Great Resort

We Loved the resort. A lot of walking which we loved. Beach is beautiful. Staff was super. Only complaint would be that they do not stock the fridge with beer or supply coffee in the room everyday. Would definitely go back!

Amazing beach and wonderful staff

My wife and I visited this resort starting March 15, 2019, and thoroughly enjoyed our stay. First of all I wish to recognize and thank the staff that are attentive and caring and look after the needs of the numerous guests. The long and beautiful beach and the magnificent ocean are one of the highlights of this hotel. There were activities provided by the hotel, but we did not participate in any, so I have no opinions to offer. We just took in the BEACH... There was always lots of food with [... read more] many choices, and constantly being replenished in the buffet. There are also snack bars for additional choices. And then there was the endless fresh coffee beans being ground to prepare the delicious Espresso, Late, Cappuccinos, Spanish coffee or whatever you desired... We are both willing and happy to return to this resort again.

Simply the Best !!

It was our first trip here and definitely wont be our last. We absolutely LOVED this resort. We would of stayed much longer if we could have. The restaurant selections, The food, The service from waitresses and waiters to bartenders, yardworkers and drivers etc. Everyone was so friendly and helpful. The pools were beautiful, but the beach...that beach was just gorgeous. We could have walked up and down it all day everyday. I 200% give it 5 stars. Honestly i could say so much more but im back at [... read more] work unfortunately hah. Go people. Go !!

Very nice clean resort

Rooms clean nice grounds pools beautiful water warm Beach is fantastic staff friendly We would go back to this resort Kids travelling with us love the kids club We were a group of 14 and everyone had a good time!!!!

Nice resort

They need to spray for mosquitoes. The main buffet is way to small for the amount of people. Room was nice and clean but no water pressure. Staff very nice and professional .........................................................................................

Great Resort

Our room was very clean and well kept by our maid We had the "elegance" package so our beach towels were already in our room when we arrived. The beach was amazing and the pool areas were clean and tidy with the pool boys regularly making the rounds to make sure all was in order The entire resort , lobby area , buffets, a la carte restaurants were all taken care of . The food choices were a little restricted to my taste but we always found something good to eat just that the food could have b [... read more]een hotter(temperature wise)

Beautiful resort, but service slow

The first night was not good!! They gave us a room on the top floor to start with and we are seniors. I have problems with my legs and my cousin has hip and back problems. The next room we got was on the first level After arriving in the room with our luggage we noticed a mildew smell and then water on the bathroom floor into the bedroom part. We had to go back to the main resort which is only about a 5 minute walk, but it was pouring rain! They finally gave us a room on the second level in [... read more] a different building. It was very nice, clean and comfortable. We also had a bad experience at the main bar. We stood there for at least 15 minutes waiting to get served. They just looked at us and ignored us. We finally left and went to another bar.

Decent resort for the cost

Nice property. Spacious. Beach was wonderful. Large clean pools. Room was good - hot water Firm bed and good A/c Food was ok -as expected in Cuba. Staff were friendly and helpful. Food needs to be labelled better. No shrimp available on resort for entire week. One desk person a bit obsessed with towel return upon our checkout - we left them in our room as instructed - but she made us run back and get them- made to feel like we were stealing 2 towels?? Also, we brought our own extra towe [... read more]ls - good plan, since it took 3 days to get two pool towels.

Disappointed

Honestly not sure where to start! Starts with a beautiful beach, loved the beach, sun and sand. As for the hotel I'm disappointed in cleanliness and the staff willing to help with anything. There was only one bartender that was actually helpful with poring drinks. Limited staff, definitely short staffed and slow. Unfortunate that the staff wasn't trained up to any other country standards. I would have been bored if the weather wasn't so amazing. Limited day time activities. An [... read more]d nightlife was almost none existant. But overall I had a good time meeting people and swimming.

Beautiful resort!

The rooms were spacious and well maintained. Loved the lobby/bar area. Great pools and entertainment area. Multiple restaurants with plenty of food options to choose from. One of the best beaches In Cayo Coco.

Great lobby, entertainment, beach however,.....

