Paradisus Princesa Del Mar: Great resort

The grounds were very nice as was our room. Food was good and plentiful however not much selection in fresh fruit, other than pineapple and watermelon and very little fresh vegetable such as green lettuce salad. The bread selection was amazing as were the selection of food stations - pasta bar, seafood, grilled meats. No reason to be hungry. I would like to have seen some type of food offering at/near the beach however there was a 24 hour restaurant always available. Excellent entertainment. Goo [... read more]d service. Not much english spoken by support staff. Unfortunately the pool was not heated so although there was a great swim up bar and lots of room at the pool, the water was too cold and very few guests were in the pool.

Melia Peninsula Varadero: Disappointing Stay

I found that the resort was very dated and we had issues with our rooms from the moment we arrived. The key cards frequently stopped working which forced us to re-program them, the shower leaked an awful amount with each shower and resulted in the entire bathroom floor to be covered in water, the air conditioning unit frequently stopped working, and the phones did not work which was a huge safety hazard. On multiple days we were not given towels for our bathroom. The maid also did not clean the  [... read more]room once while we were there and simply made our beds and that was it. The fridge was also not stocked for 3 days. Besides the issues with the rooms, the resort itself was very lacking. There was very little entertainment which is a huge difference from other Cuban resorts I have previously stayed at. The 6 days we were there, there was only 1 night where there was entertainment on the main stage. The only options throughout our stay were to go to the beach, the lobby, or the pool. Nothing inherently wrong with this, but it would have been nice to have some variety. The buffet restaurant was also very limited. There was a lack of vegtebale options, and every day offered the same food. The staff was also rude quite often and treated us like a burden.

Melia Las Dunas: Had a Great Time !!

Wife and I had an great time at your resort ! The hotel and the grounds were well maintained . The staff from the lobby right down to the grounds keepers were very friendly and helpful . The 4 restaurants we went to were very good and of course the beach was beautiful. The only issue we had was that we had to ask for fresh towels for our shower and our room was not swept. Other than that we had a great time , thank you !

Melia Jardines del Rey: Extremely disappointed with our vacation...

A group of us returned from our trip to MJDR (Feb 23 – March 2). Our group didn’t have outrageous expectations - we are so easy and yet, basic needs were simply not being met. I would highly recommend you to stay away from with resort as we were extremely disappointed. There is absolutely no way the 3, 4, 5 star reviewers stayed at this resort. I have never written a review but this with this stay, I feel compelled to warn potential vacationers. For starters, the resort ran out of buns/b [... read more]read. The 24 hour snack bar is the only place to get food when the buffet is not open which seemed to be the case more often than not. Because there was no buns/bread, they wouldn’t serve burgers which seemed to be the only food you could get during the day. The food at the buffet was unlabeled – there was absolutely no way of knowing what you are eating, no one could tell you. This is cause for concern if you have an allergy – which my daughter does. The line ups for food is insane, you literally feel like you're on the show Survivor. People would run in when it opened and for good reason, when they're out, they're out. Our very first day we went to the snack bar, ordered, and waited an hour for an employee to tell us “we don’t have”. This happened the first day! We felt so helpless… The first room my parents checked into had feces all in and around the toilet prompting an immediate room change. Our room for the most part was clean other than the fact sheets don’t get changed (we had blood stains on ours) and 3 days out of the week toilet paper was not replenished – getting some more felt like pulling teeth. This was also the case for bottled water – it took us 2 days to get another bottle of water and my sister and husband were told by Customer Service if they wanted another one they would have to pay. We spoke to some guests who's toilets didn't flush, didn't have hot water, they're room smelt like sewage (a pipe burst while we were there and it overflowed onto the walkway) so we considered ourselves to be lucky... Every day by 2pm – the bars claimed they ran out of beer. After listening to some other frustrated guests it almost seemed as they were conserving it because they would then have more by 7 or 8pm but it would be the same thing the next day. After the 3rd day everyone would simply ask “what do you have today?” because they also ran out of strawberry daiquiri’s and pina colodas. Towels – there was never any beach towels available. Luckily with our package we got some in our room that we hung onto for the week but if you got the basic package, you weren’t so lucky. We walked by a mile long line every day to hear people shouting and cursing at the towel attendant. The absolutely only good thing about this stay was the weather, beach and family - thank goodness for that. All in all, this resort is not all inclusive. You cannot simply get food or drinks whenever you want because it’s highly likely they will not have any. The staff were incredibly rude but it’s clearly because of the flack they take from unhappy guests. Going into this trip, we were extremely open minded even after the first few days but I have to say it was difficult to get through. I’ve never written a review but experiencing this resort, I feel compelled to warn people – spend the money elsewhere. Apparently in 2017, this resort was fantastic. Since then, it’s gone downhill and there seems to be a few different reasons as to why as per the Air Transat rep on the resort. That poor lady was getting bombarded left right and center by unhappy guests but hopefully something changes.

Melia Marina Varadero: Average resort not 5 stars

Excellent beach, very average rooms and facilities, the resort needs upgrading and the service is not up to standards. This resort needs major upgrades both indoors and out doors. The staff need to be trained better on how to help and serve the customers in a proper way.

Melia Peninsula Varadero: Deceiving

When we showed up to the resort the photos did not match in real life! Our key card didn't work twice in our 5 day stay, air didn't work, shower leaked, beds are as hard as rocks! no lamp shades, no screen door.. the food at the buffet was gross! Only good thing out of this trip was being with family the weather and leaving the resort and going into town for the day! Very dated resort ..so disappointed in this resort and the amount of money we spent! Do not recommend

Melia Peninsula Varadero: Melia Mgmt needs to evaluate!

Arriving to the resort the grounds are beautiful. Well kept and clean. The beach is beautiful. Food is ok... its doable. I suggest to have real orange and pineapple juice. Also more selection on fruit. Very limited. The front reception has terrible customer service :(. No smiles or warm greetings nor are they helpful. We went through Air transit, Denise the rep was too glued on her cell phone and even look up at me when I said hello. Marguerite answered all my questions with a smile. Also my cou [... read more]sin felt as though Denise just couldnt be bothered to help us. The bartenders need to be consistant with how they MAKE the drinks.The same drink was made several different ways... how is that enjoyable. The staff at the pool are excellent and have smiles & conversation with you. Maids cleaned the rooms well. Bell boys are very friendly and helpful. La carte restaurants are good, food is hot. Japanese restaurant is excellent, great employees in that section. Customer service at front desk needs to be desperately retrained for proper customer service. A smile and listening ear will take them far. They are the first/last reps for the hotel and are giving a bad first/last impression. You have the wrong employees working for the reception area. Store staff not friendly. Hopefully the Melia upper management can change certain staff and retrain different areas. Hotel rates themselves a 5, I would say a 3 only because of my positive feedback. I did notice a few Melias hotels on my day trip to Varadero unsure if I will ever go to another Melia again because of my experience.

Melia Jardines del Rey: Horrific experience

Hi Monika, I was very disappointed and frustrated with my stay at this hotel. The Good: It has the most beautiful beach i have seen. It is only a 15 minute ride from the airport. The Bad: My experience going to the buffet was terrible, people would run in and grab food because once they ran out you may not see it again or for long time and most often never again. The food was not labeled and you were never quite sure what you were eating. Not to mention the cockroach I seen crawling  [... read more]all over the dessert tray. The entire hotel ran out of bread for 2 days. 3 afternoons the bar ran out of beer and 1 night out of rum and were serving pina coladas with vodka.. Service was extremely slow at the restaurants. There were no beach towels, we kept the same towel for 6 days. We had blood stained sheets. Toilets didn't flush properly, some guests even had to use a bucket of water to flush their toilet and others didn’t have running water and were unable to shower the entire week. A pipe burst in the middle of the resort, with water spewing up and causing a river of water flowing along the walk way which smelt like sewage. The A/C was extremely loud which made it difficult to fall asleep when it was running. There were mosquitoes everywhere and they would get in the room through the vents. We are all covered from head to toe in bites. The pool was full of algae. It was green all around the pool! The hotel grounds and buildings look neglected and it feels like the hotel has been under managed and unattended for a long time. There was very little beach service. The bar attendant came only once to take our drink order in all 6 days we were there and it took forever to get the drinks. If you have anything left in your fridge it wouldn’t be restocked. We had half a bottle of water left for the 3 of us and when we asked for another bottle we were told there is a limit of 1 per day and if we wanted one we would have to pay for it... I thought this was an all inclusive?? We had an issue with the safe and when trying to call the front desk we were transferred and placed on hold for at least 20 minutes before calling back and being hung on 4 times on purpose.. Last but not least, we had multiple items stolen from our room. I was extremely disappointed and would highly recommend you no longer recommend this resort to anymore of your clients. Thanks, Ashley Grogan Sent from my iPhone

Melia Jardines del Rey: Disgusting

Let me start by saying the weather was fantastic and the beach was beautiful which made the week bearable. The hotel is horrible. There are lacking in staff so service is terrible and they just don't seem to care. Every day about the same time every bar runs out of beer they also run out of bread and buns and trying to get water in the room which should be stocked daily was painfully. Drinks were so watered down and the main lobby bar ran out of pop and juice one day. Our room was kept pretty  [... read more]clean she did a good job but toilets don't flush good , public washrooms are filthy and no toilet paper. Long lineups to wait for food that is terrible. Al a cartes were somewhat better. The pools are nice and lots of chairs but the algae growing on the side is ridiculous. Plastic cuts and dirty plate left around the pool and you have to say something before it gets cleaned up. When checking in a woman was complaining about crock roaches in her room. Our last day there out crawls a cock roach from the salad bar. Where there's one there's 100. Nobody was happy at this place and people couldn't wait to leave. Disgusting place!!!

Melia Las Dunas: Loved every minute!

Resort was amazing. Absolutely stunning beach, great rooms and amazing entertainment. Staff were friendly and engaging! Pools were really nice, and the grounds are well kept. No issues what so ever, would love to go back some day.

Hotel Camino del Mar: The rebuild continues

This hotel is at least 20 years old and parts of it reflects it's age but the hotel is under renovation and the completed areas are up to date. The a la carte restaurants were very good as was the beach restaurant (I think it was called Rancho). The buffet is typical Cuba with 3 made to order stations (grill,paste,other) and the regular ready to serve buffet. The food was okay and the service was exceptional. The room we had was clean but quite dated. The furniture and bathroom reflected the  [... read more]resorts age. The beach is fantastic, long and relatively clean of seaweed, great for long walks. The pool on the other hand needs work, but there was no problems getting a lounge chair. To be fair, the resort was damaged quite heavily from hurricane Irma and they are working hard to fix the flood damage. But ultimately it comes down to value for your tourist dollar, and the the resort does not deliver the 4+* it advertises. We felt we overpaid for a resort based on the advertised rating. But 3 - 3+ pricing would have been much more appropriate. Perhaps when the renos are done it may regain its former glory, but now.

Melia Cayo Santa Maria: Great Experience!

We enjoyed our stay at Melia Cayo Santa Maria . All the staff were very friendly, helpful and attentive to your needs. Our check in and checkout were fast and efficient. All the public areas were kept clean and nice; the grounds, flowers , trees, etc..The pools were big and nice and kept clean. We didn't take much part in the pool activities but found the fashion show and some other competition they had in the pool thoroughly entertaining and fun. The facilities at the beach were adequate and th [... read more]e staff made sure you would get clean deck chairs and beach umbrellas. Loved the beautiful sandy beach and the turquoise water! We enjoyed all the evening and nightly entertainment which added something unique to our holiday experience. The drinks at the lobby were the best and they had a good selection of them available. Our room was adequate and comfortable and kept clean every day. Plenty of sitting and storage space and the bed was big and comfortable. The food was average and we had a mixed experience at both the buffet and a la carte restaurants. But, we didn't expect anything great as we had travelled to Cuba before and found that food is pretty much the same everywhere. We preferred The food at the Beach Grill and we had some good lunches there. The food was also good some of the nights at the buffet restaurant. Overall, we had a very good experience at this resort and would recommend it to friends and consider coming back again. Auzi & Bill

Melia Cayo Santa Maria: Excellent resort

My husband and myself loved this resort, the rooms were great very spacious and clean, the outdoor grounds were well kept. This is my 5th time to Santa Maria never at this resort before, but i would definately go back to Melia. Its quaint and very welcoming!

Melia Las Antillas: Melia Las Antillas

Really enjoyed this resort. Beach is spectacular and the grounds beautiful.The rooms we large and spotless. I was pleased with the meals and choice of food. The workers are very friendly and helpful. The bars were well stocked. My only disappointment was that you had to get to the beach very early (between 6:30 am to 7 am) in order to get a nice lounger.

Melia Jardines del Rey: We travel often and this was the Worst resort we have even been to... We would never go back.

We stayed at the Meliá Jardines Del Rey resort was very understaffed and the staff that was working would never go out of their way to help with any requests. Our first room we were checked into was dirty it had never been cleaned from the last people. While I was at the front desk changing rooms another couple that check in at the same time as we did came down to the front desk with a coach roach in a napkin they found on their bed when they arrived. You were allowed one bottle of water per  [... read more]room and if asked for another bottle they would charge you $5:00 dollars so if you had even a little water in the bottle they would not give you a new one. My husband is a beer drinker and everyday they would run out of beer it would not matter where on the resort we were from 2:30 to approx. 5:00 they would not have beer. There was never any slushy drinks at any bar on the resort. If you were lucky and received a beach towels you had to keep it for the week as you would not get another one. The food at both buffet served the same food all week there was never anything new. We seen a coach roach on the salad bar. It was hard to find butter if they had any and once it was gone it was gone they would not bring any more out. The mosquitos were terrible everyone travelling in our group came back covered with bites and we all used off deep woods off bug spray. This was the worst resort I have ever been to and would highly tell anyone thinking about booking it NOT to. This is not even a 3 star resort. The grounds are very pretty the pools are nice looking but the pool walls are cover with algae. The beach it lovely.

Melia Jardines del Rey: Needs improvement

Staff couldn’t be more friendly but this resort is definately under staffed. The front lobby seats really need to be replaced! Staff are so over worked that it was a long wait at any of the food bars. We had rooms cleaned without problems but experienced anger from other guests every day.

Melia Cayo Coco: Awesome Resort

This resort was very clean. The staff could not be more friendly. The food was better then most resorts we have been to in Cuba. Spots just around the point for snorkeling. Lots of different fish to look at. This is our second time at this resort and this time we invited more friends to come with us. They told us that this was the best place they have been to in Cuba. We will be heading back at some point.

Paradisus Rio De Oro: Gourgeous Beach

First of all the grounds are beautiful. We decided to upgrade to the Royal part of the hotel which is spectacular Are butler Hector was very helpful making our stay there very comfortable We enjoyed the buffet a lot as well as the restaurants We especially liked the pool on the Royal side over looking the ocean The one thing they really need to change is you are only allowed one beach towel per day meaning you have to carry a wet towel around all day .

Melia Las Antillas: Not a good experience for me

Stayed February 21-28, 2019 Package - The Level (Concierge service) Our package included 4 a-la-cart meals and a special lobster dinner upon request. Rooms for this package are located on the 4th and 5th floor of the main building. The concierge is located in a lounge on the 5th floor and is generally open from 7am to 7pm, but does close from time to time briefly for the ladies to have their meals and presumably take breaks. The 2 ladies working in the concierge lounge were very nice and it [... read more] was lovely to have all our a-la-cart meals booked for us quite effortlessly. There is also a small bar, a coffee machine, and light snacks for breakfast and lunch up there and a computer you can use to log into the internet if you buy the access card from the main lobby. No wi-fi up there though, only hardwired to that one computer. Room - View from room We got a room on the 4th floor. Although it is technically an ocean view, what you could see from our room was a bit of water pretty far out and we got to look out over the hotel grounds and pool in the foreground. This is because the palm trees have grown quite tall and obstruct most of the view of the ocean. This was totally fine for me and I have no complaint about my view at all. If you want to be able to see more of the ocean, ask for the 5th floor as you can see a bit more with the additional height. Room - Nice touches, or at least, attempts at nice touches that mostly fell a little short. The shower had a retractable clothesline for hanging bathing suits to dry. Well, actually, our room had the hardware for that, but there was no actual line in it unfortunately. There was a double wooden bar mounted out on the deck for hanging things to dry. The bathroom had a bidet as advertised, but the end of the nozzle where the water comes out was crusted with that green corrosion that forms on old plumbing. Electronic safe in the closet, though most other people when we were checking in were receiving keys to a safe, our room had an electronic one. I'm not sure if this was because of the upgraded package we bought or just a fluke. Curtains had extra material around the outside edges so light didn't come peeking in around the sides in the morning :) But there was a giant stain on our curtains :( Bed is locate on one level with 2 steps down to the seating area and balcony. This makes it easier to lay in bed and look out your balcony door at the ground below, which is quite nice. TV had two English channels - CNN and CGTN. Closet had quite a few hangers, iron, ironing board, 2 umbrellas, shoe rack, and a dresser. We also had 2 robes. According to our paperwork there were supposed to be slippers, but we didn't have those. There was also a peg-bar mounted on the wall to allow for extra hanging. Hair dryer mounted to wall in bathroom worked well enough. Makeup mirror mounted to wall in bathroom was fine. Bathroom mirror itself was discolored behind the glass. Honestly, looked like massive amounts of dripping blood. High potential to give nightmares. Bathroom tiles in our room had several holes drilled through. These were mostly filled in with clear silicone plugs. Bathroom had a window of glass blocks to let in light, but could not be opened for ventilation and there was no fan to move air. I was hoping to have a coffee machine and a bit of coffee in the room. Nothing quite as nice as a private cup of coffee on the deck in the morning. There was a kettle and a few packets of instant decaf, no sugar. Our package included 3 bottles of alcohol in the room. We had a bottle of London Beef eater Gin, a Cuban sparkling wine, and a bottle of white Ron Mulata (we asked but were told dark or even amber rum were not available). Plumbing No shock here. I think anyone who has been, or is thinking about going to Cuba knows the plumbing has issues. Our bathroom sink, bidet, and toilet all actually had great water pressure though :) Unfortunately, the shower seemed to have flow restricted as there was very little coming out of there. It probably took me twice as long as necessary to shower each time just because of the lack of pressure to rinse the sand out of my hair. Also, there was a constant trickling sound in the wall of our bathroom that kicked up a notch every time the people upstairs from us flushed or showered. And not the same location as the pipes, because you could hear it coming from two different places. Fortunately nothing was leaking into our space, but I certainly wouldn't want to be around if that wall ever has to get opened up. As for flushing the toilet in our room, if you just pushed the button it did a little rinse, if you held the button down for a few seconds it would get up enough water to do a real proper flush. Main Building The front of the hotel is nothing spectacular, but who cares? That's not where anyone spends their time. The main lobby has the standard beautiful bouquet of tropical flowers. Sadly, as the flowers died they were just left there. They could have pulled the dead flowers out and replaced them with new ones, or even just pulled them out and gotten rid of them, but after a few days the beautiful bouquet was just sad looking. From the main lobby you could look up to each level and there were beautiful trailing vines growing along and draping down from flower boxes. Each level was totally open in the middle with windows that were opened daily to let in fresh air. It was lovely. There is also an ornate staircase going upstairs and a beautiful rounded staircase going down one level to where the restaurants and exit to the pool/beach are located. There are 2 glass elevators located in the main lobby (3 large panes of floor to ceiling glass in a bow out, looking out toward the beach in each elevator). I saw many other comments before going about these being under repair. They were both working-ish when I was there. One had the center pane of glass shattered and the door wouldn't close for what seemed like ages despite pushing the door close button. The other the door started to close so quickly that if there were 2 people trying to get on it would pretty much be guaranteed to start closing on the second person. This second elevator also got stuck on the second floor for a day and a half with the door open and binging incessantly. This was when I was leaving so I have no idea if it ever started to work again. The main lobby bar was easily the slowest service of any of the bars. Much quicker to walk down to the pool bar for a drink and walk back with it, but the lobby bar had actual glasses instead of plastic cups. Also on the main level was a small gift shop, a wicket to exchange money, and a room where you could buy internet cards and 2 computers in case you didn't have a device to use them. The wi-fi only worked in the main lobby area. Almost all the rooms in the main building faced over the inner grounds with an open air hallway running along the front side of the building. When we exited our door to this hall we got to look out over some kind of mechanical area (lots of pipes so I'm assuming water or sewage treatment) and the staff entrance/exit area. I realize this isn't the main view for enjoyment but the issue I had with it is that it was quite noisy in the early morning so I was woken up every day by trucks and people hollering. Grounds There was a winding pond with footbridges going over it throughout the center of the grounds. This was home to several tiny fish, some medium sized cat fish, and two rather good sized sharks. They mostly like to hang out in the shade during the heat of the day but they are quite friendly and swim up to the edges of the pond or circle under the bridges if you pay attention to them. Only drawback to this is that at one end there was a fountain circulating the water (presumably to provide movement and aeration for the fish) and it smelled bad. It's a sulfur smell, like rotten boiled eggs and depending on how the breeze is blowing sometimes you get it all over the pool area too. There was a cute little gazebo that always had a table with a white linen table cloth all set up for a private fancy dinner. I never saw anyone actually use it for anything, it was just constantly set up for nothing. There was mention of a health bar which wasn't open while we were there. We did watch it get built while we were there. There is some tropical landscaping throughout the grounds. I like plants and taking pictures of flowers so this is something I was looking forward to, but I would say they don't waste a lot of time on keeping these plants healthy. There was a large tile checker board (one of the tiles was cracked) and a second large board for chess set up. Only one bench at each location so one participant couldn't sit on their side of the board to consider their next move. There were several hammocks set up between palm trees throughout the lawn area. None were hung level. Pool I burn every time I'm in the sun so shade is very important to me when I go on vacation. There were wooden shade "umbrella" stands around the pool, but not really lots of them, the shade from the surrounding palm trees was limited to later afternoon when the sun was starting to go down. There were some pretty Balinese sun beds around the pool area that you could rent for $20 CUC per day, but I believe only 2 of them actually had a solid material and the rest were just lacy stuff that didn't actually block the sun. There were also 2 hot tubs in the pool area. They were quite small and the water was not really warm. The pool itself is technically 2 pools, but only in that you have to get out of one in order to transfer to the other side. The water is actually circulated between both sections. One side was about chest deep for most folks at one end and maybe waist deep at the other end with two sets of access stairs, and a "waterfall" section in the middle. The other pool was the same on the deep end but had a gradual walk out on the other end for those who prefer to ease into the water. There were no access stairs on this side. Both sides of the pool had tile repairs done rather poorly with mismatched tiles or just a slathering of grout over the bad sections. The grout between the tiles was NOT clean in either section. I've stayed a other resorts where they shocked the pool with chemicals each night to keep it clean, but I never smelled that at this resort and I never saw anyone with one of those scrub brush things to clean anything. I did see several guests removing the plastic cups and straws from the bar out of the pool and taking them to garbage cans, but I never saw a staff person doing that. The pool area was also the location of an open air building that contained a bar, restaurant, and washrooms. The womens' washroom had 3 stalls, 3 sinks, an air dryer for hands, and a papertowel dispenser that never had anything in it. I'm told the men's had one stall and 2 urinals (not sure of the rest). The floor here was completely flooded all day from pool swimmers going in to use the facilities. The restaurant in this area was technically the snack bar, but it was quite formal for a snack bar. There was always servers that would seat you and bring your food and drinks. Over lunch it wasn't snacks any more, it was sit down dining. The bar in this area was the best stocked, even better than the lobby bar but still amber or dark rum were hard to come by. They were VERY generous with the white rum though. Every cup was half filled with white rum, then a bit of ice, then your cola. If you asked specifically for a dark rum, you might even get it, or you might not. I couldn't determine a pattern. There was a hut for exchanging towels by the pool. Other people