Officials of the Kapok Hotel are not saying much about the fact Cuban President Raúl Castro and his official delegation are occupying several rooms at the 94-room four-star facility during their brief stay in Trinidad and Tobago. Contacted for comment yesterday, a Kapok spokesman said the fact that the hotel is 100 per cent locally-owned and operated may have been one of the main reasons why the hotel was the choice of the high-powered Cuban delegation. "We are a hotel providing a service and we are totally independent," the official said. President Castro and his delegation, who are here for the Cuba-Caricom Summit taking place in Port-of-Spain, checked in around noon yesterday. It was expected that the Cuban's would have stayed at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre, the original venue for the summit.
A well-placed source, however, told the T&T Guardian that the plan had always been for President Castro and his delegation to stay at the Kapok, located at Cotton Hill, St Clair, just a short drive from the Hilton, as well as the new venue for the summit, the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA).
For dignitaries like President Castro, Kapok's high end accommodations are luxury suites with king sized beds and separate living areas with a full kitchen, including a refrigerator, cooktop and a microwave. These go for US$178 a night. This is not the first time that the Kapok has accommodated a high-profile head of state. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez stayed at the hotel when he came to T&T for the Fifth Summit of the Americas in 2009.