Exploratory Trip to Cuba, Feb. 18-25, 2024

Note: this was an experiment with a few divers to explore the option of diving in Cuba. The Feb. 2024 excursion was not a club trip.

On Feb. 18, 2024, a few divers from Toronto visited Cuba’s Faro Luna Diving Centre and stayed at the Faro Luna Hotel near Cienfuegos, Cuba. (This was not a Blue North sanctioned trip.)
Here’s our story with “ScubaCuba”.

Getting there: Direct flight 3.5 hr. We landed in “SNU” Santa Clara airport, about 1.5 hr drive to Faro Luna, not the closer airport at Cienfuegos, because our air carrier, Air Transat goes to SNU. We had a smooth flight down, leaving and arriving on time, with all our luggage arriving with us. The Hola Sun rep met us at the airport with a big sign, and stories about Cuba.

Weather: Although we woke up on the first morning to an unusual bit of rain, overcast skies and winds from the south, it all cleared in the early afternoon, and the wind shifted to off-shore, ready for a week of beautiful Caribbean weather with sunshine, sparkling water and dazzling turquoise colour. Faro Luno is associated with the nearby resort Rancho Luna where we were welcomed with stunning sand beaches, lounge chairs on the beach, and free drinks — not bad for a rainy day turned sunny and an enjoyable walk on the beach, exploring the area.

Temperature: We happened to arrive on a week that was a bit unusual, a little cooler than most weeks (24C), so happy to have my Toronto airport pants and hoodie when needed in the evening. On the last day, it warmed up considerably. I like it warm, but not hot and humid and sweaty, so I thought it was just perfect.

Tourist arrangements and excursions: Norbert and Nosdalys arranged everything for us. The convenience and the care they gave us was very good. They helped us exchange our Canadian money to Cuban pesos. And arranged tours and dinner out at Cienfuegos and Trinidad, the closest towns. Next trip to ScubaCuba, I’d like to see the flamingos and bird sanctuary river boat tour, the national park hike with waterfalls, and the botanical gardens which Nosdalys will arrange for us. There are lots of things to do on your own too: snorkelling, beaching, swimming, drinking at Rancho Luna, 2.5 km hike to the lighthouse, etc.

Food was boring. If you are expecting a vacation with fabulous dining and a varied cuisine, you will be disappointed. They served bread, soup and salads at every lunch and dinner, with fruit for breakfast. The main meal was repetitive and bland, but fresh. Your choice of chicken, fish or veal, and sometimes beef, with rice and a very small amount of vegetable, or have it as a sandwich. We recommend you take your own spices, hot sauce, soy sauce, seafood sauce, etc. Bring snack food for sure, and grenola bars and chocolate bars, etc. One day we had delicious thick black bean soup. Another day a chunky vegetable soup. Mostly plain thin soup with vegetables and noodles. If you are vegan or vegetarian, please contact Norbert and find out from him if the hotel can accommodate you before you commit to going. If you have food sensitivities, etc. you need to understand what will be available to you before you go. We need to be very clear that the only food we got for the main course for lunch and dinner was bland rice with fish, veal or chicken (occasionally beef). Every lunch. Every dinner. Every day. The salad and piece of vegetable are small portions. Anyone with dietary requirements needs to understand that there may be insurmountable limitations at the resort food-wise. Please discuss with Norbert before committing. For people who eat eggs, fish, pork and chicken, it should be no problem.

We met at 8:00 am at breakfast, then off to the dive shop and on to the boat at approximately 8:30-9:00 am. If breakfast was a bit slow, we were all in the same situation, so no one missed out on diving. All the divers sat together at a long dining table outside in the shade, a lovely spot with a gorgeous view. Since there were only three of us from Blue North, it was interesting to meet new divers and hear about other dive experiences.

Drinks: Bottled water and beer were readily available. Not a well-stocked bar. A few days they ran out of wine at dinner. We were given an extra large bottle of bottled water every day in our room, and a supply of bottled water at the dive shop, plus 2 drinks at each meal. And whatever extra you wanted to purchase, if they had it.

