Great Vacation

The hotel was great, staff were friendly and always made us feel welcomed. The food was good, there were 2 snack bars to chose from and we knew that the food could be repetitive at the buffet so we used these to change things up. The beach is amazing, it is a bit of a climb to and from but there is a walkway without stairs, just a bit more of a walk. Our flight was cancelled on departure day and the staff were quick to rebook a room and kept us informed. We did the Bay Adventure excursion w [... read more]hich was well worth it and also took the bus to a nearby market which was fun. We would return to this area and this resort.

Disappointed

Overall the hotel, grounds and people are wonderful. Unfortunately the shortages of food and supplies are beyond the control of the hotel personnel. The people of Cuba are wonderful hard workers and are doing their best to create a GREAT guest experience with what little supplies they are receiving to work with.

Sol Rio de Luna y Mares

Food (with full expectation for Cuba limited food choices based on multiple Cuba trips) was completely unbearable. If planning diet/weight loosing trip than it is right place. It looks like Melia managment chooses which weeks to provide normal food and which are bare minimum to survive. Beside the food, great hotel/beach/fellow tourists/service

LOVE the staff and the beach

Very attentive wait staff. Wonderful very clean beach. Pool was ideal. Will definitely make sol rio our annual go to resort in cuba To top it off...the airport in Holguin is so easy to fly in and out of

Beautiful Property and Beach

Overall we had an enjoyable stay here. The property itself is beautiful and well laid out. The beach was beautiful with warm and clear water. No seaweed. Mosquitoes very minimal as they spray often. Rooms could have been better. Mattresses were not overly great, bathroom had a strong sewer odour, and there were intermittent periods without water which was frustrating. Food was typical Cuban fare, got a bit repetitive but we always found something to eat. Snack bar was the best lace to  [... read more]get fresh food with a beautiful view overlooking the ocean.

Simply WOW

Everything about the Luna y Mares was AMAZING, Esmeralda Beach and the staff most of all. The buffet was good and well stocked, the bars had many drink options and the "À la carte" restaurants were wonderful (I need the recipe for that cuban bean soup!). The gardens are beautiful and grounds extremely well kept. The rooms are clean and spacious. All in all, even if my luggage was delayed for 5 days (nothing to do with the resort), it was an amazing stay and we will definately be going back.

Over all Amazing! No complaints!

The Hotel is super clean and well maintained regardless that it is starting to show its age. Certain areas would need a refresher but overall not an issue. The ocean view & beach; just paradise! The staff is attentive and the service is excellent. I recommend & would return anytime!!

The hotel is good, within reasonable expectations.

September 16-30, 2025. The flight was smooth. I had to pay $55 for checked baggage, but only once. Baggage return from Cuba was free. The charter flight to the hotel took less than 90 minutes on a new, comfortable bus. I was assigned a room in which everything worked except the air conditioning. I insisted on being moved to another room. This one did work, but I had to manually turn it on and off repeatedly. The hotel and room 1024 were clean and generally in good condition. The food exce [... read more]eded my expectations, but there were still some shortcomings. They had eggs, bread, butter, cheese, edible sausages, pork, chicken, and a little fruit. No tomatoes or greens. For Cuba, this is definitely a four-star meal. Yesterday's compositions were limited. The yogurt and juice seemed to have been diluted with tap water. I've had food poisoning for the past four days. The snack bar was good. The weather was fine the entire trip, but it rained for the last four days. The temperature was 24/32°C. The water was very warm, 28-30°C. The beach is good, 5 out of 5. The bottom is a bit steep. If you can't swim, be careful. Beach shoes are not necessary. There are no rip currents. Coral reefs are within a 1-1.5 km radius. The loud noise from the entertainment wasn't too loud. The staff was busy with their work, and the results were visible.

