Cuba, Christmas in the sun - December 2015 (by Luke, August 2025)

Sometimes it takes looking back to see how lucky you’ve been. 2015 started with a trip to Iceland, then our wedding, our honeymoon in Mauritius and a family holiday in Turkey before finishing with Christmas in the sun in Cuba!

Both kids were with their other parent for Christmas so Gill and I decided to make the most of a child free Christmas and get some sun. We could have gone anywhere in the world and after much deliberation decided on the island of Cayo Coco, Cuba.

Cayo Coco is one of the islands that make up the Jardines del Rey archipelago which is situated on the northern coast of Cuba. ‘The Cayos’ are connected to the mainland by a manmade causeway that was built in the late 1980’s. One of the most famous guests of the archipelago was Ernest Hemmingway who based some of his novel ‘Islands in the Stream’ on his time in Cuba.

Cayo Coco has an international airport which was served by Thomas Cook when we travelled. No-one else from the UK seems to have taken the opportunity to run flights to Cayo Coco since Thomas Cook’s demise, and that, coupled with damage from a hurricane that took a while to repair, makes it a tough place to get to from England now.

If you imagine your ideal Caribbean beach, on the ideal Caribbean island - it’s likely that you are probably thinking of a place that looks exactly like these jewels at the top of Cuba. The sky is full of massive frigate birds, the sand is impossibly white and the sea is crystal clear. The white sand helps to make the trees look even more vibrantly green and the occasional clouds just make the sky look even better.

Nowhere can be perfect all the time though and we did have occasional rain showers but these were quite a relief from the heat, and passed quickly. There also were a couple of times when quite a lot of seaweed was washed in with the turning tide – this was quickly cleared by an army of hardworking hotel staff before it caused "any inconvenience".

First Impressions of Cayo Coco, Cuba

We arrived on 24th December – I can’t really remember what was going on in our lives at the time but I must have been working hard; I slept pretty much from take-off to landing, it was incredible! The transfer from the airport to the Melia Cayo Coco was smooth. When we arrived Gill treated us to an upgrade – a lagoon over-water room.

From check in we both knew that this was going to be a special holiday. The welcome was so warm and friendly and from the start the staff couldn’t do enough for us. Friendly locals was one of the main themes of the holiday – the Cubans that we met were brilliant, and so happy to take time out of their days to have a chat to us. The gardeners at the hotel were always working with such pride to keep their gardens looking pristine and even made hats from palm tree fronds for us to wear.

The upgraded room was well worth the cost (especially as Gill paid) – sunrises over the lagoon were beautiful and I could fish without leaving the terrace. The lagoon fishing was relatively tough actually, I had read about people catching barracuda from their balconies but this wasn’t to be for us, we only caught small fish.

I remember this holiday as being one of the few that we’ve been on where we both ended up on sunbeds around the pool. On Christmas day there was a special show in the pool as part of the Christmas celebrations. We also made the most of the various bars that were included in our all-inclusive package.

The food was really good. I often get a bit bored of the buffet style dining at an all inclusive but this was a class above much of what we’d experienced before. I started a couple of days with lobster and champagne, and we also treated ourselves to a special breakfast in our room looking over the lagoon.

We spent quite a lot of time fishing across the week. I had my usual spinning rod with a selection of lures and imitation bait, as well as prawns from the restaurant. I looked like an amateur compared to the fly fishermen/women who had absolutely all the gear though! While I was catching small bonefish on imitation crabs we saw tourists setting off covered from head to toe in UV protective clothing, with every bit of kit that had ever been invented. Cuba really was a fisherman’s paradise, no matter what type of fishing you did, and the stories that we heard of the fish that people had caught were remarkable.

Out and about, exploring our little part of Cuba

We went out exploring on the Sunday, taking the shuttle bus from the hotel to Cayo Guillermo. The bus journey itself was an adventure, and you definitely had to stay alert. It was an open top bus and there was a lot of overhanging vegetation…if you weren’t paying attention you would end up getting slapped by a tree!

One of the places we explored was Playa Pilar – one of the most amazing beaches we’ve ever seen. Cuba was stunning at almost every turn but this beach was remarkable, absolutely beautiful!

