Casa S

We stayed with Pedro in his house called Casa S. Pedro was an amazing host. He picked us up from the airport and arranged our stay in Trinidad even arranged our transport from Havana. Together with his family he made us feel home. We loved neighbourhood and we walked to the old Havana as the house is not far from the places we wanted to visit. The house was clean and it filled our expectations. We loved our Cuban experience and no doubt without Pedro's help would had been different. We highly recommend this place for anyone who wants to taste a truly experience in Havana.

Lieber Pedro, liebe Marylis,
unser Kubaurlaub startete bei euch mit einem herzlichen Empfang. Die Sprachbarrieren wurden in englisch, mit einem offline-Sprachwörterbuch und mit kreativer Mimik und Gestik gemeistert. Ihr habt uns wunderbar unterstützt, wie beispielsweise das Taxi collectivo bestellt oder weitere Reisetipps gegeben.
Die Wohnung befindet sich in einem Mehrfamilienhaus im dritten oder vierten OG. Das Treppenhaus ist sehr eng und für großes Gepäck eine Herausforderung. Die Zimmer sind klein, mit einer Klimaanlage ausgestattet und haben ein Bad mit Dusche. Im Gemeinschaftsraum steht ein Kühlschrank. Das große Frühstück ist abwechslungsreich: Brot, Eieromlett, Wurst und Käse, etwas Butter und Marmelade, Pedros Spezial-Kaffee (sehr lecker).
Danke für die guten Gespräche, die Unterstützung und euer Vertrauen. Liebe Grüße auch an Rosa und deine Schwester
Regina und Ralf

The house was cute, close to La Rampa and the Malecon. Pedro picked us up from the airport, but him and his wife don’t live at the apartment unfortunately. We where hoping for more of an authentic stay which was how it sounded on their page.
Beds weren’t the most comfortable, the living room was good space to chill between sightseeing. Breakfast was very basic, in other casa there was a larger breakfast included.
Unfortunately it was below the standard of our further nights in Cuba.

The first days at Pedro's casa were nice: nice breakfast, clean room, clean shower. We talked a bit which was also fun. However, at the last day everything changed.
There seemed to be a miscommunication about what time the taxi should bring us to the airport (a service Pedro offers). The taxi arrived at 5 in the morning instead of 5 in the afternoon, although, we already sent our flight details and time in some emails before. We came to know that his sister in law, who lives in Hong Kong takes care of the emails from homestay and Pedro himself barely speaks English (and our Spanish is also not good). This all was not a problem for us until Pedro seemed to blame us for the miscommunication: we asked if we could have breakfast at which we get an angry reply and he refused to make it. We already apologized for the fact that he had to wake up early, but this was not our fault, so his respond was really out of place and I decided to start a conversation about it and showed him our emails. Then he said sorry and eventually made our breakfast at 12.30. All seemed right now but at the time we were walking downstairs to get our taxi it appeared we had to share it with 2 other guests for 25 cuc per couple for 1 taxi. So 50 cuc in total for one taxi while normally it's 25 CUC per taxi to the airport. Pedro rapidly closed the taxi door, hoping we would drive off and pay the extra 25 CUC. Even the taxi driver was angry at him and yelled "open the door." Pedro just said: you have to pay the driver for coming at 5 in the morning and then walked away. It wasn't that he only disadvantaged us for giving us the blame for his own mistake, but also the other guests (which were frustrated as well) because they were told that they would get their own taxi for the same price. At the end we payed the taxi driver the 25 CUC(and the other guests also payed 25 CUC) because we could understand that the blame was not on the driver and labour should be compensated. We could clearly see that the taxi driver didn't like the situation Pedro put us in as well.

This all made us very disappointed in Pedro and our last moments in Havana and really made a dark spot on our holidays. We left with a bitter feeling because we trusted Pedro. For us it wasn't about the money, but about the way he treated us as guests. We would not recommend spending time at this casa even though it 'seems' a nice place. He is not great at solving problems.