Girls trip 2025

Spent a week at this beautiful resort at the end of May with 5 great friends. The staff was incredibly friendly and welcoming! Had a gorgeous view of the pool and ocean from my 2nd floor balcony. The room was comfortable and I was impressed with the water pressure & temperature in the shower. The resort is very clean. My maid was so sweet. She had my room cleaned every morning by 9am and always left swans or hearts with towels & flowers on my bed. A short walk down the stairs/elevator and [... read more] I was in the lobby, buffet, bar and pool area. The food was pretty good. Lots of fresh bread, butter, eggs every day, good breakfast sausages, yogurt, soups, salads, chicken and fish, hamburgers, french fries, papaya, mangos, rice, pickles, tomatoes, red beets, etc. The buffet had cooking stations for omelets, grilled fish & chicken, etc. The bars always had beer, gin & tonic, rum & cola, pina coladas, mimosas, mojitos. There are several stairs down to the beach but it was worth every step. Fluffy white sand and the ocean was crystal clear with so many shades of blue. There was a bar/restaurant and washrooms on the beach. It's not buffet style, they take your order and serve you. The views from the resort are amazing! We took some beautiful sunset photos of our group! Went on a horse & buggy ride to Guardalavaca. Our guide gave us lots of great information and pointed out things along the way. We stopped at a market with lots of vendors and a place to purchase beverages. There were also vendors set up in the lobby area almost every day at the resort. Shows in the lobby from 9-10 every night. We especially enjoyed retro night on Wednesday. We planned ahead and dressed up for the night. Had fun on the dance floor. The resort was very quiet with low occupancy when we were there so not much going on activity-wise. May be different in high season.

Girls Trip 2025

Best start to vacationing is a short bus ride to the resort after a long day of travel! The only thing I missed was those who couldn’t make the trip. Beach was beautiful. Staff was great. The things that could have been better were out of anyone’s control! Well done.

Beautiful Beach and Staff

The beach is beautiful, the rooms were very comfortable. The staff go out of their way to make your stay memorable. The resort is a nice size and very easy to get around other than the walk to the beach but it is sooo worth it once you are there.

Beautiful Beach and Staff

The beach is beautiful, the rooms were very comfortable. The staff go out of their way to make your stay memorable. The resort is a nice size and very easy to get around other than the walk to the beach but it is sooo worth it once you are there.

Sol Rio De Luna y Mares

This was a great resort it was a smaller resort which I really like. A group of 6 ladies went on this trip the beach was very nice there are quite a lot of stairs going to the beach but it also has a smooth walking path if you can’t do stairs. There is a nice restaurant on the beach with a bar so you don’t have to go to the buffet for lunch it is sit down and you are served the staff are so lovely.

Great value resort

The resort was quiet as we were late in the season, but still provided a lovely, relaxing stay. The grounds were well kept, food areas were clean, beach and pool provided welcome respite from the 30 degree days. There were some shortages of food and drink, but not enough to take away from the hard work of the staff to make things as nice as possible.

Still loving this place

After all the hardships on going in Cuba the workers are smiling and asking how we are. Always something delicious to eat and clean tidy beach and hotel grounds. Always trying to make our stay better. Full marks and 100% to resort. Muchos Gracias

Deteriorating Buffet

This is a lovely hotel with an intimate, shady beach, which unfortunately seems to be subject to gale-strength winds virtually every day. I had a really nice room that faced a quiet, private garden. I saw a Cuban pygmy owl in the tree in front of my balcony. It stayed there for a couple of hours! However, compared to my stay last year, the food has deteriorated markedly. I found it pretty much inedible, except for the black beans and rice and salad. There was, however, plenty of chocolate ice cr [... read more]eam always available, and there were always eggs and containers of yoghurt for breakfast. Some days, there was no bread. There were no hamburgers on any day at the snack bar, only hot dogs. The fried banana chips at the snack bar were great! And the two a la carte meals I had (one Cuban and one Italian) were delicious, and showed what the chefs are capable of when they are given the right ingredients. I found it sad that the buffet was so bad, and for that reason, I will not be returning to this hotel.

