Captain Greybeard

Whether it's thanks to Fidel Castro's stubborn refusal to change tack, a result of the long-standing embargo imposed by near-neighbour the United States, or because of the sudden withdrawal of financial aid when the Soviet Union collapsed, there is no way that Cuba's communist regime can be judged a success. I'm no economics expert, but it doesn't take much to realise this is a dirt-poor country in which everything appears to be falling apart - from roads, to homes, to the entire social infrastructure. In Havana I saw a crowd of people jostling to get into a building and wondered [...]

Saga Pearl II's schedule for this 13-night cruise, officially dubbed Caribbean Coastal Explorer, originally included a day at the port of La Guaira on the northern coast of Venezuela. Many passengers had booked places on the all-day excursion to Caracas, the lively modern capital city 15 miles away. But plans have now been changed and the ship is to spend a day at Oranjestadt in Aruba instead. Captain Alistair McLundie came on the Tannoy at 9.00 a.m. this morning to relay the message that the company's insurers had advised against visiting Venezuela. The reasons were unclear; the Captain cited recent [...]

Mention Trinidad today and people might call to mind an island which has produced some of the Caribbean's best cricketers. But there are other Trinidads, not least the imposing Cuban town I visited yesterday. A national monument and a UNESCO World Heritage Site thanks to its palatial mansions, Trinidad was built on sugar and slavery. In the late 18th Century 12,000 slaves toiled in the cane fields and the 56 sugar mills of the nearby Valle de San Luis, making a fortune for their masters who built homes in the town. While they were prepared to impose the cruellest of [...]

The world's leading cigar dealers gathered in Havana this week - they were arriving by the coach-load for a function at the Hotel Nacional as I sipped my umpteenth Mojito of the day. And even to an ex-smoker of 10 months' standing, the aroma of cigars and cigar smoke has been pleasantly pervasive during my first few days in Cuba. The highlight of day one was a tour of the H. Upmann factory where I followed every process of the manufacture of cigars from the moment tobacco leaves arrive in bundles to be sorted and weighed, through further refinements and [...]

For the next two weeks I will be cruising in the Caribbean. I'm flying to Havana and during the first few days of the cruise will be visiting Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba. Americans are still waiting for their government to lift the trade embargo which has restricted travel to the island since the 1960s, and only a few ships visit - none of them from the American giants like Carnival or Royal Caribbean Recently Fred Olsen based Braemar there for a couple of winter seasons, and Thomson Dream is sailing cruises which visit Havana this year, although will not [...]

More cruise ship calls are being disrupted by the spread of unrest in the Arab region. Following demonstrations in Bahrain, which led to the deaths of four protestors. Costa has amended the itineraries of its cruises on Deliziosa and Luminosa, affecting about 4,500 passengers. The ships will this weekend spend an extra day in Dubai. Next week the changes may involve an additional overnight in Muscat or Abu Dhabi, says Costa Crociere, whose spokesperson added: "Costa Cruises will resume calling at Bahrain only when the relevant international authorities and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have declared stability, and safety [...]