There are many positives and some things that are just 'typically Cuba' and you need to accept and not let it wreck your holiday. Positives: As always, beach and turquoise water is the best. Lots of lounge chairs at pool and beach. Very nice pool areas too. Beautiful main lobby building which is important as that is your evening. Good entertainment in lobby before the 'big show'. Super talented!! We went to 4 a la cart restaurants. Recommend the salmon at the Italian and steak at the Inter [... read more]national. We all loved the Mexican. It makes a nice break from the buffet but sometimes we'd go there after our reservation to top up on dessert. Loved their desserts and fresh baked breads. Good omelette stations too. Negatives: Surprisingly small buffet for a large resort. We found the food salty but could always find something to eat. Some washrooms either don't have toilet paper, toilet seat or a working door. Be selective and be prepared with your pack of tissues. Not a big deal. It always made the trip interesting. As this is a newer resort, the vegetation, palm trees are not as mature and fulsome. We love the tropical grounds so this was somewhat disappointing but did not make or break our holiday. We did not get a new bottle of water in our room for 3 days despite calls and visits to customer service. A little frustrating! We did bring our on reusable water bottles and got them filled at the bars and restaurants. Would recommend doing that.

Less than expected from Melia.

Previously visited Melia eight times (6x Punta Cana,2x Cayo Coco) so we know what to expect from Melia. Our recent trip to Melia Jardines del Rey was first two weeks in March. The resort is very nice in cuban way, meaning that there is better Melias in Dom.Rep. Also you can still see some damage from last hurricane. Other than that grounds are well maintained for the size of the resort. There is lack of bathrooms around pools and some restaurants and is long walk to get there in some location [... read more]s. If you like beach, is one of the most beautiful, even more than Punta Cana. Rooms are nice, we stayed at building 21 room 212 witch was first floor, had pool view, corner unit, so you have extra window in the room, and was close to pool, beach, restaurants and lobby, just the toilets take 3 to 4 times to flush. Food is like every resort in Cuba, don't expect much but you survive. The shows sucks, just some lobby musics is some days OK, but they are loud. Overall nice resort for Cuba and if you watch the price is not that bad. Also if you booking put in your request for building and floor they usually fulfil it.

