Ah, Varadero. If you want the ultimate relaxation vacation, this beach town is for you. I can't tell you how many times I took my polarized sunglasses off to see if the water really was that blue. And it was! The sand was white and soft and the water was refreshing and clear. It was the best watching Florence play in it. She LOVED everything about the beach! She would lay down in the sand and dig her hands, feet and mouth into it. She had no fear of the water and would crawl as fast as she could into it over and over. Apparently only tourists are allowed at this beach which left it uncrowded and felt really safe. There wasn't any peddling like I've seen in many 3rd world countries. It felt safe enough where we could leave our belongings on the beach and all go into the water together. This was a great way to wrap up our trip before we headed back to the winter in Idaho.
We stayed in a little apartment we found on airbnb https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/7679359?guests=2&adults=2&s=B4Q0W8by that was conveniently located right across the street from the beach and walking distance to restaurants and shopping. I wish I grabbed the name of the restaurant we ate at our final night here because the food was soooo good! The bakery in town was awesome too. One thing that we thought was different was the supermarket. It wasn't very big and there was a whole isle of alcohol, another isle of juice and cookies, one isle with pasta and that was pretty much it. No produce or water. I'm not sure if that is due to an importation thing but it was a good thing restaurants were reasonably priced and close by. We stayed here for two nights which felt like enough time for us. I personally could have stayed another day but Tanner prefers to be a little more busy. We were there in January and it was pretty sleepy while we were there. I liked it that way and after dinner, we would go back to our apartment and watch movies on our laptop. It was quiet when we went to bed which was different than our stay in Havana. One thing to note was that the beds were NOT comfortable at all. They were hard and you could feel the springs. I would wake up sore from sleeping on my sides. Varadero is a two in a half hour drive from Havana and we took a classic taxi which was around $120 one way. We stopped at a pina colada "tourist trap" along the way but they were honestly the best pina coladas we've ever had! We caught a ride back to the Havana airport for $60 since it was a rental car that needed to go back to the airport. You just need to ask around for this option.