close. The entrance to the block itself was, to put it mildly: scary – an old communist block of flats, a smelly elevator, an open roof and horrible transitions between floors. Since the elevator did not stop at every floor, it proved complicated to get to our apartment. Along the way, we had to jump over standing water in the corridor several times. As it turned out later, these were still luxuries…. The apartment itself was very pleasant for such a block :)

Everything was rewarded to us by the owners, who were very friendly and sociable. It was a married couple with two daughters. Although English made it difficult for them, we managed to communicate and arrange breakfast for the next day.

It was a tiring day, jet lag took its toll and we immediately fell asleep….

Here you will find our
all entries about Cuba >>>