(Leaving politics out of it)
I have worked with them on several occasions, and in my opinion Havanatur is a very well organized tour operator who can show our local so called "inbound tour operators" a thing or two on how to be professional.

you mean the land of the 'eat till you puke " commie flunkies can show others the way? you must be joking!

WOW! Cuba? Reading some posts here you'd think they don't even know how to read over there, let alone organize something? Some poeple will be "shocked".

it is the "shocked" guys over here who probably do not know how to read! then again, we might soon be hearing that the award was propaganda from Granma

Caribe Sol, a.k.a. Havanatur Canada Inc., is a travel agency owned by Cimex, a holding company of the Government of Cuba. ...Its a monopoly it can act very efficiently if it is the only game in town

Goulet , do i take it to mean, from your posting, that monopolies "can act very efficiently"? i am discussing some ideas with Professor Wood from the Long Beach Education district. should i pass on that theory to him? do we have your permission to attribute the remark to you, so you get the credit?

Dreadlocks, when it comes to GC it's best to listen to that Jay-z rhyme where he say: "A wise man told me don't argue with fools 'cause people from a distance can't tell who is who". I don't even read his posts anymore, try doing the same. Time is precious, don't waste is on assholes like him.

Nice, Username! Hey dreadlocks, you have no need to sweat GC. While the US economy is sinking and the country heads towards a depression, Cuba fifty years later is looking like a champion. They survived Bush, didn't they? Not many in the US can say the same. See Iraqi war casualties and the millions of homes in foreclosure.

"Cuban Five" currently serving long prison sentences stateside for, among other things, their role in the 1996 inflight destruction of two Cessna 337s belonging to the exile group Brothers to the Rescue. Cuba claims the outlaw leafleteers on board the planes were in Cuban airspace, but that contradicted the official findings of an International Civil Aviation Organization investigation. No attempt was made to contact the interloper aircraft by radio or to offer it guidance into international airspace, making the aerial murders a particularly ugly violation of the conditions that make peaceable air travel possible throughout the world, even in the vicinity of belligerent states......Chewy you moron here are your champions as you suck the tet of the USA

GC, never one to tell both sides of any issue, forgets, or neglects, to mention the Cuban gusanos who blew up the cuban airliner, and never did any time for it. then again, fairness and honesty are not his stock in trade. misinformation, selective memory, and irritation are what he does best.

Cuba has long protected fugitives on the run from U.S. authorities, and it now protects more than 70 of them. While Washington has always wanted them returned,
the Bush administration has become increasingly vocal about the issue, tying it to its global offensive against terrorism.

The State Department includes Cuba on its list of countries supporting terrorism, partly because the United States says Cuba harbors people involved in rebel groups
from Colombia, Spain and elsewhere. Washington also calls Castro a terrorist for harboring Morales and other outlaws from the United States.

Cuban officials say those on their soil are not terrorists. They say, for example, that Colombian rebels living here have been key participants in peace talks with the
Colombian government in Havana in recent months.

Officials here also say the only Americans they protect are those who deserve protection.

dread spoken as a true Caricom patriot ....the Castros would be proud of you being their stooge

nice try Goulet. now what about the gusanos who blew up the cuban airliner? surely you did not think i forgot? i asked the question, remember.

Hey GC, didn't we see commercials regarding drug dealing in the USA is the equivalent to terrorism? How about stock market manipulators, er, excuse me, speculators? How about the Miami Cuban doctors who have stolen for years, millions of dollars from Medicaid? Aren't they "terrorists"? Isn't the military complex, who habitually and arrogantly over charge the Pentagon for petty items, a threat to our economic security? How about the infamous Drug War and all its machinations? Didn't think about that, did you? GC, let me guess: it's about perspective, right? I am starting to get the feeling that you are of poor moral fabric or an antagonizer. PS About the downed Cessnas: should Cuba protect its airspace the way Bush did on 9/11?

Just give'um both a free weeks all paid vacation in old Down Town Havana, Cuba I'm sure they'll enjoy them selfs greatly......

