How is the restoration of Cuban resorts going after the hurricane? Hurricane Irma hit Cuba Do tourists travel to Cuba after the hurricane?

When will it be possible to send tourists to hotels restored after Hurricane Irma, what about the renovation of hotels in Varadero and when will Cayo Coco airport open? The ATOR Bulletin was looking for answers.

Recognized as the most powerful in the last few decades in the Caribbean, during the period from September 8 to 11. As a result, the disaster affected 14 out of 15 provinces of the country, resorts were especially hard hitin northern Cuba. However, thanks to preventive measures and the coordinated work of the Cuban authorities, none of the tourists were injured.

According to Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, the island is already receiving tourists from different countries. According to him, the Cuban government has taken all measures to achieve full. All restoration work is being carried out “in record time”, including the acceleration of the island industry, which is fulfilling urgent orders from hotels for the manufacture of furniture, engineering and the supply of building materials. According to the country's Ministry of Tourism, by November 1, all hotels on the island will be ready to receive tourists.

As the minister noted, currently At all resorts in the country, tourist facilities are supplied with water, communications and electricity without any restrictions.

The restoration of roads, beaches, and improvement of resort areas is underway. Thus, the roads to the resorts of Cayo Santa Maria and Cayo Coco have been completely repaired, which also facilitates the process of reconstruction of the damaged hotel stock there.

WHEN WILL IT BE POSSIBLE TO FLY TO CAYO COCO and CAYO SANTA MARIA

By November 15 renovations will be completed at the airport of the resort Cayo Coco - Jardines del Rey: the work here is recognized as the most complex and technologically advanced. Several specialized teams are working almost around the clock to restore the terminal. A small airport will serve tourists in this region in October Cayo Las Dunas.

For example, like Pullman Cayo Coco, have already completed cleaning of their premises and external areas, and have also undergone sanitization. There are objects on the restoration of which more than 100 people simultaneously work.

By mid-November, 14 of the 18 hotels in the Jardines del Rey archipelago (which includes the islands of Cayo Coco, Cayo Santa Maria and Cayo Guillermo) will be fully operational. All of them are expected to begin accepting tourists. from the first days of November.

It is reported that the hotels of the Cayo Santa Maria resort will be fully prepared to welcome tourists by early November. By mid-October it will be completely restored. five hotels with a total of 4,200 rooms.

The tourist area of ​​the most popular Cuban resort - Varadero. Currently there are already 47 of 52 hotels. No less attention is paid to the issue of restoration of vegetation, green and landscape areas. As Morrero emphasized, in general, the hurricane did not damage the beaches; moreover, in some cases, wind and waves brought more sand to them, which has already been cleared.

The remaining five hotels: Puntarena, Playa Caleta, Paradisus Varadero, Ocean Patriarca and Meliá Peninsula- will be ready to receive tourists Nov. 1.

ROADS AND MALECON ARE REPAIRING IN HAVANA

The restoration process of Havana is actively underway. With the exception of some hotels, almost all Havana hotels located on the coast have already been renovated. IN 15 of 18 hotels are already accepting tourists. The restoration of the Tropicoco and Chateau Miramar hotels is nearing completion.

In addition, the authorities are paying great attention to rebuilding the infrastructure of Havana. Flooded roads and tunnels have been repaired. The famous Malecon embankment, one of business cards Cuban capital: its individual members were destroyed during the flood. As they assure in Cuba, by the high season the Malecon will again be accessible to tourists along its entire length.

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It shares information on Hurricane Irma itself and its consequences.
Including in Cuba, Varadero.
I came across a message in this thread:

We are flying to Varadero, Cuba, the tour operator said that everything is fine there, there is no major damage, the hotels are accepting.

You need to look for positive moments in your vacation.
It was stormy that it was destroyed, but there will be advantages.

What can you expect from a tour operator other than misinformation?
Naturally, he doesn’t want to cancel or change anything.
The money has been paid.

What can you expect from theorists - of course, virtual advantages: last-minute tours to Cuba will become cheaper.
It will become cheaper – this is the key word among theorists.

What's happening in Varadero now?

Messages from the field, from the epicenter so to speak:

Today I returned from Cuba, there is no point in going there on the 16th: the spit is completely without electricity, there are very few hotels that have electricity from their own generators.

Most of the hotels at the beginning and end of the spit are flooded, destroyed and closed: windows are broken, and sometimes the buildings themselves. strong waves, which is why hotel security tries to keep them away from the water, coastline washed away - the waves swallow the entire beach.

