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Hypothetical Cuba Vacations

dagoR6 said:
Gonz said:
Hey dago, are you a troll or do you just enjoy blatantly spewing forth false information. Unless you are an attorney for the government I don't think you ought to be telling everyone on the board what you think/believe is legal.

So let me get this strait. You're going to go to Cuba but not spend a single penny with a street vendor, at a cafe, on a taxi or anything else right?
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I haven't seen the latest regulatory tidbit posted above and when bored I'll dig up the legal code and see what happens.

It is absolutely legal to purchase Cuban cigars through an intermediate, it's not legal to import them without properly declaring them, if someone thinks I'm wrong then post up so we can all remember to never mention one when smoking overseas.
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Sorry, once again you are wrong. You cannot purchase most Cuban-origin products, including cigars, if you are a US citizen, regardless of where you are when you purchase them. There is also an across the board ban on the importation of Cuban cigars, regardless of whether or not you were licensed to be in Cuba.

Linky

You are free to express your opinions on this forum, but you are not free to state false facts and not get called on them.
 
Mike33 said:
dagoR6 said:
Gonz said:
Hey dago, are you a troll or do you just enjoy blatantly spewing forth false information. Unless you are an attorney for the government I don't think you ought to be telling everyone on the board what you think/believe is legal.

So let me get this strait. You're going to go to Cuba but not spend a single penny with a street vendor, at a cafe, on a taxi or anything else right?
Click to expand...

I haven't seen the latest regulatory tidbit posted above and when bored I'll dig up the legal code and see what happens.

It is absolutely legal to purchase Cuban cigars through an intermediate, it's not legal to import them without properly declaring them, if someone thinks I'm wrong then post up so we can all remember to never mention one when smoking overseas.
Click to expand...

Sorry, once again you are wrong. You cannot purchase most Cuban-origin products, including cigars, if you are a US citizen, regardless of where you are when you purchase them. There is also an across the board ban on the importation of Cuban cigars, regardless of whether or not you were licensed to be in Cuba.

Linky

You are free to express your opinions on this forum, but you are not free to state false facts and not get called on them.
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These are facts, I would suggest dagoR6 bone up on these and correct his stance.
 
I haven't seen the latest regulatory tidbit posted above and when bored I'll dig up the legal code and see what happens.
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Dago,

Cherry picking information to fit your argument while ignoring facts which clearly contradict your statements makes your opinion meaningless.

Your position needs to follow logic in order for us to understand your point. Failure to acknowledge that purchasing Cuban cigars is illegal is a non-starter.

Until this occurs, I suggest you read more about the subject and familiarize yourself with the facts before you engage in this discussion again.
 
Dago, another member of CP named Nasty has a quote in his sigtag, I suggest you read it.
 
I'll just let commies do what commies do and stick to the gazillion other places to visit in the Caribbean.
 
NullSmurf said:
I'll just let commies do what commies do and stick to the gazillion other places to visit in the Caribbean.
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Exactly! There's many places that are just as nice or nicer and an awful lot easier and less worrisome to visit.
 
WXPN in Philly is sponsoring a humanitarian trip to Cuba. You can read more about it here.

Edit: I didn't see that Tone-ny already beat me to this link.
 
Sorry for the delays, I've been enjoying my Christmas vacation in Tahoe and have just returned yesterday. First off, merry christmas! Not sure why some of you guys are so hostile.

There are some basic laws regarding travel to Cuba, which (as I understand it) come from the Trading with the Enemy Act, which is legal. Cuba has been designated as the enemy, and falls under that act. OFAC is charged with enforcing the spirit of this law and has been challenged in court many times, sometimes successfully, because they are excercising discretion based on your 5th ammendment rights, which should be unconstitutional, but isn't for some reason.

OFAC says many things and does many things that don't bear up under the law. They change their mind continously and publicly state that they are changing the CACR rules based on their decision and policy, no legal changes whatsoever. The law hasn't changed since 1917, the cuban regulations change constantly. OFAC gets away with this because almost no one challenges them to the point that they rendez-vous with a judge.

I guess this is why some people think I'm "cherry-picking" information, because there's conflicting information from every time they change their policy. I'll be the first to admit wrong doing here, after doing more in depth research I found out that in fact OFAC had spontaneously changed their rules again in 2004 (a little more current than my general information I'm afraid to admit) and now have decided to remove fully-hosted travel from being legal because, get this, they think that people may be fully hosted but are actually still paying their exit visa although they are not required to. Read more here:

http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/o...s/20040616.html

I have friends who have travelled to Cuba on the general licenses and specific licenses and all have brought back cigars with a letter from the Government explaining that they can bring 100 dollars worth of cigars and goods back. Unfortunately I assumed this to still be true and in fact OFAC arbitrarily changed the rule again 2004 (no new laws, just a new policy change) stating that the 100 dollar limit was no longer in effect and that congress was now exempted from the limits altogether. The above link indicates the removal of the right, the below link is a good article where someone does it and explains. Note that it's from 03, my friends last went in 04 or 05 but I think OFAC was maybe 1 year or later in actually implementing all of their new rules. (at least through the Mexican border)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...16/TR178410.DTL

I apologize for stating incorrect information as my facts were clearly a few years out of date. I don't try much to keep abreast on recent changes and OFAC doesn't mail out "updates" to their policies and procedures. I do know that it is legal to travel to cuba. This is a fact, there are some that believe it's not and at at occasion OFAC states that it is illegal (which is patently false). This was ruled by the Supreme Court (Douglas, majority, 1964) and reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in 1984 reagan v wald which affirmed that it is legal to travel to Cuba but not to spend money without a license.

