Car Hire in Cuba and more…

As the UK market has increased and British visitors to Cuba now rank as the second largest group of travelers to the Caribbean nation, so too has the requests for Car Hire in Cuba from the United Kingdom. While most UK visitors to Cuba still stay at all inclusive resorts in Varadero, Holguin and Cayo Coco, the Playa Pesquero Hotel being a big UK favorite, a growing group of visitors from the UK are “going it alone”. Recognising this, the Cuban Tourism Board or more commonly known as Mintur has rolled our several special programs and booking platforms for Car Hire in Cuba from the UK.

Cuba Airport Car Hire

The website Car Hire in Cuba was specially set up for UK travelers to the island and offers payments in Euros or Pounds plus the full assortment of Car Models available in Cuba. Bookings are online and secure servers take care of the problems associated with online bookings. Probably the best aspect of organising the Car Hire in Cuba in advance is the security one has of receiving a vehicle upon arrival, something which can be very problematic, especially in High Season

Car Hire in Cuba + Hotel Package

Designed specifically for the UK market, the Cuba Flexi Drive offers an impressive selection of cars to cater for singles traveling alone right up to families of up to 9 people. Basically, anything from the smallest economic car in Cuba right up to the largest air-conditioned Rental Van in Cuba can be associated with the Flexi Drive program. But what is the Cuba Flexi Drive program? Well, to put it in a nutshell it’s a night of hotel associated with your car rental day. The beauty of the program is that you have a list of over 40 hotels covering the length and breadth of Cuba allowing you to travel at your own pace and sleep over at any one of these hotels. Yes, you simply present one of your vouchers for the night’s stay! So, let’s say your total flexi package is 14 nights, you´ll have 14 vouchers from hotels and 14 days of car rental, all in one package. The cool part is that your car hire in Cuba is linked to the package making it about 40% cheaper than the car by itself (outside the Flexi program). Therefore, in some cases your car hire in Cuba and hotel works out cheaper than the taking the car by itself,…free accommodation basically.

The hotel list is extremely extensive and covers every corner, center and costal area in Cuba. To see this extensive Cuba Hotel list click here and scroll down then click the area “VIEW ACCOMMODATION FACILITIES” quite an impressive list!

Although the website design leads one to believe that these packages are for 7 or 14 days, upon closer inspection, when you click 7 days you can actually add more days up to 13 days and then when clicking 14 days you can add up to 21 days. Not the best design we found but, it works intuitively.

One other incredibly cheap option is that not only does it include your car hire in Cuba along with each night of hotel stay but, you can also add extra rooms. Therefore, two, three or four couples could make the journey using larger capacity vehicles to coincide with the amount and all that needs to be added is an extra room which works out at being less than 45 per night for a double room! Pretty incredible really.

“We booked our car hire in Cuba in advance from the UK”

We arrived in Havana and traveled west towards Pinar del Rio, stayed one night at the Hotel Ermita then swung back east and across the island down to Cienfuegos where we stayed at the Hotel Union. We stayed in Cienfuegos 2 nights as my wife was attacked by mosquitoes on the first night and did not feel like traveling the next day. We then drove to Holguin and spent two nights at the Hotel Mirador de Mayabe (view to die for) near a great beach. We then drove down to Santiago de Cuba and had a wonderful stay at the Hotel Balcon del Caribe . Now, don´t get me wrong, none of these hotels are top notch 5 star places but, for 25 per night, who’s complaining? Plus, after driving, all we wanted was to crash out anyway, the next day we were out walking around, so we spent very little time (besides sleeping) at the hotels. We drove all the way to Havana in one day and spent our last two nights at the Hotel Megano in Playas del Este (Havana´s beach district) and conveniently dropped the car at the airport to get our return flight with Virgin Atlantic from Havana to London Gatwick. As I said, we went with another couple and therefore the petrol costs were split between us and we shared the cost of the car hire in cuba after we simply deducted their room cost from the package price we ended up with the cost of the car which we then split. The whole trip cost each couple just £620 which, I found, incredible for all we got, highly recommended. Add that to the Virgin Atlantic flight to Havana and our discovery of almost all Cuba was a measly £1565 for us both. Of course our friends paid the same.

So whether your looking for just Car Hire in Cuba from the UK or a full flexi drive package in Cuba from the UK then check out the links, you WILL NOT be unhappy.

Cheers, Joe + Emily!

Car Hire in Cuba Review