Great things: customer service, cleanliness, rooms, beach/snorkeling, coffees.

Barely passable: alcohol drinks (many ingredients are missing, never seen at the resort mojitos or conchancharas, for example; “orange juice” that is used for mimosas makes them undrinkable). Beer, gin/tonic, wines were always available though. Barely passable: food. Exactly one meat type available (chicken, sometimes pork) and one fish type (mackerel). Fruits - most days papaya, sometimes banana or guava. That’s it for fruits! Never seen oranges, grapefruits, mangoes, pineapples etc. The egg [... read more] situation was good, no shortages and that is a big plus. No bacon at all though. One edible ham, the other one looking like a flavoured carton box fibers is inedible, little wieners the same, but finer carton fibers :). One time there was no bread. Side dishes: sweet potato, two types of rice always there, sometimes potato, sauteed chard/vegetables, beans. They also have a special station that makes fried rice with vegetables. Salad ingredients are mostly good: tomato, cucumber, swiss chard, lettuce, sweet peppers, onion, cabbage. Watch out sometimes for not very fresh tomatoes though. Catchup, olive oil, sweets, ice cream are always available. Waiters/waitresses are very attentive and friendly. Beach loungers guys are treating distribution of loungers like their private enterprise. It becomes annoying if you come to the beach the second time in early afternoon and they make sure there are no loungers available so they can collect tips again. They should lay off a bit. There were constant scheduled blackouts outside the resort, but the resort itself didn’t experience it except for a couple of surges that didn’t affect anything. Entertainment was mediocre except the daytime Cuban band that plays on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. They’re awesome! There is a new thing: they bring returning customers from all the nearby resorts to a special dinner at Plaza Pesquero (it’s not on Pesquero beach, it’s literally a plaza away from the resorts). They even had mojitos there! A couple of bands were playing, food/drinks were ok. Overall I wouldn’t go there a second time. Basically you are taken away for the whole evening and buses return to the resort closer to 10pm. I’m not sure why they do this, maybe due to a lack of entertainment options on the resorts? The returning guest dinner at the resort was just a failure. We were redirected from La Pinta beach restaurant to the snack back and there was nothing special about the dinner except the wait and the mosquitoes :) We were trying to get a paid lobster dinner but to no avail. It looks like you can buy a lobster dinner only outside the resorts now. Similarly, the situation with cigars is almost dire: SRLM shops had very limited selection of single cigars for sale, Almirante doesn’t sell cigars at all(!) and the specialized cigar shop next to Almirante had a couple of types only. Clientele: about 30% Germans, 30% Quebecois, 20% Cubans, 10% Ontarians, 10% Canadian Eastern Europeans. Overall I would still recommend this resort if you can handle limited and repetitive food/drinks.

Nice Resort and Beach, Lacks Proper Food Otions

The lobby and café bar were my favorite spot to hang out at the resort. Amazing, hot cappuccino were enjoyed daily. The food options on the other hand were extremely disappointing There was no bread for 5 days and the only fruit option was papaya that did not taste in season.

Viva Cuba

We've been to Cuba a dozen times in the past 15 years, but were a little apprehensive this year with news of power and gas shortages, lack of basic essentials, and such. But this is a great little resort, very friendly and helpful staff, nice beach maybe 20-30 minute walk from end to end. We were pleasantly surprised by the food, it was ok and we didn't lack for anything. They say the resort has been renovated, but in Cuba style, a little paint here and there, but still a little tired... bed [... read more]s were comfy. There are quite a few stairs from the main hotel area (lobby/pool) to the beach 3-4 flights... so if you are a little weary of stairs and walking, you may find it difficult. If you love Cuba... you will love this place, if you need the extras of the Dominican or Mexico, don't come here... but for the price, it really is great! Big shout out to the staff!!!

Beautiful resort

Staff are excellent, rooms are nice. No shortages of food or alcohol. The beach is one of the best I've seen. No complaints what so ever except my vacation is over. Xxx̌xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx