Tropicana
Calle 72 # 4504
e/ 43 y 45, Marianao Havana, Cuba
Reservations Tel: 270110/279147 between 10:00-16:00. 21:00-02:00
Closed on Monday

You can make a reservation for show with a 3 course dinner, or for just the show and a quarter bottle of rum and coke.
Since it opened in 1939, the world famous Tropicana has become a shrine to tropical sexuality. Surviving the post revolutionary culling of American neocolonialist symbols of sin, it is now a big tourist attraction. Two hundred dancing queens shake their tassles, ruffle their feathers and let it all well and truly hang out in this fleshy feast.
The heavily choreographed routine is performed to tunes that run the gamut of Cuban musical genres. With an open air setting, known as Paradise Under the Stars, you get your money back if it rains.
There is a disco until the wee small hours. It is best to take a tour, which includes transport, as a taxi from La Habana Vieja costs about 15 CUC

Parisien
Hotel Nacional de Cuba >>
Tel: 333564/7. Fri-Wed 21:00-02:30
Reservations advised

An excellent show inside the Hotel Nacional de Cuba that lasts longer than Tropicana and is of an equivalent standard.

Salón Rojo
Hotel Caprí
Address: Calle 21 y N, Havana Vedado, Cuba
Tel: 333747

This is a Tropicana-style show with a disco afterwards until 4:00 am; all drinks are included in the admission.
Synonymous with 1950s Mafia wheeling and dealing, the Caprí was Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano's turf and in the realms of fiction it was the stomping ground of the mother of all mobsters, Don Corleone.
Scenes from the Godfather II were shot in the Caprí, which is closed until the end of 2003 for renovation work.

Club Turquino
25th floor of the Hotel Habana Libre
Tel: 8334011/ 2230-0400
Cabarets start at 23:00 and 01:00

Great setting with amazing views from the 25th floor of Hotel Habana Libre.
The roof opens and you can dance under the stars. The very sleek NY-style bar serves expensive drinks at 6 CUC
Live bands often play to a rather apathetic group of nouveaux riches Cubans and tourists.
Unaccompanied males are likely to be fleeced as soon as they walk through the door.