{"id":2821,"date":"2012-11-14T10:45:14","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T15:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/?p=2821"},"modified":"2020-06-22T17:37:01","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T21:37:01","slug":"things-to-bring-to-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/things-to-bring-to-cuba\/","title":{"rendered":"Things to Bring to Cuba to Give Away as Gifts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Until last month, I had yet to visit Cuba &#8212; ever. I&#8217;d done the <a title=\"all inclusive\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/vacations-packages\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">all-inclusive<\/a> vacation package type trip before, but <a title=\"Cuba vacations\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/matchmaker_00_0N_SS_cuba.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cuba<\/a> was a new destination for me. The moment I began to ask around about where to stay, what to do, and so on, I was quickly flooded with the following tidbit of advice, &#8220;Bring lots of dollar store stuff to give the staff.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That turned out to be a solid piece of advice, but in the weeks leading up to my departure, it wasn&#8217;t nearly specific enough. So I started looking online to see if I could find any more information about what kind of things to bring to Cuba, who I should be giving it to when I get there, how often, how much, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Surprisingly, I didn&#8217;t find very much info on the subject at all. A few bits and pieces here and there after hours of research didn&#8217;t really give me what I was looking for &#8212; a quick &#8216;n dirty list of what to bring to Cuba. So here it is, look no further, your &#8220;things to bring to Cuba to give away as gifts&#8221; list:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Kids tooth brushes (fun stuff like Superman or Dora)<\/li>\n<li>Tooth paste, mouthwash, floss<\/li>\n<li>Deodorant, antiperspirants<\/li>\n<li>Hair scrunchies &#8212; a lot of them. I took a bag of scrunchies and gave them to our housekeeper on day one, along with the Spiderman tooth-brush and tooth paste. She was so happy she was nearly in tears, as if she&#8217;d hit the jackpot. That&#8217;s when I realized I probably could have shared the wealth of those scrunchies around a bit more!<\/li>\n<li>Feminine hygiene products<\/li>\n<li>Vitamins &#8212; both adult and for kids<\/li>\n<li>Reading glasses, sunglasses<\/li>\n<li>Toys for kids (crayons, colouring books, yo-yos, anything really!)<\/li>\n<li>Flip flops or Crocs &#8212; bring down some shoes you&#8217;ll use while you&#8217;re down there, but leave them behind when you go.<\/li>\n<li>Bubba mugs! This is a fun one I didn&#8217;t realize until I arrived. All the Canadians at the pool had Bubba mugs &#8212; which they used for the entire week then left behind for staff. \u00a0What a great idea!<\/li>\n<li>Soap, shampoo, conditioner &#8212; again, bring down small bottles you can give away, but also bring down larger bottles you&#8217;ll use while you&#8217;re there, then leave it all behind.<\/li>\n<li>Gardening\/utility gloves. The landscaping staff is often forgotten, and they were oh so grateful when we gave them all clean, heavy-duty gloves to work with. We saw them all week with bright (maybe not so bright by the end of the week) white new gloves.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These seems like everyday little items to us, but to most of the locals in Cuba, these are highly coveted items. In the greater scope of our wallets, it&#8217;s really nothing for us to spend $50 to $100 at a dollar store buying things to bring to Cuba. But it can really mean the world to hard-working Cubans, who just don&#8217;t have access to the things you and I take for granted.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from gifts to bring for the locals, we&#8217;ve created a list of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/bring-cuba\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">what to bring to Cuba<\/a> to include documents, clothing, and more.<\/p>\n<p>Now it&#8217;s your turn &#8212; what have I forgotten? Please feel free to share your thoughts and add to the list of things to bring to Cuba!<\/p>\n<p>Check out the Government of Canada website for more information on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.canadainternational.gc.ca\/cuba\/bilateral_relations_bilaterales\/canada_cuba.aspx?menu_id=7&amp;lang=eng\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cuba travel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class='et-box et-info'>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class='et-box-content'><p><strong>Other tripcental.ca Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/best-resort-cuba\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Best Resort in Cuba<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/havana-cuba-travel-guide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Havana, Cuba Travel Guide<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/cayo-coco-hotels-attractions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cayo Coco Travel Guide<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/varadero-travel-guide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Varadero Travel Guide<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Until last month, I had yet to visit Cuba &#8212; ever. I&#8217;d done the all-inclusive vacation package type trip before, but Cuba was a new destination for me. The moment I began to ask around about where to stay, what to do, and so on, I was quickly flooded with the following tidbit of advice, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":""},"categories":[3551],"tags":[],"modified_by":"Amanda Stancati","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2821"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2821"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22265,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2821\/revisions\/22265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tripcentral.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}