Plan your cash carefully
Cash is the single thing most worth getting right before you leave home. Foreign bank cards are frequently unreliable in Cuba, and apartment stays are almost always paid in physical currency. Work out ahead of time roughly what you will need for both accommodation and everyday living, then carry it accordingly, because topping up your funds once you are on the island can be slow and occasionally difficult.\n\nConfirm with your host, before you commit to anything, exactly how much they expect and in which currency they want it. A clear agreement reached up front heads off awkwardness on arrival and forms the real foundation of a smooth, stress-free stay.
Communicate clearly with your host
Because apartment stays are run by individual licensed hosts rather than a company, direct communication carries enormous weight. Confirm explicitly that you are renting the whole apartment rather than a room, settle your arrival details and roughly what time you will turn up, and ask plainly how the host copes with utility interruptions when they happen. A host who answers openly and promptly before you arrive is a reassuring sign for the stay ahead.\n\nGood rapport pays off day to day as well. Hosts are very often the finest source of local knowledge you will find, from which nearby street to buy bread on, to how transport works, to where to change money or top up a phone.
Prepare for outages and everyday life
Expect that electricity, water, or internet may cut out at some point, occasionally on a schedule and occasionally with no warning at all. Travellers who accept this possibility in advance cope far more gracefully than those caught flat-footed by it. Choosing an apartment with a functioning kitchen, stored water in a tank, and a genuinely helpful host turns an interruption into a minor footnote rather than a ruined day.\n\nFinally, sort your wider logistics: know how you are getting to Cuba and which cities you will base yourself in, so that the apartment stay slots neatly into a well-planned trip instead of being left as an anxious afterthought.