Locating the rent house you want to stay during your vacations is just the start. After your request we start our day-to-day process making your reservation happens. In this guide we explain how this process works so you have a clear understanding of where are your reservation process and what’s next.

1- You Locate a Rent House in this Web Site

You’re taking a big step coming to Cuba for your vacations. Locating a rent house, room, apartment, or hostal to stay is your first step. Review the list of Varadero Rent Houses, Habana Rent Houses, Santa Clara Rent Houses (or any other popular destination in Cuba) browse them all, and view individual house descriptions, details, price, rooms and pictures. You can use the rent house locator at the sidebar which displays groups of rent houses grouped by room, by location, by privacy options or by kitchen type.

2- Making your reservation (Booking)

After reviewing our rent house list and picking the one of your choice, you should fill the rent house reservation form at the bottom of the rent house description, or fill directly the generic Book in a Rent House form at the top of the website. We require this information to have a quick insight of your needs.

Among other things we ask for:

• Name: to address to you later properly
• Email: it’s very important to provide a valid email address so we can reach you. Many clients lost request because they write a wrong email address. We will be unable to reach you if you type a wrong email address here
• Phone: you can also provide your phone and we can call you to continue with the reservation process
• Country of Precedence: it’s important to know it to have a better cultural approach when interacting with you
• Bedrooms Needed (How many bedrooms you will need): this is mandatory information, rent house owners need to know how many bedrooms they will need to prepare, and the daily price depends directly on the number of rooms rented.
• Occupancy needs (How many people will be staying): depending on number of beds, some occupancy may be possible and others don’t, we always pass this information to the rent house owner and maybe he can put bedrooms together, or pull up a new one. Note that some rent houses have restrictions about the occupancy, some rent houses charges an additional fee for larger number of guests.
• Date Range: This is the start and finish date for your reservation so we can know how many nights you will be booking
• Custom Message: Please, feel free to talk as much as you want :)

Hit the send button and we will get a notification with this data and will get back to you shortly. Please note that due to working hours, time zone difference and other factors such as vacations, weekends, holydays, etc. we may not reply instantly, but you will always get a timely response about the rent house status.

3- Receiving our Acknowledge

After getting the notification about your reservation, we send you a human acknowledge that we’ve read your reservation. We decided not to send an automatic template message instantly back, we prefer a more-human approach and manually reply once we’ve truly receive the notification. This acknowledge is a simple email message or a phone call back notifying you that we've receive the notification and we will proceed to check for availability to continue the process.

4- Checking Availability

We contact with the rent house owners to check availability. Please note that due to the characteristics of internet connectivity and availability in Cuba, not all rent house owners can keep updated booking information online, so we need to call them by phone, or go to their house to verbally check for availability. This process is always verbal by phone or physically.

If rent house is not available we will let you know. We generally offer an alternate rent house who do is available and fit your occupancy needs.

5- If Rent House is Available

In this case, we notify you about the availability, and we send the full reservation details for your confirmation.

The details include:

• Rent house information
• Reservation dates
• Updated price and total reservation price information
• Any answer to your questions

After reviewing the rent house reservation details (we send you the links to the documents) you should confirm us if you will officially book the rent house. In that case we proceed to officially book those days with the rent house owner and we continue with the step that will confirm 100% your reservation (see next step).

6- Paying the first day retainer

Many rent house owners require a retainer for an amount equal to the first day of rent. This is a commonly used technique among Varadero rent house owners, please read the Rent Houses Rules and Code of Honor. This retainer is used as a commitment of your arrival. Many rent house owners faces daily problems with guests saying they will come and at the end, by one reason or another, they didn’t come, so the first day retainer is a technique used to avoid lost reservations and get a higher commitment for both parts. Please read more about the rent house owners and guests problems in the guide: Ensuring your reservation: pay the first day retainer or not?

We suggest to pay the first day retainer, even the rent house owners don’t require it. This will ensure your reservation 100%.

If you decide to pay it, then we send you a separate invoice (Retainer document) with the amount to pay and the ways to pay it, usually PayPal or direct bank wire transfer to Cuba, or using an AIS card, or Transcard.

After the retainer is paid, we send you a signed invoice as acknowledge we’ve received the payment. Then we pass that money to the rent house owners and get their signature too and send you a scanned or printed copy for your acknowledge.

7- Rent House Reservation Confirmation

While in payment step the reservation is official and owners usually confirm it because they know guest are in payment process. We update Rent House Reservation Confirmation document. This is the proof of your reservation. It contains important and critical data about your reservation such as:

• Guest information
• Reservation dates
• Check-in time
• Check-out time
• Rent house exact address and map
• Updated reservation total price you should pay on-site at your arrival at the rent house and checking-in.
• Discounts, offers, services
• Any other information you need to know

Please view an example of these document here:

You can also download a sample pdf version.

You should print this document as your reservation confirmation and present it on-location at your check-in. The rent house owners will also have your contact details and you can call them directly once you’ve got this document, but is not necessary because your reservation is 100% safe and confirmed.

Having the reservation confirmation document and the retainer document, is your indicator that your reservation is official, and it’s booked.

8- Your arrival date

The day you arrive to Varadero is an awesome day, plenty of sun, excited about your vacations the beach… remember to print your reservation confirmation and present it to the rent house owner.

The reservation confirmation states the check-in time, usually 12pm or 2pm. If you arrive earlier you can always go to the rent house, it may be ready.

What you should expect from the rent house owners?

Receive a clean house; receive a polite conversation all the time, receive protection and a peaceful environment.

What the rent house owners expect from you?

Be on time, don’t lose your reservation, be a clean person, protect the property (don’t destroy it)

Helping others

We encourage you to share your reservation experiences, your Varadero experiences and your rent house experiences in general in our website. You can locate your rent house using the link sent to you in your confirmation document, and leave your comments to help other visitors with your useful tips.