Hotel and Rooms: The rooms we had were very large, with a balcony. Mine had a view of the mountains, green landscape, ocean and beach. Rhain and Agnes had a full-on view of the oceanfront and horizon. Basically the room had everything one would need, and the bathroom was fine, hot showers, but the pressure was low. Faro Luna is not a 5 star hotel, but I found it to be lovely and comfortable and more than adequate. There were fridges in every room, air conditioning, and an adorable maid, Tania.

Front desk was always staffed if you needed something. 
Wi-fi: There was free wi-fi for 10 hours. When Rhain ran out and bought another 5 hours, it only cost him 87 cents Cdn. Turn your wi-fi off when you are finished downloading email, etc. to ensure your wi-fi time lasts. Otherwise buy more, very inexpensive!
Hotel shop: There’s a small shop in the lobby with towels, flip flops, booze, candy, trinkets, souvenirs. 
Safes: There were things that looked like safes in each room, but Norbert said they had never worked. I left my wallet, passport etc. zipped up in my suitcase and it was never touched. 

Personal safety: I spent most afternoons on my own and always felt safe, even when I walked around the neighbourhood and over to the Rancho Luna beach by myself. (Imagine walking along a beach at an Ontario campground: families frolicking, building sandcastles, swimming, etc. Just like that, but no crowds, just a few families. It felt fine.) On our excursions, I noticed that the skill of the bus drivers was excellent. Walking through the two cities, I felt safe in the group. Nosdalys knows her way around, and Norbert is big! It was great to go in a group.

Swimming pool was great. It was large enough to swim lengths and not too deep which is fine with me and for kids. It is emptied weekly on Mondays and refilled with salt water. No chlorine. 

Lounging: lots of chaise lounges and tables and chairs around the pool with choice of sun or shade. Same for Rancho Luna beach. 

Bar beside the pool. It’s Norbert’s hangout in the shade. Someone said the bar didn’t have much besides beer, a couple of days the restaurant had no wine or juice, but they always had bottled water and beer. Apparently Rancho Luna is the place to go for the free cocktails.

Quiet: oh yes, it was quiet. From my room, I couldn’t hear anything until I opened my door to the hall. Then some sound came up from the lobby or dining area. For the noisy bars, entertainment and live music shows, it’s a short walk to Rancho Luna. When we were at Rancho Luna during the day, it was quiet, one of the guests was playing some Cuban music on a radio. 

Children: At Faro Luna, there’s the pool, a little sandy beach which was very pretty. At Rancho Luna there is a children’s climbing playground, and mini golf, maybe other stuff I don’t know about, and a glorious beach (sun) and further back thatched hut structures (shade). There were lots of available beach chaise lounges at the Rancho Luna beach. Back at Faro Luna, beside the dock is the bouncy-castle-type water playground, and next to that, the Delfinario (dolphin aquarium) with dolphin shows.

Beaches: The tiny beach near the scuba shop was very nice.
The other long, very beautiful beaches were a short walk out the front of the hotel, down an old road and over a few rock ledges. The beach seemed to go on forever. The water was great, the sand was fabulous. Great for swimming. Chaise lounge chairs for relaxing at Rancho Luna. 

Walkway: On the ocean-side at our hotel, Faro Luna, there’s a boardwalk because the ocean side of the hotel is a coral cliff rather than a beach. The boardwalk was a nice place for me to walk and it had many lookouts jutting out over the sea. Great place to take a chair and read! Rhain and Agnes walked to the lighthouse twice and enjoyed the walk.

Scuba Equipment: If you don’t have all your own equipment, you can rent good equipment at AquaSub in Toronto for the trip (or any other shop, but make sure you have everything with you before you leave Toronto). I rented an excellent new regulator, and they spent time in the dive shop making sure I new how to operate both the regulator and the octopus. It functioned very well for me. Return the rental equipment when you get back. Note: you have to take all your own equipment with you. Don’t expect to get any equipment down there — except for the tank and weights which they supply. 

