Francesca R.
The room situation was the last straw. On our fourth day, as we were leaving for the beach, the owner told us to leave because a large group was arriving and our room had been double booked. He insisted we had reserved only three nights. We showed him our messages, and he said, “Oh, probably I got it wrong,” with no apology. We were still hurried out. His wife eventually apologized and offered to help find somewhere else. Fortunately, Trinidad has lots of casas particulares, and we found a lovely place with kind people just down the road within minutes. Cuba can be tough, and this was one example. You can get scammed, but you can also find wonderful places and people. Take it or leave it. Before that, we’d booked four nights directly after finding the place through our casa particular in Habana. The room looked decent at first, but it was on the ground floor, with windows facing the corridor. From around 06:30, guests and owners often walked by and stood outside talking loudly, so there was no need for an alarm. They advertised air conditioning and a generator. The generator didn’t run all the time, and when it did, it only powered a small light and fan. We couldn’t even charge a phone in the room. The AC worked only a few hours a day when electricity was available, and Trinidad has frequent power cuts. The prices also got ridiculous. A bottle of water cost 2 euros. Some prices were posted, but when we asked about an item marked 250, which we assumed meant pesos, they suddenly said 2.5 euros, about 900 pesos. We laughed. They also said they had internet, but it wasn’t really offered as a service, more like a favor. We had to ask every time, and access would last anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours before we had to ask again. Most of the time it didn’t work because of the power cuts. We could use it only 1-2 hours a day during our stay.
