Friendly Planet Travel Schedules Cuba Tours

Friendly Planet Travel Schedules Cuba Tours
By Gay Nagle Myers (posted in Travel Weekly)

Friendly Planet Travel is the latest tour operator to offer people-to-people programs to Cuba. The Pennsylvania-based operator will offer two programs to Cuba, beginning in January.

The five-day Discover Havana program departs monthly from Miami from Jan. 18 through Sept. 26 (two departures in September). The eight-day Colors of Cuba program has monthly departures from Miami and New York Kennedy from Jan. 15 through April 15.

Prices on both programs, which vary depending upon departure date, include roundtrip charter air as well as all land arrangements (hotel, meals, educational programs, the services of an in-country host/guide, a Friendly Planet escort and motorcoach transport). Each tour will be limited to 25 participants.

Both programs offer discounted rates if booked by Dec. 7. The discounted rate for Discover Havana is priced from $1,899 per person (in double accommodations); Colors of Cuba is priced from $2,899 from Miami; the New York departure is an additional $480 per person.

Friendly Planet has offered humanitarian programs to Cuba in the past. Its new people-to-people programs “offer an opportunity to connect with the people of Cuba at a price that just about anyone can afford but, for geopolitical reasons, we never thought possible,” according to Peggy Goodman, founder.

Colors of Cuba includes tours of Old Havana, Cienfuegos and Trinidad. Participants will share meals with Cubans, meet professors and artists, visit farms, housing projects, schools and artisans’ markets.

Participants on the Discover Havana will tour the historic neighborhoods of the city, meet with University of Havana students, visit art studios, a school and Finca Vigia, Hemingway’s mansion and museum.