It seems that in some respects (or for some people) Cuba has got more relaxed. I understood that locals were not allowed onto the Jardines del Rey archipelago but that had changed when we visited as we met a really nice chap who was a Cuban doctor, enjoying a beach day with his family. He was initially drawn to us by seeing me fishing from the rocks and came over to say hello, share some tips and watch for a while. This interaction still is firmly in my memory as a way of showing how fishing can unite people across the world. His local knowledge (gained during his time fishing with his father and grandfather) worked a dream and I caught a few nice little fish.

After a while fishing we walked across the beach, along a boardwalk and to a restaurant where we ate the freshest seafood. Once we had finished our food we got a taxi to the causeway between Cayo Guillermo and Cayo Coco to try some fishing. The taxi itself was a thing of beauty – a Fiat 125 (from the late 1960’s/early 1970’s), it was beautifully kept and ran so smoothly. The Cubans are adept at keeping old cars running, often with parts that they have to manufacture themselves, and this was no exception (despite being a taxi!)

I had (and this is a bizarre description for a fisherman) a bit of a lucky escape while fishing the causeway because I didn’t catch anything too big! In hindsight I should have taken a heavier fishing rod and targeted some of the massive tarpon that can be caught but I was happy catching smaller fish while waiting for the bus home.

We had a moment of worry that the last bus had been cancelled when it didn’t turn up on time so we decided to try and find any sign of life to get some help for a taxi or a lift. We met the nicest local who was finishing off his day’s work tending some gardens. We chatted for ages as the sun set, he was worried about our chances against the mosquitos if we were still out when it got dark but luckily the bus turned up before we got eaten.

The warmth of the Cuban people was evident everywhere we went. I’m not sure whether some of it was down to Gill speaking Spanish, or whether it was just that they have fewer tourists than other Caribbean islands. I’m sure that the type of tourist that goes to Cuba is less likely to cause ‘tourism fatigue’ than in some other destinations in the area (me trying to be diplomatic…then giving away exactly what I’m hinting at in the next sentence!) I was just reading recently about the Americans and Cuba – it seems now that if you visit Cuba it is harder to get a visa for America…yet another tick in Cuba’s box!

On the Monday we took a trip along the long causeway to the mainland on an organised tour. We started off by visiting the city of Morón. It was noticeably hotter inland. I remember Morón being busy and bustling, but every photo I have shows it looking quiet and empty! Morón is known as the ‘City of the Rooster’ and has a statue of a plucked rooster at the entrance to the city – we saw this while on a horse and cart tour (which explains the awful photo).

The city was very picturesque with lots of arches and pillars. A lot of it felt like stepping into an old western film, but with lots of colour. We visited a bar for a piña colada or two, some live music, and for one of us (not me) to do some salsa dancing.

Next up was Laguna la Redonda – here we travelled through the mangrove channels and across the lake in a speedboat. We saw some massive termite mounds and then the captain handed over control of the boat to Gill.

After lunch we set off for a crocodile farm where we got up close and personal with iguanas, snakes, birds, and baby crocodiles. We also saw loads of full size crocs (and gave them all the space that their size suggested we should!) Once finished at the crocodile farm we headed back to Cayo Coco.

The rest of the holiday was spent eating, drinking, fishing, and sometimes even chilling, in the vicinity of the hotel. It wasn’t until the day of our flight home that we turned left out of our hotel. The reason we hadn’t before is that this was the direction of the other hotels and, at the time, we had a deserted beach if we turned right. I think this might not be the case anymore as it looks like there is a new hotel to the right as well now. Anyway, turning left took us to an absolutely stunning beach called Playa Trindade. It was so much like a postcard it even had trees hanging over the crystal clear water – we were both a little bit sad that we didn’t discover it earlier in the holiday.

I pretty much run out of superlatives when I talk about Cuba. I feel like it was a well-rounded trip (although I did fish pretty much every day) where we had a nice mix of lots of activities. Relatively speaking this was a good value for money holiday – most of what we did was ‘self-guided’ apart from the one day where we paid for a tour.

I’d go back to Cuba in a heartbeat. In fact, I think we probably would have gone back already if it was possible to book an ‘easy’ trip to Cayo Coco like we did 10 years ago. Realistically there is so much of Cuba to discover (it is the largest Caribbean island) that going to the same place would be silly. I’d like to discover the ‘real Cuba’, spend time with more amazing Cuban people, drink more of their rum, and eat their food. One day…I just need to design the itinerary, and find the time, and the money!