Partagas Festival Opening Dinner 2014

[tmac77]

nice Post Mike. It was great to meet you down in Havana. Good times. the Opening dinner was great despite a spatering of rain here and there. A bit embarrassing though for the Partagas folks however as the Partagas Seleccion Privida LE 2014 was not yet available as I am sure that they were hoping to introduce this cigar during the festival week. All in all however another fantastic week with good friends (old and New) drinks and cigars.

BTW those La China Robustos that were handed out during the dinner were fantastic.

[Balboa]

wow looks like an amazing time. thanks for the pics !!

[dublincigarsmoker]

Hi Habana Mike, and the rest of the community.

It was fantastic to meet up with many of you in Havana. I struggled with names there - but adding in Forum IDs has me totally thrown, so excuse my lack of references.

I hope I'm doing the right thing by adding my snaps of the opening night to this post, as opposed to creating a new one. So here goes:

We all managed to find our seats at a series of tables strategically located on the periphery to facilitate a speedy exit in the event that the heavy rain came:

The formalities began with the Partagas team being welcomed on stage. Hamlet made a grand entrance to rapturous applause from the FOH tables which surprised the audience, and more so all of Hamlets bosses. It was a somber start to the evening as tribute was made to Massimo de Giovanni who had recently passed away:

Rob soon had us distracted, and enjoying ourselves again, personally selecting cigars for forum members from the various handouts:

The dancing troops put up a show as the mist turned to drizzle:

After a great night, a small rebel group of diehards aimed for the Gato Tuerto for a nightcap:

[...]

Very classy black and white pictures, thanks for sharing Rob!

[CanuckSARTech]

Great pictures, Rob. Great to see you post (once more), LOL.

[Ryan]

After a great night, a small rebel group of diehards aimed for the Gato Tuerto for a nightcap:

IMG_3075.JPG

I must find out if I can rent that house to the right of the Gato Tuerto there. I think I could make it home to there unscathed, usually.

[Habana Mike]

Hi Habana Mike, and the rest of the community.

It was fantastic to meet up with many of you in Havana. I struggled with names there - but adding in Forum IDs has me totally thrown, so excuse my lack of references.

I hope I'm doing the right thing by adding my snaps of the opening night to this post, as opposed to creating a new one.......

After a great night, a small rebel group of diehards aimed for the Gato Tuerto for a nightcap:

IMG_3075.JPG

Hi Rob, this is the perfect place to post about the Festival and thanks for the photos.

Was a blast hanging out with you and the gang.

What is this Gato of which you speak

[PigFish]

Thanks for sharing guys, looks like a lot of fun. -Ray

[CUBANO]

Nick's my new Hermano! He helped tremendously in making the trip a reality.

It was awesome to finally meet him and all the other boys from around the world/web!

My Pleasure Amigo. Glad we made it and we had a blast smoking cigars with you.

[Bartolomeo]

Great pics Rob and Mike, pleasure to meet both of you, good times....

[El Presidente]

Thanks for the photo's gents

It was pouring rain all afternoon leading up to the Partagas Opening Night which was to be held open air at the Plaza De Almas.

Getting a little concerned, I contacted Hamlet at 4pm to see what was the "Plan B" for the opening night.

"Hermano...Buddy...No Plan B"

It stopped raining less than an hour before it kicked off. it drizzled a few times, threatened to rain and a decent wind was blowing ....but there was a Plan B.

Plan B entailed running the complete night as if you were watching a video on fast forward at 16X

They pulled it off as within half an hour of the sub two hour event it started to seriously rain. Well done to all the Partagas Team!

There were plenty of highlights of the night:

• Hamlet being last welcomed to the stage for a Rockstar reception from our tables later he said he was most appreciative if a little embarrassed. I said we thought they had announced "La China".
• The English MC for the night who had swallowed the complete dictionary of adjectives. We were in tears of laughter. It never crossed my mind that the Red and Black of Partagas defines/ensues leadership.
• The mongrel dogs at the foot of the tables who refused to eat the entree when offered

...and the night only got better post!

[GottaBeKD]

Lots of posts from last week around here. It was amazing to meet the different folks for the first time and all the different groups and events going on. I hope to make it an encore next year this time with some faces to the names already.

What is this Gato of which you speak

Oh no the one-eyed cat. Dangerous place and lucky to get out of there unscathed.

[AbuAmelia]

Great pics! Thank you!

[CUBANO]

A trip of a lifetime.