In general, this is a good tour. Iām not specifically recommending against it. I just think it differs from how it is described. The guide, Faruk, was VERY knowledgeable about Cuban politics, history and culture. People know him in the neighborhood. A majority of the stops were worthwhile. But some werenāt, like the trip to Big Papaās shirt store and the first jewelry store. This tour is advertised as being 2.5 hours but it ended up being 3.5 and that hour makes a difference. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but also not what I signed up for. The guide even complained during the tour that they were going to shorten the tour to two hours in the future and blamed peopleās short attention spans in a sort of condescending way.
While itās great that the guide is like a walking encyclopedia, I didnāt need all of the political details given on the tour, especially when it overshadowed information about our *actual* current surroundings or the food we were eating. To this moment I donāt event remember the names of most of the places we ate. Iām not sure he always told us. A lot of the tour was him talking at us about things that I just felt were very heavy and complex lore about Cuba for what was supposed to be a food and culture tour of Little Havana more specifically. I probably know more about the actual Havana than the Little one now. In fact, we often had to ask what we were being given to eat and drink, as if the food were an afterthought of the tour.
I, personally, was expecting a more lighthearted and I guess more scripted and organized trip through the area with more detail about the actual places we were visiting and the cuisine. Some of that was there, of course, but thatās *all* that needed to be there and the tour couldāve been half as long if it had been. If I wanted to hear about Castroās political actions and sanctions and all of this, I wouldāve gone to a museum or lecture where I had the expectation that that would be the deep focus.
In summation, I just think I got a bit more than I bargained for. The others on the tour seemed to be soaking the info up and I think thatās great for them! I just didnāt enjoy it as much. Just me I suppose.