I don't understand why our Cuban example and ways is not followed everywhere and in everything. It is so much better! Please help us by writing your comments in the online Granma newspaper as well, so we in Cuba can read in the Internet what you think and express. Thank you for continued support to the Cuban revolution and its leaders. It is great to see how our government is supported by the world at large from your different countries. Please come to Cuba and support us from here. This way you can live the wonderful of the Cuban revolution yourselves. Thank you! Please come live in our country!

the lines are forming.....no cutting in

Speaking of Cuba, I'd like to know how many of you here have actually visited Cuba, and stayed there 2-3 months at a time?

I've visited Cuba several times, my longest stay was 5 weeks.

And was it a place where people are begging for a dollar on every street corner, and as soon as you stop at a red light 5 children jump on your car to wash the windshield, and cripples are showing you open wounds and begging for a dollar to buy the necessary medicine, and hospitals are full and the doctors are on strike, and those who can not afford a trip to hospital are left for dead and there is no change that a doctor will ever visit his patient at home, and at the public universities a program that normally takes 4 years takes 6 or 7 because of lack of supplies and canceled trips? Or am i confusing these scenes for some other Caribbean country, a country whose economy is, despite the whole world being in a crisis, supposedly growing at a rampant pace?

Investors must put Cuba and Russia at joint No. 1 on their list:
There is now more Russian tourism to DR and economy is strong from gas!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7796806.stm
S.

heavy, Username, heavy!!!

Aller,
Like my Mom always says "If you don't have any thing really nice to say...Don't say it at all" so in keeping with my Moms old saying I'll keep my mouth shut, or in other words, my fingers off the key board. But, I will say this..... It's not the People of Cuba, but the Government of Cuba that bothers me. But then again I have the same fillings about other Governments in the World, to include the U.S and the D.R.....I have no excuses if I stepped on toes.

Mrios, thank you for enlightening us as to what bothers you. Can you be more specific? BTW, Username must be referring to DR.

Cuban tourism is booming says Granma are they to be believed ?....well they won an award from Jumbo tourist market Argentina so it must be true go figure....meanwhile back at world reality....The DR has 60 thousand hotel rooms to fill on the entire Island and travel and tourism is hurting.for everyone except BOOMING cuba...to put that in perspective there is a little city in Nevada called Las Vegas that will soon open its 150 thousandth room in one town....talk about competition....then there is that quaint little town Orlando with about 100 thousand plus rooms thrown into the mix as well....go figure...and they are not going to put those cruise ships in mothballs either.....the DR government is not telling the truth about economic stability in 2009....just like Cuba and their booming tourism what a joke...booming

Cheworks1959,
Its simple. What bothers me, bothers most. I have no problem putting my Beliefs, Personal Beliefs, Faith, Life experience's, Up Brining and Knowledge aside and just open my Heart and take it all in, if I agree or not. I have admitted when I'm wrong and have even apologized on this site in the past. I'm not better nor am I different then any other Human Being on this Planet. I'll just call that plain and simple good old COMMUNICATION.
I like to think the older one gets the wiser one becomes.

Mrios,
That is understanable. Yet, the availability of accurate information (COMMUNICATION) is heavily biased against the Cuban Revolution due, in LARGE part, to the fascist Cuban exile community in Miami. Notice how they refrain from objective discourse and have staunchily been proponents of the embargo. Are you familiar with "El Periodo Especial" (Tad Szulc's bio titled Fidel provides an excellent explaination)? Are you aware of the health care advances and the excellence in Cuban education? Coincidence? The Revolution is not perfect... but what is? The Bush administration? The FCC and the CIA? The corrupt and illegal Federal Reserve Bank (see solari.com)? Our failing education system? You see, it is simple; you have to want the truth. Happy Holidays!

Socialism..A progressive political system that takes the power away from wealth creators and gives it to wealth distributors. Wealth distributors are typically a class of highly trained government bureaucrats who are being watched by a class of political commissars, who, in turn, are being watched by a class of secret police, all of whom are banded together by shared progressive morals. Because progressive morals are relative by definition, a certain measure of absolute propaganda is necessary to encourage collectivism and discourage counter revolution. Since such propaganda is delivered through mass media, arts, and schools, a degree of ideological monopoly, uniformity, and censorship is also required in those fields. The resulting mass enthusiasm creates a vibrant state-subsidized culture, leading to great economic successes and technological breakthroughs, e.g., in North Korea.and Cuba

Collectivism
Individual is nothing, the collective is everything. We, the People's vanguard, would have no power if we were to rely on the individual. But if you divide people into minority groups, each fighting for more collective rights and entitlements at the expense of all other groups, then pitch them against one another and act as a mediator, you will own the world! Abandon your puny notions of surviving with an individual mind, learn to think with the collective brain which speaks through our Party representatives. The rewards are obvious: in a collective you automatically gain the same rights and entitlements as the next member without moving a finger to earn them. Group reality gives one a strong feeling of selflessness, belonging, and protection against all other such collectives, also known as special interest groups.

