Good Resort (experience was not as good as previous visit)

What was excellent I use a cpap machine which requires distilled water and Candice at trip central contacted Marialys at Paradisus and it was waiting for me at front desk when I checked in. Marialys also arranged to book the al la Carte we wanted for us and the two other couples travelling with us so all was supplied on checkin. What was good Front desk check in was friendly, all spoke English fluently. When I needed something they were quick responding. Room maid service was very good [... read more] Piano bar service was very good I stayed in building 5 and they kept it very neat and clean. The stair rails on stairs in that building are not stable. What was average or needs some improvement Food was average but you could always find something. (Expected in Cuba) What could use some improvement It was hit and miss on if you went to a bathroom outside your room if it had any toilet paper (that should never happen in a 5 star resort and was common) Washroom closes to beach had a hand dryer not working all week and no paper towels supplied A few bars had issues with beer and instead of having cans available told you to go to next bar (never seen that before in a 4 star so I did not expect it in a 5 star resort) Rock house had no pizza in afternoon one day. (That is the main meal during day) 24 hour snack bar does not have enough staff to handle peak periods. They try but when busy could take over a 1/2 hour before you get served. Only option if you are leaving early in morning but not wort missing your transportation to airport. This was my 3rd time in this resort and previous time they knew and had my room upgraded when I checked in. Now where it is run by Meliá they do not seem to want to care if you are a return visitor. Our previous review on this place had the title paradisus delivers. Now I have to add almost delivers. Would I stay again, maybe depending on price point but I would consider other options next time I go to Varadero where before this was my preferred choice. Not related to hotel or trip central but I had some issues with Hola Sun so will never go under one of their packages again. I let tripcentral know details

Worst resort ever

Service is zero , food is negative 100 , no ketchup, no mustard, no pizza, 90% of menus not available. Food was terrible. Room looks very old. My wife got food poisoning froom tuna sandwich at snackbar.

Pretty good resort

Very nice staff and beautiful weather. The room was a little tired and they seemed to run out of things. Beach was spectacular and we had a very nice time. Sunwing plane was uncomfortable but to be expected. The holiday was good value.

OK Resort

Bar and wait staff were very friendly, front desk staff was not. Food was edible, but expected for Cuba. At one point we witnessed serving spoons being dropped on the floor and put right back for us to use. Beach was beautiful, Grounds and pool were beautiful Room was run down, and a bit dingy but the maids were lovely and doing the best they could. To use wifi you are only given 3 hours at a time to use in lobby or pool area, very frustrating

Close to Paradise

A long beach great for walking and shallow warm water to allow you to walk out and swim, lots of beach activities. Pool side could activities are very limited , seems older folks stay by the pool and more active folks by the beach Rooms are clean , liked the concept of smaller buildings throughout the complex, lots of different foods but seems to all taste the same, a bit of spice would help.

Definitely not a 5 star! 😪

We were not at all happy with this resort for the following reasons: - we lined up for an hour and a half to book specialty restaurants but were not able to get all the ones we wanted - it’s an all-inclusive resort but there were 2 days they ran out of wine - there were several occasions we went to a bar for a drink but they had no glasses - we went to the pizza snack bar but they had no cheese so they couldn’t make pizza - although the room was spacious, it was dated and not clean - i [... read more]t was very hard to get a chair at the pool or on the beach as they were all “reserved” - towels or books on them but nobody on them - while we weren’t expecting great food, it was mediocre at best - cappuccino machine wasn’t working when we went for coffee - machines were out of order in the gym - the water in the pool was too cold to swim in All in all, the resort is quite tired and rundown.

Stay Away!!