The entire infrastructure, even in the surviving hotels, is damaged; there is nothing else to do on the hotel grounds except to entertain yourself; all excursions have been canceled for an indefinite period.

Flying back to Russia is problematic, since Aeroflot cannot decide on flights, the flight route, or the removal of tourists.
There is an airport in Havana, optimistic statements about the imminent opening of the airport in Varadero are unlikely to correspond to reality, since the Cubans are leisurely people; three days after the hurricane they did not even remove the largest debris of branches and did not really clear the roads.

Today's flight took off from Cuba 3 hours late and was originally planned to fly 10 hours to Oslo, refuel there for an indefinite amount of time and then fly for another 3 hours.

It is unlikely that you will enjoy a trip to Cuba anytime soon.

Varadero is pretty shabby and it will take longer to restore it than a resort in any other country, all other things being equal.
Due to bureaucratic restrictions and difficulties for foreign business, and due to the lack of money in the Cuban tourism public sector.

The Dominican Republic will be corrected and restored very quickly, it has always been there, and it did not suffer so much this time.
If a replacement is not offered and the money is not returned, be prepared that the service in Cuba will be extremely limited and of an even lower level than usual. Check carefully that you have not forgotten anything: you are unlikely to be able to buy anything on the spot.

Huge waves have torn apart the waterfront of the old colonial city after the island's northern coast was swept away by the storm. Residents of the Cuban capital found themselves waist-deep in water. Havana's communications are completely destroyed.

“This is a terrible disaster because most of the buildings are not prepared for the elements and will not withstand the flood,” said Cuban Yanmara Suarez, standing chest-deep in water.

Express information on the country

Cuba(Republic of Cuba) is an island state in the northern Caribbean Sea.

Capital– Havana

Largest cities: Havana, Santiago de Cuba

Form of government– Socialist Republic

Territory– 110,860 km 2 (104th in the world)

Population– 11.38 million people. (77th in the world)

Official language– Spanish

Religion– Catholicism, syncretism

HDI– 0.769 (67th in the world)

GDP– $77.15 billion (66th in the world)

Currency– peso

“In all the 49 years that I’ve lived here, this is the first time this has happened,” says Ernesto Losa, whose house, fortunately, was on higher ground and suffered the least damage. “The sea level has always risen, but there has never been a flood.”

Cuban authorities said wind speeds reached 150 km/h in the capital. On Sunday, Havana was left without electricity, water supply and telephone communications were interrupted. In some places, ocean water has risen higher than 500 m. The city municipality reports that the situation will not improve until Tuesday.

https://youtu.be/AeMpwB_Rg8o

Irma razed downtown Cuba on Saturday, ripping off roofs, uprooting trees and downing power lines. Cuban media reported that wind speeds reached 256 km/h. Authorities evacuated about a million people, about 4 thousand of them from coastal areas and tourist centers. There are no reports of casualties in Cuba.

Cuban helping hand

Now Cuba itself is in distress, but last week about 750 doctors were sent to help the regions affected by the atrocities of Irma - the islands of Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts, Nevis, St. Lucia, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Cuban doctors in the Dominican Islands

A small country with a population of 11 million does not remain indifferent to the victims of the disaster. Thus, a team of 600 Cuban medical workers worked in Sierra Leone in 2014 at the height of Ebola, and 1,200 Cuban doctors ended up in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. Who will come to the aid of Cuba today?

Hurricane Irma, which came from the Sargasso Sea, hit the northern part of Cuba. The wind, reaching a force of 200 km per hour, uprooted trees and tore off the roofs of houses. Many hotels on the island's beaches were damaged. A large-scale evacuation was carried out on the coast.

There are outages in cellular communications across the country. At least one bridge and several communications towers were reported to have collapsed. Dozens of coastal towns were damaged. No deaths were reported.

In the fishing town of Caybarien, houses were covered by a giant wave, after which all the streets and buildings were covered with viscous mud and algae. The country's capital was also hit by the elements. About 10,000 people were evacuated from central Havana due to the risk of severe flooding.

“To be honest, I expected more. I think I can fix the roof. But this will only happen when the water leaves the house, the level of which reaches a meter,” said Yolexis Domingo, 39, wielding a huge machete to cut down a tree that fell on his house.

“The trees in the park in front of my house are broken, and the streets are also littered with trees. Most of the roofs have been torn off, some houses are completely destroyed, the river that runs through the city is about to overflow its banks,” said Anaida Morales, a resident of the city of Camagey.