Would not recommend

my wife and i were at this resort in early March. We booked 2 weeks and ended up asking to be moved to a different resort after the first week. We have been to Cuba many times and have a good idea of what to expect. This was our experience from start to finish: Check-in: we arrived at the hotel around noon, every one was herded into a room where we handed in our passports and were assigned a room. However only a small portion of the people there were assigned a room. The rest had to wait. It wa [... read more]s like a lottery. We waited till 3pm to get a room. Not unusual for an early arrival, but a strange system to make guests feel welcome. Room: nice clean large room. comfy king size bed. Lots of hot water in the shower. TV worked. One 1 litre bottle of water 2 beers in the fridge. Cleaning/Maid: not great. pretty sure the floor wasn't washed all week as the same stains were on the floor all week. one day we had the" do not disturb sign" up and did not have our room cleaned. at 4 pm I noticed that we had no water and very little toilet paper. i found the maid and asked for both of these items. Twice she told me there was nothing she could do. i tried calling the front desk but both phones in the room did not work. Customer Service: after getting no where with the maid i went to customer service to ask for water and toilet paper. i saw them write the info down. At 7pm we were out of toilet paper so i returned to customer service, when i stepped out of my room i stepped into ankle deep water. water was leaking from somewhere into the hall and creating a huge pool. I reported the leak and once again they wrote it down and assured me someone would be by soon. At 10.30 pm i returned again to find out what is going on. they assured me that they knew about the leak and that i would have water and toilet paper soon. at 10.45 a bottle of water showed up. at 11 pm a lady showed up with towels. i gave her my empty roll of toilet paper and she took off once again. by 11.15 we had toilet paper. no one came to clean up the puddle in the hall. it wasnt cleaned up till the maids came in at 9am the next day. this leak happened twice and both times it was ignored until the maids came in the next day. Restaurants: Buffet was very poor. none of the food is labeled. it was hard to identify the dishes. always running out of plates, butter and bread. when you would speak to staff and ask about any thing they all claimed that they did not know. instead of saying 'let me find out' it is 'i dont know'. when they did have bread it was dry and poor quality. overall the food was very poor quality. the a la cartes are hit and miss. we had a good experience at the Bistro but poor experiences at the Ranchon and the Tex Mex. rude staff and poor service. Snack bars: always out of pizza or chicken or what ever. not sure why they have a menu as half of what they have on it is not available at any given time. Bars: every day the bars were running out of beer by 1 pm. this is not an exaggeration. out of all the bars it was hit and miss. when we had rum drinks they were watered down awful. my wife is not a drinker, at all, she drank 5 mohitos over a 3 hour period and had no effects. normally one and a half drinks would make her loopy. Staff: many were ok and even good. unfortunately too many of them are rude and very unhelpful. Towels: we got 2 towels on arrival. inspite of going to the towel hut multiple times every day to exchange them we could not get new towels. the staff had no idea how to deal with this issue. i blame this on the hotel management. towels came in once a day at random times so you never knew when to go. when they did get towels they were handed out in less then 45 minutes. apparently we were lucky to get towels at all as many people we spoke to never got towels. when i was at customer service i actually heard a manager tell a guest that they should just use there room towels at the beach! Water: you get one 1 litre bottle per room per day. we tried exchanging our empty bottle at bars and restaurants and were told no. the bars had no way of filling your bottle and there are no water stations any where. if you wanted more water you had to buy it from the store. Beach: 5 star beach. not enough palapas but plenty of chairs. Pool: nice pool. plenty of algae on the tiles but clean and cool water. Resort Bathrooms: the ladies bathrooms were awful. either no toilet paper or no door or no toilet seat or any combination of the 3. always dirty. broken taps and broken soap dispensers. As I said we are very familiar with Cuba and have low expectations, we know what to expect and not to expect, but this was awful .The frustrating part is that so much of what we experienced could have been avoided with good customer service techniques. we just felt like the Hotel Management did not care and that this allowed their staff not to care. No one wanted to take responsibility. 6 days in we went to Yanine the Airtransat rep at the hotel and asked to be moved. Turns out we were supposed to see a Hola Sun rep but she helped us anyways! Thank you Yanine! She spoke to the Manager and they managed to get us switched to the Memories Flamenco a few resorts further up the beach. we were treated like royalty compared to our experience at the Melia. Our week at the Flamenco was awesome.

Malia hardiness de Rey

The rooms service was amazing, the grounds very clean and well maintained, but the food was so bad. They need improve on the food. Same meals for lunch and dinner. Chicken and fish not well cooked. People are great, good service from front desk.

Melia jardines del ray...cayo coco

terrible---i have been to 7 resorts now and this one takes the cake. worst ever and i was not the only one that did not like it.most of the people there were happy to leave could not get out of there fast enough...the only thing good about this resort is that there was a pool and sun...never recommend it or ever go back

Awesome resort, staff and amenities

The resort had everything one needed for a vacation stay: three buffets, six a la cartes, three snack bars, and not one, but two pools with swim up bars. The Promenade featured the a la Cartes as well as two Churro stations and the Ice Cream bar and more. I might have missed some as well! The large, clean, airy rooms were fully equipped. Who really irons while on vacation?? Not me, but I could have! We even had a king sized bed (a first for me in Cuba). The staff were all friendly and  [... read more]helpful - I must say our favourite was Miguel at the Sunrise Pool Bar - His quick, always friendly service and great sense of humour made poolside a great spot to be. The beach was to die for - pristine white sand, miles of sandy bottom and calm waters allowed for repeated refreshing dips in the ocean without crashing waves. The food - everybody always talks about the food in Cuba - it was actually pretty good here, not just basic sustenance (17 trips under my belt). The a la cartes were better than the buffets of course, and the Sunset snack bar had pizza and fried chicken. The beach buffet seemed to be better than the big buffet, with fewer options but fewer people :-) My favourite spots: The Beach first and foremost. Then the Sunrise pool bar (East side of the resort), the Sunset Snack Bar (West side) and the International Bistro a la Carte (on the Promenade). There is also a little bar just off the lobby where Roly does some amazing flair bartending (and makes a wicked "Miami Vice"). I overheard only one complaint while I was there, but if a bar is in the process of closing, I really don't think it's fair to complain that they didn't serve you. Hidden unadvertised gem? The market outside. No need to take the bus, just walk out the lobby, turn right onto the road and you'll be at the Plaza de los Flamencos in two minutes where lots of vendors have souvenirs and gift items. Tip: If you want to go to the other hotels that they mention, make sure you go to reception and get a day pass for the ONE hotel you want to visit, and go early. The bus does not really do circuits of the Cays, so check the schedule carefully. We met some great people and had a great time, I'd love to go back here again and I'm not generally inclined to return to one place as I like to explore. You'll LOVE it!!

