2024: Ultimate Latin music event and Cuban dream tour

Jazz Cuba’s Havana jazz festival plus tour

Day 1 • Sunday • Say hello to the city of music

  • Arrivals at Havana’s José Martí International Airport
  • Collect your luggage and proceed through Cuban customs to the arrivals lobby
  • Transfer to your hotel. Your boutique accommodation check-in is pre-arranged, you simply present your passport
  • Time to settle in and freshen up
  • Dinner is served at your accommodation’s restaurant.
  • Havana Jazz Festival Performances, choose among events taking place at several different venues (transportation NOT INCLUDED)

Day 2 • Monday • Old Havana, architecture, history and art

  • Greet the day with tasty breakfast served at your hotel
  • Followed by a private walking tour of Old Havana, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We’ll visit four historic plazas that make Havana unique in the western hemisphere. Together they contain the largest collection of remaining Spanish colonial-era architecture in the world
  • Welcome lunch at the private restaurant Mojito-Mojito. Ideally situated in Plaza Vieja, its friendly atmosphere, and delicious food makes it rank high on TripAdvisor. The restaurant's slogan: "A single mojito is not enough."
  • Visit Centro Cultural Antiguos Almacenes de Depósito San José. This marvelous restoration of an old dock warehouse has resulted in a gigantic market fair exhibiting the wares of hundreds of Cuban artists and crafts workers. It’s an amazing shopping opportunity for memorable Cuban gifts and souvenirs.
  • Return to hotel and freshen up
  • Welcome dinner at the private restaurant Le Petit. An attractive, elegant and casual restaurant, located in the oldest area of ​​Havana.
  • Cannon firing ball ceremony (optional).
  • Havana Jazz Festival Performances, choose among events taking place at several different venues (transportation NOT INCLUDED)

Day 3 • Tuesday • Amazing nature trip to stunning Las Terrazas

  • Greet the day with tasty breakfast served at your hotel
  • Tour highlight. Now for a day excursion to the amazing Las Terrazas region just one hour to the west of Havana. Once mired in poverty and completely deforested as a result of centuries of charcoal production for coffee processing and cooking, Las Terrazas today is a vibrant self-sustaining eco-community.
  • Optional thrill for the young at heart: Zipline through a forest and across a lake!
  • We’ll enjoy lunch at an open-air restaurant specializing in traditional country cuisine – La Casa del Campesino – ever popular with tour participants and locals alike.
  • Return to hotel and freshen up
  • Dinner not included in tour cost. An occasion to sample Havana’s stellar private eateries and taste the diversity of the island's distinctive cuisines. We’ll provide suggestions for restaurants most popular with Cubans and our travelers.
  • Havana Jazz Festival Performances, choose among events taking place at several different venues (transportation NOT INCLUDED)

Day 4 • Wednesday • Cuban art + Havana Jazz Festival performances

  • Greet the day with tasty breakfast served at your hotel.
  • We’ll examine Cuba's greatest visual masterpieces spanning three centuries at Havana’s world class museum of modern art – Palacio de Bellas Artes.
  • Lunch at a local restaurant, included.
  • Return to your hotel and freshen up. Explore the city with your tourmates and new Cuban friends
  • Dinner not included in tour cost. An occasion to sample Havana’s stellar private eateries and taste the diversity of the island's distinctive cuisines. We’ll provide suggestions for restaurants most popular with Cubans and our travelers.
  • Havana Jazz Festival Performances, choose among events taking place at several different venues (transportation NOT INCLUDED)

Day 5 • Thursday • Fusterlandia + Festival Performances

  • Greet the day with tasty breakfast served at your hotel.
  • This morning is for you to explore the city on your own with your tourmates and new Cuban friends.
  • Arts and dining tour highlight. We’ll feast on a delicious lunch hosted by José Fúster, one of Cuba’s most important ceramists and painters, at his whimsical studio in Jaimanitas, just outside of Havana. Fúster is known as the Picasso of the Caribbean and his art is acclaimed internationally.
  • After lunch, we'll visit Havana's most famous jazz club: La Zorra y el Cuervo. This venue offers an intimate environment in its basement, notably marked by a red English telephone box at its entrance.
  • Return to your hotel and freshen up
  • Dinner not included in tour cost. An occasion to sample Havana’s stellar private eateries and taste the diversity of the island's distinctive cuisines. We’ll provide suggestions for restaurants most popular with Cubans and our travelers
  • Havana Jazz Festival Performances, choose among events taking place at several different venues (transportation NOT INCLUDED)

Day 6 • Friday • Urban farm, Hemingway + Festival Bands

  • Greet the day with tasty breakfast served at your hotel
  • Visit the UBPC Vivero Organopónico Alamar, a giant farm cooperative producing a range of healthy, organic vegetables
  • Tour highlight. We have a special lunch arranged for you by our friends at Ajiaco paladar [private restaurant].
  • Later on, we’ll visit the village of Cojímar, the setting for Ernest Hemingway’s "The Old Man and the Sea.” Here adoring local fishers cast a bronze bust from old anchors, props and tools.
  • We’re off to visit Finca la Vigía [Lookout Farm] where North America’s literary titan Ernest Hemingway spent twenty-one of his most important and productive years adding to the building blocks of English literature.
  • Return to your hotel and freshen up
  • Dinner not included in tour cost. An occasion to sample Havana’s stellar private eateries and taste the diversity of the island's distinctive cuisines. We’ll provide suggestions for restaurants most popular with Cubans and our travelers
  • Havana Jazz Festival Performances, choose among events taking place at several different venues (transportation NOT INCLUDED)

Day 7 • Saturday • Havana discovery day + Festival Performances

  • Greet the day with tasty breakfast served at your hotel
  • Morning and afternoon: Explore the city with your tourmates and new Cuban friends
  • Lunch not included in tour cost. An occasion to sample Havana’s stellar private eateries and taste the diversity of the island's distinctive cuisines. We’ll provide suggestions for restaurants most popular with Cubans and our travelers
  • Return to your hotel and freshen up
  • Dinner not included in tour cost. An occasion to sample Havana’s stellar private eateries and taste the diversity of the island's distinctive cuisines. We’ll provide suggestions for restaurants most popular with Cubans and our travelers
  • Havana Jazz Festival Performances, choose among events taking place at several different venues (transportation NOT INCLUDED)

Day 8 • Sunday • Afrocuban rhythms + Festival Closing Finale

  • Greet the day with tasty breakfast served at your hotel
  • Morning: Explore the city with your tourmates and new Cuban friends
  • Lunch not included in tour cost. An occasion to sample Havana’s stellar private eateries and taste the diversity of the island's distinctive cuisines. We’ll provide suggestions for restaurants most popular with Cubans and our travelers
  • Visit the Afrocuban influenced Callejón de Hamel and witness a monster mesmerizing neighborhood rumba jam and dance party that will knock your socks off
  • Return to your hotel to freshen up
  • Attend a big jazz event this evening (transportation included).
  • Farewell group dinner at local restaurant, included.

Day 9 • Monday • Say goodbye to Cuba – for now

  • Greet the day with tasty breakfast served at your hotel
  • Check-out of your Havana hotel
  • Transfer to José Martí International Airport in Havana for flights home
  • We'll miss you and hope you will return soon. In Cuba we say: A true friend remembers the song in your heart when you have forgotten the lyrics.