There's not much worse at the start of a holiday to find you have arrived at your destination and your luggage has gone awol.

That's just what happened to our party for a "dream" wedding in Cuba.

One of the bridesmaid's heart sank after a 10-hour flight from Manchester Airport when she watched everyone take their suitcase except her.

Inside the vital case were the bridesmaids' dresses.

All that could be done was to postpone the wedding for a week, hoping that the runaway suitcase could be found.

There were all manner of conflicting accounts where the suitcase had gone and it took almost a week for it finally to arrive – flown in to another Cuban airport and then sent by taxi across the island in the middle of the night.

The saga spoilt the first part of the party's holiday, particularly for the bridesmaid who only had the clothes she stood up in for the first week.

Luckily, she was among friends who rallied around and lent her various items to get her by.

Many of the cards and wedding paraphernalia had been printed with the first wedding date, and, of course, all these were wrong.

As the wedding party talked to other holidaymakers they soon realised that her ordeal was far from unique and either someone had suffered something similar, or they knew first hand someone who had.

It's never happened to me or mine either, thank goodness, but this sort of thing really should not happen.

I haven't done a time and motion study of what goes on behind the scenes at airports, but it can't be rocket science to get it right.

Perhaps those bar-coded luggage labels they put on suitcases should also be colour coded, so that if a case gets put on the wrong trolley it would be more easily spotted.

It's my view that whoever is responsible, whether it's the tour company, the airport handling company or the airline, the person who suffers the loss should automatically be given a free flight, free holiday and given compensation running into thousands on top.

I know we can claim on our holiday insurance, but this is a wonderful cop-out for the faulty handling company which is the one which should be hit hard in the only place they can be seriously hurt – in their pocket.

The same goes for British Airways who have got things so disasterously wrong for so many people.

Perhaps the government should legislate to make it happen and perhaps then we wouldn't have quite so many holiday and travel disasters.

Cuba is a wonderful holiday destination and I can recommend it – except, that is, for the mosquitoes which all seem to have hob nail boots on!

Now is the time to visit, before the island changes for ever, for change it must.

Now that the Castro era is over, I can see this Communist (they say it's the only true Socialism) island adopting ever more capitalist ways.

On one level, the people are well looked after. There's free and good education, to university level, and no illiteracy.

There's free health care and it's good, the State provides a roof over people's heads, albeit very basic, and everyone gets a basic food ration, so no-one is starving.

There's also a job for everyone – no unemployment.

With the collapse of the USSR which was backing up the Castro regime, the island had to change tack to get foreign exchange to enable it to import the items it could not make itself.

Although on one level the State is looking after its people, wages to buy anything other than basics is very low, and because people working in hotels and in tourism are getting good tips it's drawing doctors, dentists, teachers, and other professionals out of their jobs to work behind bars and wait at tables where they can earn many times more.

All those beautiful Spanish colonial properties in Havana are in a terrible state and falling to bits, and there's not the money to even begin the enormous job of restoring them.

The odd few are having work done to them but the task is overwhelming.

Oh, and so you know, it wasn't the nuclear missile crisis which resulted in the American blockade of Cuba.

The official line the Cubans are told is that they were much better than the Americans at an Olympic Games and America was so peeved it imposed economic sanctions.

That version was told to me in all seriousness by a teacher who was out Havana tour guide.

On the flight home I was amused to hear that our dear darling Alistair is being banned from pubs up and down the country for his Budget and it got me thinking where else we could ban politicians who seem hell-bent on messing up Britain.

I'll leave you to suggest a hit list!

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