Great Value! wonderful Beach!!!!

So let's start off this review by using the phrase "managing expectations".....my wife and I have never been to Cuba before so of course this was our first time. The Melia Jardines Del Ray is one of quite a few Melia's in Cuba. It is by far one of the Larger ones easily having a total customer population of 2000..... It has a little over 1000 rooms and is quite a large Facility. Staff were very friendly and the overall condition of the Resort was pretty good. You can tell although that is doe [... read more]s need a bit of work here and there, but while we were there we could see maint staff working on various projects. Thus you can tell that they a re working to keep on top of things. Takes about 10 min to walk from main lobby to the /beach, and average time is about 8 min from 1 spot to another....they have many little white electric bus/ carts that can whisk you around...which was nice!! Food - of course we have heard that food in Cuba is bad, but honestly, my wife and I really thought they did a good job. The ala Carts you didn't get that much (was more about presentation)...but decent...and the Main buffet was more than fine. Food was fairly neutral, but flavorful. Just find something you like and stick with it!...lots of Rice and bean dishes! lol Our 2 excursions were pretty decent - did a snorkeling and a Cuban Rum sugar cane and Cigar tour - that was pretty cool...you really got to see how the Cubans live...which is really quite a eye opener.... Beaches there are Amazing!.turquoise water, white sand...like wow!!!...so we spent a lot of time there! lol....watch out for Sand flies they bite like crazy!!! so bring bug repellant... All in all nice place - point to improve on would be service a bit...they are a large resort so at time you can see the staff trying hard...but overwhelmed!....next bathroom cleanliness.....nuff said...….. but value for you $$ - it was a good vacation for sure!

So much potential

We liked the property, the room, the location, the beach and some of the restaurant but the resort had a terrible buffet and the staff was a bit unwelcoming. The pools were amazing but they are cold !

Not the greatest resort!

This was our second time to this resort, we were there last year. So dissapointed. The resort ran out of beer, wine, bread, french fries, there was only one buffet opened, the beach bar at the far end of the resort was closed but one day, some toilets did not flush or had no toilet seat and the doors did not close; the smell of sewage was everywhere; we saw the beach restaurant pump out what looked like grey water that smelled like sewage out in the walking path to the beach, the water just pool [... read more]s and stays stagnant; i think this contributes to the moskitos! the buffets had very little food and poor selections; the resort sells liquor and wine bottles all over the resort where they did not last year; they sell lobster and tbone steaks that you can pay for; If you tip, you get service; if you don't, the service is not so good. All of us got sick everytime we ate. Immodium did not even help! We will not recommend or be going to cuba any time soon.

Big change

We spend a week at melia Jardine del Rey all together their was 14 of us ...the trip was ok not great....we had a great room building 1...service was good...we had to ask at the front desk for water...beer fridge was fill 3 times in a week....24 hour bar dint have food for few days no bread no fries....around 9 pm they were out of beer n wine at night..no towels for first 2 days....food was down really disappointed...this was r third time going to this resort....we found out that all Melia was o [... read more]wn by Cuban army...spain 20 years contract was up....if you wanted good wine we had to buy it....we found this time everything you wanted you had to pay for it....the beach r still beautiful love Cuba but nothing feels like the cuban experience.....everyone of us after eating in the buffet we all had bad diaria.....everytime so that put a big damp on our trip...shows really not much there...nothing like pass experience.....we think to take a break from Cuba for a few years 😶