Spent $1400+ to ensure a good trip at a 5 star resort. This place is at best at 2.5. The buffet was awful and most of the food offered would have made you sick and it did for some people. I just ate bread, cold cuts and some cheese. All of the hot food in trays was cold and the line ups at the grills to get some food cooked properly were always 10+ deep. They could of had two cooks at each grill, but they had one. Booking the restaurants took an hour and the Japanese was the only decent one. Th [... read more]e soup at one restaurant had to have come out of a can and if you were booked for the last session of the evening, your choices were limited because they had run out of everything. The room was quite nice with a walk-in glass shower, but it was infested with mosquitoes. We both went home with at least 30 bites. I did not sleep a wink most nights because I was too worried about being bitten. And no sleep leads to a sore throat. I only checked out the beach once and it wasn't groomed and all of the crap brought in by the tide sat in piles. Needless to say, I did not return. And if you think Cuba is a cheap destination, think again. This place is a $57 Can. cab ride to the city strip there and back. You can ride the Double Decker bus all day for $7 Can. if you can find one that isn't full. The exchange rate is $1.43, that is worse than buying US$ and taking a trip to Florida. I could go on, but I am running out of space.

Made me decide never to go to Cuba or use Sunwing again!!!!!!!!!!

Sunwing billed the hotel as a 5 star while trip Advisor gave it a 3.5 star and it was clear to me why. Firstly, our group arrived at the hotel a 1:00 p.m. (9 hours after we all arrived at the Ottawa airport) - only to be advised our rooms would not be available until 4 p.m.. No hospitality room was offered or locked storage of our suitcases from 1 to 4 p.m.. The food was pretty bad, at times there was so much smoke from cooking in the very large and noisy buffet dinning room th [... read more]at I had difficultly staying long enough to eat and the service was slow, carbonated bottled water was not available on any regular basis. The wheel chair lifts didn't work for people or suitcases (one man had to be carried up and down the stairs going from the lobby bar and hotel reception area). While I paid cash for my spa treatments, in addition to refusing to give me a receipt the spa had me sign and date a paper confirming the spa treatments I received and the price of same and my name and room number. While the staff assured me verbally the charges would not appear on my room bill, there was no reason for them not to give me for my cash payment - who needs this stress on vacation? My room safe did not work, the patio door on my ground floor unit did not lock without the jury rigging piece of hardware that had been added to the lock. Maps of the resort were no automatically given out .I think I was the only one in our group that actually got a copy - this was better than having to go to the reception area every time you wanted to find a place on the resort. The bottom sheet of the bed was not fitted so I had to keep straightening the sheets - they were barely big enough to tuck under the mattress! When you exchanged money on the resort - you got no receipt of your transaction unless you were getting local money using your Mastercard. Since I changed Canadian cash for Cuban currency - I just got the Cuban money and no receipt confirming the commission or the exchanged rate used. By 10 am all of the lounge chairs around the pool had towels on them for the entire day and early evening - why were people allowed to save these chairs even if they were not using them for periods of time during the day? Clearly there were not enough lounge chairs for all of the hotel guests.

Wonderful Cuba vacation

Was pleased to see local produce well prepared and presented. It was delicious! With the exception of maybe some prime cuts of beef and exotic selection of alcohol missing, the variety of food at Paradisus Princesa Del Mar was on par with Sandals Resorts we have stayed at. The service was consistently good. WIFI was sketchy and weather for several days windy and chilly but resort was comfortable, rooms good size, everything worked, good selection of restaurants and lots of scenic places to e [... read more]xplore outdoors. Great entertainment and music! Currency exchange on site was convenient. Sunwing did a very good job coordinating transfers and arranging outings! The Beach is amazing!

Could have been better.

Grounds were nice. Water in room was never hot and luke warm mostly. More then an hour late to check in. 5:15pm. Several of the front desk staff were not friendly, no smiles, curt, and one was particularly unpleasant and Not helpful at all. I cannot drink alcohol so I stick with water but like to have soda/sparkling water at meals. They had none for the second half of the week. Not enough staff in buffet, bars and coffee bars. The food was over all too salty and boring. They ran out of butte [... read more]r on several occasions. I understand that Cuba has a limited variety of foods but even the rice and beans were not good. Room was well cleaned. Windows throughout resort were not. The main bar coffee machine broke down and they did not open up the other bar where there was one that worked. Food and drink service was under-staffed at times so there were lineups. Could have been more lounge chairs by the pool. Pizza was terrible at the pizza restaurant. Drunken men were on occasion rude and loud, keeping us awake by shouting until after 2am. The gentleman providing the restaurant reservations was great. Restaurant staff were wonderful as well. The cook on breakfast eggs/omelets was great. Pasta cook as well. Sunwing lady- Lisa was awesome. Did not appreciate the money exchange person not giving us the denominations that we requested-ones and threes even though we did not request a large sum.

Beautiful resort

Grounds and staff awesome Best thing was the constant entertainment - we were out and about the resort every night lots of people enjoying the various bars and great music . The resort spends on local entertainment - bands and musicians !!! So more lively then the usual . The food was poor - result of the political situation ??? Nice beach great pools not a boring place

Disgusting Resort

We booked an Air Canada vacation package with you for Cuba , Varadero from January 13, 2020 to Jan. 20, 2020 at Paradisus Princesa Del Mar. When we reached the hotel and checked in, the room was so un welcoming that there was insufficient light, TV was not working, washroom was not equipped with soap and water in tap was at very low pressure. We called the customer service several times as they kept on hanging on us. We went for dinner and to our surprise there was not much food left in the  [... read more]serving trays, no one refilled them. What ever Food was left the Quality was very poor and cold. That night we had to sleep hungry. Next morning we went and met our Air Canada Rep Ahmed and explained him the whole situation. He understood our concerns and immediately arranged to find us alternate hotel at Melia Internacional at an extra price of CAD $382 and transfer of CAD$ 20 a total of $402.00 Just before leaving Princesa Del Mar, the service manager and supervisor came to our room to enquire about our concerns and upon checking they found we were right. They were so upset that they when they called customer service, they were hung up on them. They checked the TV was not working and also when they checked the washroom, there was no soap and water pressure was low. Now our question is when you advertise this facility as 5 star, you don't expect this type of service. One day of our trip was wasted in moving. We need the extra expense to be refunded and compensate the inconvenience and loss of one day of vacation. Air Canada Rep. Ahmed told us that he was sending a complete report of our experience to Air Canada customer service. We would appreciate an early response on our experience with Air Canada vacation and do the needful.

Paradises del mar Varadero Jan. 12 to 19th

This hotel is rated a 5 star. The weather and beach are 5 stars the rest not so much. The grounds are well kept with lots of digging on the property. The public areas are clean and well kept. Our room, on the ground floor was dated. Air conditioning was working on our second day. Toilet worked and water was warm. No clock, Kleenex. Maid service was good. Dining was satisfactory. This hotel requires more glassware, cutlery etc. We did five ala cartes. The Sakura and Miramar were our favourites. T [... read more]he staff did their jobs some were more helpful than others. We used the beach more. Plenty of seating that you don’t have to save unlike the pool area. The only pool was small for the number of guests. The beach is a 5 the pool a 3. When arriving the entrance didn’t stand out.

Poor experience.

This is not a review of their Royal Service (they had a designated area for guest who paid more) My girlfriend and I visited Princesa Del Mar (the resort) in January 2020. I'll start with the pros of the resort, because it will be shorter to get through. The beach and ocean was beautiful, I wish it was less windy when I was there, but still great. If you only intend on staying on the beach with some "ok-ish drinks" then you'll enjoy this place. That's about it. On to the cons. P [... read more]OOR SERVICE When you arrive at the resort the staff doesn't take any effort to tell you how things work in the resort, they just usher you in. On our first day we left our beach towels by the pool, we were unaware of the resort's policy that all guest have to keep their towels, and get new towels at a designated towel exchange spot. When we went to get towels on our second day, the towel lady told us to talk to customer service as she wouldn't be able to give us new towels. We explained to customer service that we left our towels by the pool, and she agreed that they could provide us with new towels, but if we "lost" these ones and they were not in the room when we went to check out we would be charged $15 for each one (their regular replacement price was $25). I thought, ok that's fair, now that we understand how it works at this resort we can do it their way, no problem. The customer service representative said someone would drop off the towels in our room later in the day. When we didn't receive them, we asked one of the maids, she didn't speak english so she got her manager of our part of the resort, building #5. We explained to the manager that we spoke to customer service and they agreed to provide us new towels. We ended up calling customer service, passing the phone back an forth and in the end this manager told us (paraphrased), "it doesn't matter, I am the manager of this building (#5), and if you want new towels, its $15 each." Restaurant reservations. You cant eat at any of the dinner restaurants (except the buffet) without making a reservation. But again, when you enter the resort they don't explain this to you. We found out on our first night when the restaurants would not take us. So on the second day, we went to make reservations and they said "every things booked for tonight, you can only book restaurants for tomorrow onward. So we paid to have access to all the restaurants, but were barred from eating at all of them except the buffet. But you can imagine if someone planned a short stay at the resort, say for 4 days, that's already 50% of their stay where they can't access all the services of the resort, which they already paid for. I should note that the restaurant servers were actually good. I went to buy internet time. Originally I had asked to buy 3 hours, and then 15 seconds later I changed my mind and said, "actually can I buy 2 hours." the service lady gave me a stare and said "... I already typed 3." It just felt like she was being lazy. If it was a system thing maybe I could understand, but then she really should have conveyed that better like, "I'm sorry, I've already typed in 3 hours." In summary the summary was poor. (Except restaurant staff) THE ROOM The room was also not impressive. The pillows smelled like bad body odor, we wrapped our pillows in the bathrobes to cover the smell. Luckily we also brought fabreeze. They never changed the towels, my GF got a bit of lipstick on one of the towels on the second day, and we realized by the fourth day we still had the same towel with the same lip stick mark. The maid would just fold them and put them back on the rack, and we even left a tip every day. Calling for room service was extremely slow, the first time we ordered breakfast it took 1.5 hours (omelette and fruit). The second time we ordered in the evening took a little over 2 hours, the third time we ordered we waited over 2.5 hours got tired and called in to cancel the room service. We did tip first 2 times room service came, even though it was slow. Minor cons: - The food at the resort was bland or too salty, but I was warned beforehand that's how Cuban food is. - The pool is small (should be going to the beach its not too windy) - They give you a map with the services, locations and hours of operation, but the operating hours have not been updated, and we often went to places which the map indicated was operating, only to find the hours were changed and they no longer provided services at that time. (usually the lunch restaurants - You don't need reservations for these but there was limited seating. The one by the beach had a live band, it was nice.) - The currency exchange shop was always "out for lunch" when I needed to exchange currency - The drinks are watered down and not that great. They often only had "something similar", I asked for a mojito, and they said "we dont have limes, but we can make you something similar." The drinks were unfortunately only passable.

A few issues

Everything was really clean, including the bathrooms. Although the pool side ones did not have soap??? The main Lobby bar did not have wine (red or white) in stock for the entire week we were there??? The pool/beach bars was the same. The other bars were a hit or miss situation, sometimes they did have wine sometimes they did not. All staff were very friendly. Odd situation in the buffet restaurant. For the first 3 days there was soup, but just a very few bowls. As such after maybe 5 min [... read more]utes none were available. Also no spoons in sight if you were lucky to get a bowl. On request one was presented. On the 4th day the the situation was resolved??? I might recommend this resort but with strong reservations.

Very Beautiful Resort

Overall pretty impressed with the resort. The grounds where maintained well, staff was very friendly. However the buffet was somewhat bare, stick to the a la carte restaurants if you can book them the line up was always super long.

Good resort

Need some tlc, corridor was dark at night twice, first day without hot water. Otherwise great service, very friendly people! Very nice shows at night. Food was too salty, needs at least 30-40 minutes to book a la carte dinner

Good resort

the beach was good and the pool area was very good and clean. The rooms were kept very clean.As to the food for cuba was not bad at the buffet. We went to the french restaurant and the food was very good. We also went to the japanese restaurant and found the food and show they put on was excellent.

Pack food!

Two things to remember in Cuba: pack extra cash for tips or you will be ignored ...and secondly, bring your own food, I am not a picky eater and I had a hard time eating what was offered. The staff will pretend you aren’t there or take 30 mins to get you a second drink or coffee.

GORGEOUS

Beautiful gorgeous Hotel we up grated to royal service amazing service it was paradise Service was excellent Breakfast was very good, Lunch not bad The food at supper time not good at all very little And not very well cooked The best restaurant was the Hill Top restaurant