Scuba: Nice set up. After breakfast, we walked next door to the dive shop (i.e., very close). They have a gear room to hang up BCDs, wetsuits, regs, and leave whatever equipment you want. They have a rinse tank for gear and a separate rinse tank for cameras. They have a nice little cafe with tables and chairs (and a bathroom) inside the scuba shop, tables and chairs outside, and a place to stand in the sun to warm up. They served water and sandwiches every day, sometimes fruit, at the surface interval. Everything was safely locked up after we finished scuba for the morning.

Dive Sites: Like elsewhere in the Caribbean, the reefs look a little dusty, but no coral bleaching. The location was really pretty with swim-throughs, coral canyons, interesting high and low coral formations, lots of small fish, some brilliantly coloured coral and sponges (but not a lot unless you were deep). I like the shipwrecks, covered in colourful sponges, and a magnet for all the little fish.

Boat Ride to scuba sites: Oh yeah, this was incredibly good – very close to shore and the dock. Amazing! Maybe a 2 minute boat ride to the dive sites. 

Boats: I really liked the boats. They’re small but can hold 12-15 divers comfortably. They have two boats. I only used the larger of the two. Occasionally they had Trainees or Norbert’s newly certified divers who went separately to shallow dive sites in the smaller boat. We sat along the gunnel or on the ledge of the boat. Don’t take anything extra on the boat with you. Wear your wetsuit, dive computer, and wear the mask around your neck. Keep weights/weight pockets on the boat for the week. In the morning, setup your BCD and reg on the tank on the dock. The staff will carry the unit onto the boat for you. Add weight pockets into your BCD once on the boat.  

Jumping in: You can either tank-up on the boat and do a back roll entry, or what most of us did was to insert the BCD weight pockets, then with only mask, fins and snorkel, jump in the water. They will lower your tank with BCD into the water (inflated to float). And you slip your arms into the BCD in the water and buckle up. You are good to go. Easy peasy!

Depth: Make it clear if you don’t want to do deeper divers. They are very accommodating and give you a separate guide if you don’t want to do a dive as deep as the rest of the group. Or you can do one dive a day instead of two like I did some days. Note: of course, you still pay for 2 dives a day, your choice. Or, if you miss a dive, you can maybe make it up at the end of the week and still allow sufficient time before flying. Ask Norbert.

Watch your depth. It’s easy to dip down deeper than you may have intended in the coral canyons, and it’s easy to spend more time than you may have intended near the bottom of the coral canyons. They advise staying at the top of the canyons if you want a shallower dive. Keep your eye on your depth gauge!

For a spectacular dive, Norbert takes experienced divers through deep narrow coral canyons, past a shipwreck, into a nearby cavern, then up to the English Cable, pictured below, encrusted with decades of sea life. OMG that is my idea of the most fabulous dive! Rhain and and others said it was spectacular. (Too deep for me.) However, I would be interested in going directly to the English Cable only, if that’s accessible without doing the deepest part of the coral canyons. The scuba team were very understanding and supportive of us not going deeper than we wanted. Before the dive, they assigned us a separate guide to have an enjoyable shallower dive. Say no to the deep dive if you are not comfortable with that depth.

Surface interval: They will change over the tanks for you while you head up to the scuba shop and have water and food. Norbert or someone will tell you when to head back to the boat. 

Finished for the day: Leave your weights on the boat. They will put the tank unit up on the dock for you. Take your mask, fins, snorkel, BCD and reg up to the scuba shop to rinse in the rinse tanks. Hang stuff up in the equipment room to dry til tomorrow morning. They will take care of the tanks from where you left them on the dock. 

Tip: It is suggested to tip them $100 Canadian in cash at the end of the week. They deserve it! Give the cash to the tall, older guy who will share it around. They do a fabulous job, and are very helpful and friendly. 

ScubaCuba Photo Gallery from Norbert: https://www.scubacuba.ca/gallery/

Nightlife: Ask someone else, I went to bed early. Some people enjoyed the nightlife at Rancho Luna. Free drinks all night and a show and music. Easy to walk over but best to take the road back at night rather than the beach. 

Sunsets: Oh, beautiful sunsets every night. 

