I’d say you’re not going to Cuba for the food!
If you’re looking at a single destination holiday, so you just go straight to a beach resort and stay there, I don’t think it’s worth going. You could go to any other Caribbean island and have better food and the same experience. If you’re going to do trips and ideally a twin destination holiday, then it’s absolutely worth it. Havana is so beautiful and there’s so much culture. It’s a really interesting time to go because the younger generation are wanting modernisation, they’re looking to the US with admiration and the older generation are wanting things to stay as they are.
In Havana you can stay in a massive, modern hotel on the outskirts and get transport in. Or you can stay in an older hotel in the city. We stayed in Old Town. The hotel was not modern and was quite basic in some respects but it was amazing to be right in the heart of the city. Every time we left our hotel, no matter what time of day it was, we heard music. Heard the local taverns playing something. The school children were out in the square doing their PE lessons. The hotel could be noisy at times but as we only spent a few nights there it was worth it. We decided to spend a few nights at the beginning of the holiday in Havana and just cram everything in, then relax and sleep on the beach holiday.
In Havana, I’d recommend Tropicana - absolutely amazing. Your hotel will probably be able to arrange a private taxi in an old American car, which DH was in his element with. We really enjoyed the tour of the rum museum. We visited most of the attractions in Havana but I loved just sitting in a tavern with a mojito and listening to the bustle of Havana - the Diesel engines of the old cars, the music, the sound of construction as they try to modernise. There is also an arts and craft fair. Most of the stalls are the touristy tat that is sold on the streets but there is a small section of local artists displaying their paintings. We bought 3 gorgeous hand painted Havana street scenes. We also bought another painting from a day trip to Trinidad. In Havana, your food is going to be more basic, although we did find an old fashioned piano bar that made us a lovely Caesar salad with the theatrics of making it in front of you. Whilst in Havana you’ll probably be eating pork and beans (rice and kidney beans), possibly with plantain on the side. Breakfasts are likely to be bacon and eggs. If you do a beach holiday the food is likely to be a bit more diverse but still not as great as other Caribbean islands.
For our beach resort, we travelled to Cayo Santa Maria. There is nothing else there, other than resorts. It’s beautiful but you won’t be getting the culture in these resorts.
Tipping is a big part of the culture. People are really poor and so tipping is a way that they can boost their income. The security guard at the airport was telling us that her monthly salary was $9 US dollars a month and on that she had to feed two teenage boys. Cuba has a closed currency, so you won’t be able to get currency before you go. You can get it from the airport, although there’ll be a queue. You can also get it from the hotel (but this will be at a worse exchange rate), or you can get it from the bank. For the first day, you’ll probably need to get a small amount from the hotel and then go to the bank in the following days and exchange more. You’ll need to exchange it back at the airport before you go home as you won’t be able to exchange it when you get back home. At the time we went, there was a better exchange rate for US dollars the GBP, not enough to convert our GBP into dollars but MIL was giving us our birthday money to spend in Cuba and it was worth her converting euros to US dollars rather GBP for us. So if you have any leftover dollars from a previous US trip, take those.