I think GC is confusing Socialism with Communism... Anyway, both Socialism and Capitalism have their good points and their drawbacks, both concepts are flawed as they ignore the darker side of human nature (lust for power and greed, amongst other things). A prefect social system has not been invented yet, and probably never will.

Individualism is a modern American concept. Ah, yes, the land of a million kings, where you rule your castle behind your walls and are adored by your serfs. That is until you run out of provisions then you must a) go out and pillage; b) trade and barter with your neighbors; c) starve and eventually die. GC, we are all interconnected, whether persons or societies.

This is where some of us (I don't want to name names - at least not without being properly "convinced" to do so) are missing the whole point of Progressivism. You see, comrades, it's simply not fair that some members of society are given the unegalitarian advantage of being born smart, productive, or self-sustaining. The lazy, the helpless, and the useless are born victims of the afore mentioned enemies of the society. It's not their fault they were born lazy, or whiny, or allergic to education, or too incompetent to hold a job. All they need is a hand up, not a handout, a level playing field, a tiny redistribution of the ill-gotten gains so cynically referred to as wealth, etc.

It's all in the interest of fairness.

The subject of Cuba could be discussed for years, and has been. Let's talk what options did Cuba have after the fall of Batista: first a true democracy was never an option for Cuba, because no country in the region was a true democracy at the time. So Cuba could have:

a dictator who will try to hold onto the power as long as possible, but still care for his people and try to better their lives - Castro

a dictator who will try to hold onto the power as long as possible, with total disregard for the lives of ordinary people, a dictator like the one they just overthrew - Batista

a fake democracy, a democracy where they are free to choose, but to choose from the political buffet the US serves them, and no matter who they choose, the "democratically" elect puppet government will hand everything that is worth in Cuba to US corporations to exploit and steal, with giving Cuban people nothing but poverty, and dependence on US pity aid.

(cont...)

(...cont)

Now it is time for Cuba to move on? Posibly, but to where, when everyone abound them is moving their way, from Venezuela, to Uruguay, to Brazil to Bolivia, to...

That's why Che Guevara is a fighter for peace, while George Bush is an evil warmonger. Other noted fighters for World Peace include Yaser Arafat, Carlos the Jackal, Unabomber, Saddam Hussein, and Joseph Stalin (who is credited with organizing and financing the first international peace movements).

The Patriot Act must be rescinded in Congress as it infringes on the basic inherent rights of militant radicals to kill imperialistic Americans. We would not mind arresting the rogues and scoundrels who reject our sensible anti-American propaganda, but the terrorists aren't among those and should be allowed to roam free. They and us both find America not merely contemptible but despicable and unconscionably insane. They do it for God, we for history, we merely have different goads to take up the same justice.

...

Yes, understanding US as a Fascist state is important. Thank you GC. The indefinite imprisionment of people without trial would have been found onoxious and the act of a traitor to the founders of the USA.
Thank you for making this clear!
S.

Cheworks1959,
If anybody disagrees with me, thats alright Ignorance is no excuse. But Educate.
True the U.S supported Baltista who was a S.O.B, and in so doing only fueled Castro and the Cuban revolution with the support of then Communist Russia who were more then willing to help, my understanding is that Castro secretly asked the U.S for support to help over throw Baltista, but the U.S / C.I.A could not trust nor control Castro for being a Soviet Puppet and refused. Somebody please correct me. Company's like Bla&Bla sugar from Hawaii felt threaten economically and could not compete with Cuban Sugar prices and therefore helped support the U.S embargo, the same was repeated in San Salvador with DOLE and Company which helped create that mess ???? If the Truth hurts, good. Funny this coming from a Right Wing Republican Capitalist Individual. I'm so right I've gone full circle
In order for Humanity to take a step forward......THE TRUTH MUST BE TOLD. I'm sure we can handle it.