Night scuba or snorkel: Norbert offers night scuba for an additional cost. The little beach near the scuba shop is great for a night snorkel.

What I didn’t like: 

• Bland food, same menu every day. But the fruit, bread, soup and salad to start are good. The food was fresh (but bland, boring and repetitive). Searching out a nearby restaurant for variety at dinner might have been a good idea.
• Some of the other divers at ScubaCuba that week were smokers. On a Blue North dive trip, no smoking!
• ScubaCuba did not offer Nitrox.
• I wish I had taken more time in the afternoons to see flamingos, do a river ride at the bird sanctuary, hiking — No problem, Norbert runs 10 day trips too. I met a diving couple who stayed for 2 weeks and a woman who was there for three weeks mostly on her own. And we met a diver who was having his 5th trip that year to dive with Norbert at ScubaCuba. 

Advertised price at less expensive times of the year: $1300 all inclusive. Plus you need a bit of Canadian cash (up to $100), to convert to Cuban pesos for tips and occasional restaurant dinners. And CAD$ (up to $100) for bus rides with the group to town.

Cost: Here’s what I spent

• $1786 all inclusive with single supplement – This includes a $525 dive package. The per-person price would have been lower for me if I had double occupancy and didn’t go at the expensive period of February’s Reading Week. Many of the ScubaCuba trips are advertised at approximately $1300 all inclusive for the week.
• $50 regulator rental in Toronto (note: it’s $150 if you need to rent a package of BCD, reg & dive computer – Ask Norbert about renting from AquaSub)
• $100 Cdn tip to tip the dive boat operators and guides. They deserved it!
• $80 Cdn converted to Cuban Pesos. This covered my tips for meals, tips for room cleaning, tips for bus driver. Plus two dinners in town on two different occasions, and Canchanchara (delicious sugar-cane based alcoholic drink). Most people converted $100. I didn’t buy any souvenirs — not even a tea towel for Tom!
• $25 Cdn for transport and guide to Cienfuegos and back
• $60 Cdn for transport and guide to the town of Trinidad and back (further away, more gasoline, etc.) with interesting stops along the way such as roadside market, local pottery shop, bar with vistas at a former sugar cane plantation, well worth it!
• $2101 total

Other possible areas to spend money if you feel so inclined:

• $ for more trips to Cienfuegos and meals in town
• $ for nearby restaurants to supplement meals at Faro Luna if you are hungry or bored.
• $ transport and entrance to National Park and waterfalls 
• $ transport and entrance to Botanical Gardens close by
• $ transport and entrance to Flamingo and Bird Sanctuary close by
• $ transport and entrance to Cuba historical museum in Cienfuegos 
• $ souvenirs (Don’t go to Cuba if you want to shop. Really.)
• $ more alcohol 

Advanced Open Water Course Potential: Norbert would teach an Advanced Open Water Course at Faro Luna, Cuba with a PADI certification. 

Blue North certification with our own Blue North Instructors: This would be a great place for Caribbean certification with our own Instructors. Norbert would be happy for Instructors to bring their own group of 8-20 divers — He would provide a free scuba package for the instructor or group leader.

NAUI Referral for Learn to Scuba open water certification dives: Blue North/HHUC Instructors would have to talk to Norbert about Norbert’s insurance, instructor student ratio, etc. Norbert wasn’t familiar with the concept of a “NAUI Referral”. He thought his insurance would only allow him to do check-out dives with scuba students that he personally had taught. This needs some investigation by the Instructors talking directly with Norbert.

Perqs: Norbert is interested in developing a relationship with Blue North. 

• Free diving package for instructors or scuba leaders who bring 8-20 students or divers to Faro Luna.
• They will provide ScubaCuba T-shirts which are very nice — and add the Blue North logo for us.
• They will offer a 15% discount at AquaSub for our divers to purchase equipment.

It was a beautiful location, pretty coral canyons for diving, great diving setup, helpful boat staff. I’d go back. For divers starting out on a low budget, looking to gain scuba experience, it’s great as long as you are forewarned about the lack of food variety.