told me that one day it closed for a few hours when they ran out of towels, and it did close every day at lunch time for an hour, but I never had an issue with getting fresh towels. Beach There weren't a ton of shade huts but there were 3 rows deep. I generally didn't bother trying to get one because they were all claimed by early in the morning. One day, I lucked out and grabbed one as another couple was leaving the beach for the rest of the day. I ended up seated next to a rather large group of locals taking up the next 3 shade huts over from me. It was quite an enjoyable afternoon of chatting, but it does go quite a way toward explaining how hard it was to get shade. After that I took note each day of how many people taking up the shade at our beach did not have wristbands of any kind and had taken picnic lunches to the beach with them. The staff from the hotel was often quite friendly with these folks and I never saw any attempt to have paying guests given priority for use of the shade huts. Also, there were a few garbage cans along the beach but I never saw any staff make attempts to clean anything up. The beach was often quite littered with plastic cups and straws from the bar, and various tissues and cigarette butts. That was a bit of a surprise to me as I have seen other resorts raking their beaches to keep them clean and I never saw that once here. Dining Again, anyone who has been or is thinking about going to Cuba knows you don't go for the food. But that said, this was my biggest challenge all week. From my previous trip to Cuba I had been looking forward to the yogurt more than anything. Sadly, their version of yogurt wasn't the little individual sealed cups I'd had before, here they had large jugs of very watery milk based drink that tasted somewhat like yogurt. The guy that makes your omelette int he morning though was a bright spot in my day. There were actually a few different guys, but one wore all black jacket, pants, hat, and crocks on his feet and he was always really nice - humming and dancing to himself as he made my breakfast every day, and flipping them with great flair :) The main dining hall served the buffet breakfast, lunch, and supper and was quite closed in and noisy with no effective air conditioning. There were a very few tables outside this area and we were only lucky enough to get one once. I could go on about this for days, but I'll keep it brief. I never thought I was a person who cared about table cloths, but it turns out I am. I had an expectation based on previous knowledge of Cuban resorts that there would be table cloths and open air dining and neither of those came true for me on this trip. The painted wooden tables had plastic woven place mats that I never actually saw get wiped clean, just flicked off with the place mat and then the place mat turned over. It was all quite sticky. The tables where the food was set out and the grills were people cooked to order for you were not any better. I saw cockroaches on both those surfaces each and every time I entered the dining hall. Worse than their presence was the fact that nobody seemed bothered by them at all. Just totally normal to have them crawling all over the food tables all day long. Also, I never saw anyone take away any of the food trays, but several times I saw staff come up to them with a plate full of stuff and pile new on top of the old. Hubberz made note of one particular slice of sandwich meat with a distinctive notch out of the corner and saw that exact same piece of meat on the same tray for 4 days. Also, every single thing that came out of that room was so heavily salted I figure it must have been washed in the ocean water, and then sprinkled with a salt shaker after it finished drying. There were 3 a-la-cart restaurants. A Mediterranean place, a place called Romantico, and the Cuban place which was the only open air dining place which doubled as the snack bar the rest of the day. These meals were the only ones that I could actually eat as they weren't salted to death and they were in fact quite good. The enclosed dining rooms did also have very limited seating outside but inside was quite noisy and again, no table cloths, but Romantico at least had linen napkins instead of paper. Entertainment I did enjoy the shows in the evenings and most days I also enjoyed watching the entertainment troop practicing for the evening show. General Melia has a good name, but this particular resort just didn't live up to it. Even small details showed a lack of quality and care, such as the sparkling wine and orange juice in the lobby to greet guest was always warm, never ice in the bucket, or the tiles that needed to be replaced in flooring being done with a completely different colour and finish (brown matte hallway with black shiny tile once every few feet just looks weird). The staff were friendly and helpful when asked for something, the hotel in general just isn't managed well and it really shows. There is a facebook page called "Melia Las Antillas Cuba friends" full of people who seem to love the resort. When we posted a comment on the page outlining some of our experience we were told by other members that you have to just not look around at the hotel, have lower expectations, and only enjoy the people. Overall I would not recommend this resort, particularly as the package we booked was several hundred dollars more than we could have paid to stay down the street at a much better run place.

Melia Peninsula Varadero: Beautiful grounds

the grounds are kept great. rooms need work. the beach was kept clean .they need more bars at the lobby. it was a short walk to the marina 15 mins. we were there feb.23 to Mar.2 2019. weather was great over 30 and sunny every day. food at the buffet was not good but you got to remember your in cuba. if you go to this resort go with an open mind and have fun.