The crux of the argument is that spending money is illegal there, so it's legal to go but you have to break the law to do it. This in fact has been argued for years as unconstitutional (it's been found to be constitutional) and Carter actually reversed the policy stating that it was legal to go to Cuba but not being able to spend money was a defacto bar on excercising the right. Reagan renewed the ban, was sued, and in Reagan v. wald it was found that you do have a consitutional right to go to Cuba but they have a consitutional right to keep *you* from spending money. (without a license)

Here's many links on the subject of it being legal to travel there:
http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/past-cases/reagan-v.-wald
http://www.legalcubatravel.com/
http://www.aclu.org/natsec/travel/21148leg20051017.html

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...29150242AACXZ27
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...26141731AAjvsLo

The rules were opened again 1999 by Clinton.

Hence people travel to Cuba all the time, some estimates at 200K americans this year alone. Prior to 2004 it was allowed to travel fully hosted, which many people do. It is clear that people are still operating under that belief, not understanding the 2004 OFAC rules, and probably not declaring their Cuba travel at the border and so not getting educated on the change.

In any case, I continue to urge everyone to get a license and go to Cuba, they'll give one to anyone and there are plenty of great organizations that will help facilitate the entire process:

here's a couple links:

http://www.usacubatravel.com/
http://www.cubalinda.com/English/Sections/HowCubaUS.asp
 
To clarify...since 8/04 OFAC has not allowed the entry of any Cuban products into the US unless it is literature/music that is not for commercial purposes. John
 
verhoevc said:
So, I was wondering, for those that have taken make-believe hypothetical vacations to Cuba. I was wondering how ya'll went about hypothetically booking, where you hypothetically went, how much it hypothetically cost, etc.
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1) Travel agent.
2) Havana is nice. There are a lot of resorts, too, if you feel like laying in the sun.
3) Cheaper than nearly anywhere else in the Caribbean.

In case you're worried, they don't stamp your passport. They stamp your visa card - I suppose that it's technically a laissez-passer as it's not part of your passport. Health care in Cuba is also phenomenal, and in case of major problems, go to your embassy - the US Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy, that is.
 
dago...Your stats are also a bit misleading. 200K US Citizens visitng the island in one year is very far fetched. That would be about 4000/week or 550 daily. If you put 550 people in Jose Marti Terminal 3 they would be flowing out onto the streets. That airport is so small you could hit from end to end with a pitching wedge. John
 
Johnny-O! said:
dago...Your stats are also a bit misleading. 200K US Citizens visitng the island in one year is very far fetched. That would be about 4000/week or 550 daily. If you put 550 people in Jose Marti Terminal 3 they would be flowing out onto the streets. That airport is so small you could hit from end to end with a pitching wedge. John
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The arrive mainly on rafts, mitigating the stress on the airport.

Nobody knows obviously, lots of speculation, I found a really good google answer on the subject. Sucks that they cancelled that service:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=343739

Summary for the lazy:

2 Million total tourists in 2003 from any country in the world (that's 5,500/day guess it's a pretty busy airport but San Diego's dirt bucket airport serves 50,000per day off of one runway, so sounds about right.)

160,000 Americans travelled with permission, guesstimate of 30,000 without.

200,000 total people worldwide came via cruise ship, guess that answers my flippant response on rafts.

Anyway, San Diego Airport = crap = 50,000/day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_International_Airport
Cuba's airport at 5,500 a day seems pretty reasonable. That means with the same number of runways they are about 10 percent as efficient as San Diego, makes sense to me. 550/day would be like 1% as efficient with the same number of runways.

Ah, I was too quick. The answer was merely a wikipedia search away!


Almost 10,000 passengers a day go through that airport: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_Airport
 
dagoR6 said:
It's very legal to go to Cuba, you cannot spend money there without a general license or a specific license. OFAC hints strongly that you cannot spend money to go there, but it's verbal judo because you are in fact free to do so as long as you pay only a foreign carrier (and not a travel agent that simply hands a cuban carrier money).
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This is false.

If you pay ANYONE, you are in violation.

Where's Wilkey when you need him!
 
grateful1 said:
dagoR6 said:
It's very legal to go to Cuba, you cannot spend money there without a general license or a specific license. OFAC hints strongly that you cannot spend money to go there, but it's verbal judo because you are in fact free to do so as long as you pay only a foreign carrier (and not a travel agent that simply hands a cuban carrier money).
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This is false.

If you pay ANYONE, you are in violation.

Where's Wilkey when you need him!
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I would think this should clear it up: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1097.html

If you are an American, don't go there unless you can afford to pay the price.
 
dagoR6 said:
punk_lawyer said:
If you are an American, don't go there unless you can afford to pay the price.
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Or you can take a day to get a license like the 160 thousand people that went in 2003 according to the government.
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According to a link that you posted:
"According to Mr. Kavulich, 156,000 Americans visit Cuba each year, almost 90 percent of them Cuban-Americans making authorized visits home. A small number of journalists, academics, businessmen and humanitarian and religious groups also make 'licensed' visits.
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dagoR6 said:
I am going for the first time in two months to the Habanos festival, it is COMPLETELY LEGAL. No pass through billing, nothing.
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So do you have a license already?
 
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