Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Cuba - by Sea & Air

In days gone by, when travel between Key West and Cuba was unrestricted, there were two ways to get between one and the other:

By Sea


or

By Air

Despite what you may have heard, there is no Key West - Havana Bridge-Tunnel
.

Two years ago Key West International Airport was approved to offer flights to Cuba.  However, the efforts of several potential operators (one of them was Cape Air)  to gain approval for such flights from both American and Cuban authorities failed for various reasons.  Now, however, there are reports that an operator, that is someone with planes and pilots, may be on the verge of success in getting the needed approvals.  We're following that and will provide updates as they become available.

As with everything related to Cuba, there will be significant restrictions on who can travel and what they can do while there.  The Huffington article gets into that.

As far as sea travel goes, there are no commercial operators who currently offer passage between the islands.  I asked one of the owners of the Key West Express fast ferry  several months ago if his company was making plans to offer such trips, and he assured me that they are,

The matter of Cuba opening up for Americans to travel freely across the windward passage (and for Cubans to do so also) has been a subject of conjecture for many years.  The impact of those events will very likely change the tourism dynamic for Key West in ways that are not yet well-understood.

Nevertheless, we're prepping ourselves to go over.  Although it might be nice to be among the first to go, we'll wait until we are free of any restrictions that wouldn't exist if we decided to go to anywhere else on earth.  Janet's 70th birthday is February 4th; maybe that'll be our target.


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