The hurricane is forecast to head toward Florida this evening. Squally gusts of wind and life-threatening rough seas were recorded on the islands and on the southern mainland of Florida, reports .

Earlier, the state governor ordered 6.3 million people to evacuate. In a recent address for those who have not left the most dangerous areas, he advised them to stay where they were because it was too late to evacuate.

“Hurricane Irma is moving towards the state of Florida in the USA, where active evacuation of the population is underway, mainly in the coastal zone. Due to unfavorable weather conditions, Saturday flights from Moscow to Miami are canceled,” the American meteorological service said in a statement.

It is known that when Irma passes through the territory of the American state of Florida, 3.4 million residents of the state may be left without electricity at the same time.

“We believe this could be our most challenging power restoration in U.S. history,” energy officials said.

Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) will temporarily suspend operations and close two nuclear power plants (NPPs) in Florida. The major Disney World entertainment center will be closed for two days.

However, it is reported that the meteorological situation in the Dominican Republic - where disaster previously raged - has stabilized. Air traffic has been fully restored and airports are operating as normal. Tourists temporarily displaced from the coast returned to their hotels.

Earlier, the US President held a meeting with government members to prepare for the hurricane.

“This is a storm of enormous destructive power, and I ask everyone in its path to follow all instructions from the authorities,” the head of the White House said.

The US Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense were present at the meeting with Trump. Trump also promised to do everything possible to help those affected by the hurricane.

He then declared a state of emergency in the state of Georgia as Irma approached.

“The Federal Emergency Management Agency has the authority to identify, engage, and provide, at its discretion, the equipment and resources necessary to mitigate the consequences of an emergency,” the signed document states.

Soon, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey also declared a state of emergency.

“Alabama must be prepared for the storm to come our way. We must also be willing to help other states. I am in constant contact with the rescue team to monitor any potential threat. In this regard, I am declaring a state of emergency,” she said.

Storm Irma formed in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the first major cyclone in the eastern ocean since Hurricane Julia in 2010 and the second major Atlantic storm since early 2017.

Tourists in Cuba had to be relocated from hotels damaged by Hurricane Irma; the infrastructure of the resorts Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo was most destroyed; there are no completely destroyed hotels in Havana and Varadero, the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR) reported on Friday. “Most tour operators reported the forced relocation of tourists from the most damaged hotels to others. Cancellations in Cuba are so far sporadic,” ATOR reported.

Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo were hit the hardest by Hurricane Irma. Tour operators who run their charters to Cuba planned to begin flight programs to Cayo Coco in October. The tour operator Pegas Touristik has not yet changed its plans for Cayo Coco and will resolve the issue as the situation normalizes.

Tour operator Anex Tour does not yet plan to fly to Cayo Coco, arguing that a number of hotels on the island cannot be restored at all, and the rest can be restored no earlier than in one or two months. Tourists who have already purchased tours to Cayo Coco from a tour operator are offered to change their destination, in particular to the Dominican Republic. According to tour operator ICS Travel Group, Cubans plan to restore hotels on the islands by November.

As ATOR notes, the situation in Havana and Varadero is much better. In the resort of Varadero, some hotels have broken glass, broken verandas, fallen trees, and electrical damage. The receiving companies promise that everything will be fixed within two weeks. The beach strip of Varadero was badly damaged and now the rubble is being removed there and new umbrellas are being installed. According to the Ministry of Tourism of Cuba, in the regions of Holguin, Baracoa, Camaguey, Trinidad, and Santiago de Cuba, the tourism infrastructure is functioning normally.

As specified in the message, in Varadero all hotels in the Melia chain are open and operating normally, with the exception of the Paradisus Varadero, Melia Peninsula Varadero and Royal Service Paradisus Prinncesa del Mar hotels. The most serious damage was the damage to the dome of the Meliá Varadero Hotel. They promise to put it in order within a month.

The hotel group Iberostar announced that almost all hotels in Varadero and Havana have returned to normal mode work. Currently, only Iberostar Alameda and Habana Riviera by Iberostar are closed for operational repairs. Anex Tour does not recommend tourists booking tours to Blau Marina, Iberostar Playa Alameda, Melia Peninsula, Paradisus Varadero, Paradisus Princesa del Mar, Ocean Varadero El Patriarka, Gran Caribe Playa Caleta, Sol Sirenas Coral, Belive Turquesa.

Forming in the Atlantic Ocean, Hurricane Irma last week became the longest-lasting hurricane at category five on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The Federal Tourism Agency on Wednesday reported serious damage to the tourism infrastructure in Cuba as a result of the passage of Irma. // Interfax