fair price for guide
 

What should the cost of a guide for a day of sightseeing in Havana be?

Their doctors make about USD$20 a month or about 270 pesos. I would pay about a 1 CUC per hour plus the tip. You can actually see Havana on your own its not that difficult and it'll be cheap. But you'll end up getting fleeced, for 50 CUC.


http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nati...e89133407.html

It now apparently depends on how "famous" the guide has become. LOL
On certain travel forums, those who need hand holding have talked up certain guides and their fees have gone sky high.
"Normal" fees might be about 30 CUC per full day.
Some are now charging 200 CUC. And tourists are tipping on top of that !

IMO you don't need a guide in Havana. (Would you know if they are giving you correct historical info anyway or just making it up?) Get a good guidebook. You can walk or bici-taxi around Havana Vieja, stopping when you want to take pictures. Get a taxi to Vedado and walk around to see the mansions, maybe the Dance Museum, La Rampa, etc. The taxi can go through Centro and you can see the Focsa building, the big Chinese gate, etc. There are also a lot of classic cars that drive you along the Malecon and other sights (about 40-60 CUC per 2 hour tour). You can find them all over. There's also a HOHO bus (10CUC/day).

I agree

Cubans are greedy not because they are mean, but because they have to fight to survive. So they feel charging such high prices is acceptable as long as there are Americans willing to dish out the cash. I'd pay a rickshaw drive 5CUC and ask him to give me a tour.

Even some of the bici-taxi (rickshaw) drivers are charging multiples of the "standard" fee for a given route, preferring to wait around for a longer time for a tourist who is not informed about prices and thinks the high asking price is cheap by his/her standards.
Chances of getting a 5CUC "tour" from a touristed area of Havana Vieja, for example, are slim these days, when they can get that for driving some uninformed tourist a couple of blocks.

But I hear that US tourism is down, which is good news for us Canadians. More casa choices and hopefully the artificially inflated prices for hotels will come down to earth.

In my experience in a trip to Cuba, I was finding out so much that guides were good and the price of each one to be able to have both the best experience and be economical. In the end, in my case, a friend recommended me to use the Yoplan website where I was able to obtain well-recommended guides and for the exact activities I wanted to do. I ended up having a good trip and I could be economical with my expenses

Well, if we're going to get into the issue of recommending guides, here's a partial list compiled from recent travel forum posts. Most are based in Havana. Anyone can probably find more to add these days on the CruiseCritic and TripAdvisor forums for Cuba and the like. You don't necessarily need a guide (Cuba is really about taking the time to experience the vibe, more so than seeing as many sights as possible) , or could choose to take a classic car ride, but for those who want one, here are some to contact and evaluate:

photo guide, Havana, Ivanna Sarzik at [email protected]or 53 58080824.

walking tour guide: Analay Fernandez (walking tour): [email protected]; +53 5 538972

art tour Havana Sussette Martinez <[email protected]

music and more Radis..... [email protected]

other guides with vehicles:

Humberto Mesa (driver): [email protected]; +53 5 2944372

Jorge: [email protected]

Boris: [email protected]

Geikis: [email protected]

Ronel: [email protected]

Danay: [email protected]

Darien: [email protected]

Jose: [email protected]

Pototo: [email protected]

Claudia: [email protected]

Natalie: [email protected]

Jorge Milanes: [email protected] (011-53) 52419134

Jorge Gonzalaz Estrada on Facebook

Nosotros Cubaneamos (Juan Carlos)

Alejandro Rodruguez Bidondo ([email protected])

Darien Paetz . https://www.facebook.com/darien.p.rodriguez (Joel, driver)

Santiago <[email protected] (+53)76424580(Casa) +53 53833855 (Móvil)

Nosotros Cubaneamos

Most guides/tour companies require a minimum # of people to do a day tour. I travel solo so how can I hook up with others or get a reasonably priced guide/tour for one person? thanks in Advance

I don't think that is necessarily true. Guides I know of charge by the tour/hour. Visitors may prefer to divide the charge among themselves to pay less per person.
How many of the guides listed above have you contacted?
Prices for this type of service are soaring in Cuba.........because the newbie tourists will pay anything asked, comparing prices to those at home or in more expensive place in the Caribbean.. More people, more tips. Maybe that's behind the minimum. See comment #5 .
For example, a classic car ride is about 30 CUC for one hour, less per hour for a multi-hour tour. Now tourists online are quoted 250 CUC, and pay it happily.

Also, at least in Havana the cruise ship companies are ripping off their passengers big-time for land tours.

That is precisely the reason I am looking at tours offered by other than the ship :-)
Bev

In fairness, that is true in most every port.

check out the yoplan.com page, there you can find a local to show you the best cultural places and activities, and ... I consider they have a very good price