Barcelo Solymar: 4th and LAST time @ this resort...

Spent last week at Barcelo solymar in Varadero. This was my 4th time to this resort. It has been 3 years since previous stays and many things have changed... When we arrived at 11am on the Saturday we were told that our room would be ready for 4pm which is the check in time, fair enough. Well they didn't end up giving us our room till 5pm and at this time I asked to confirm it had a king size bed and the receptionist lady replied with I dunno... I told her this was my 4th visit to this resort [... read more] and that didn't even phase her. It's like she didn't even care. We stayed in a bungalow and the room was terrible. Air conditioning only worked half the time, no remote for the TV, you could feel every spring in the mattress and the pillows were rolled up hard foam. We had the worst sleeps of our life. The washrooms in the lobby were under construction only leaving 1 public washroom in the hotel for everyone. This washroom or the ones at the pool bar never had any toilet paper either. The service at the buffet/all the bars/cafe were terrible. Took forever to order anything and seemed like you were inconveniencing them. My last complaint is the ignorant vacationers there... 80% just butt in front of you at the front desk and in the buffet lines. Maybe my Canadian manors should have been left at home. The only positive thing I have to say about this trip is the beach and ocean were great and the lifeguards are always great to chat with Andy & John. (Erick previous years ago) Barcelo Solymar I had fun past years at your resort but you will NEVER see me return again after last weeks terrible stay.

Occidental Caribe: Great views!!

The staff was very friendly. The food was okkay. The views are amazing. Only sad part was the hotel was in the middle of renovations and change of owners and it was felt in service from the front desk and in the cleanliness of the rooms

Occidental Arenas Blancas: Aweful Resort

The Solymar made you feel very unwelcome. The staff was not happy at all and treated you like they had better things to do. The resort was nice looking from the lobby and the rooms were nice but, that was it. All of the washrooms on the main level where the restaurants and coffee bar were, were always dirty and had no paper. You had to go to your room to use the washroom. In the bathroom in your room you had no water pressure to shower and the water temperature was always tepid. The food i [... read more]n the buffet was always cold. We made sure we were the first in line one night to see if we could get hot food but, it was all cool. The buffet also never changed. The same cold food and cold desserts. We went to Cuba last year and stayed at Grand Memories and the atmosphere was much better. They treated you like they really enjoyed having you there. The food was typical Cuban food but was hot and changed nightly in some way. I would not recommend this hotel to anyone.

Barcelo Solymar: I wanted to go home!

We recently traveled with Transat Holidays for a week (October 2 – 9, 2016) at the Barcelo Solymar in Varedero, Cuba. The tour representative Mayelin was wonderful. She was resourceful, welcoming, approachable and kind. Unfortunately, as much as she advocated for us with the hotel, she just could not overcome the deplorable standards of the hotel. After all our past positive experiences with Transat we feel very let down with the Barcelo Solymar. In fact, we actually feel for the first time [... read more], that Transat has deceived us. We booked two bungalow rooms and had the following issues; • Neither room had a coffee maker, ironing board or iron as stated on the Transat Holiday website. It took 3 days to get a coffee maker in both rooms. In one room the coffee maker they provided us did not work. They also did not provide spoons, sugar or even coffee mugs for one of the rooms. It also took four days to get an iron and ironing board. • When we arrived one of the rooms mini bars was not stocked as stated on Transat Holidays website. Twice during the week, the same mini bar (water, beer, soft drinks) was not stocked. • In one room the bed only had a bottom sheet and blanket. No top sheet for the first two days. • When arriving back in to one of the rooms the drapery rods and drapes had fallen from the wall and were laying on the floor. • There was two days without water. We were using the small trash containers from the room to fill up with pool water to flush the toilet. We also had issues with other parts of the hotel as well; • During the entire week, we were there none of the public washrooms had soap, paper towels or working hand dryers. • Per the Transat Holidays website were we suppose to able to use the facilities at Arenas Blanca, however, the resort was closed. • Hence, we were expecting 5 al a carte restaurants (2 at the Barcelo Solymar and 3 at Arenas Blanca) however there we only two open for the entire week as the Arenas Blanca was closed. • Twice we went to the pool bar and it was closed a few hours before the actual hours it was suppose to be open. Also, although your website stated 24 hour unlimited domestic and select international drinks we could only get beer after the other bars closed.

Occidental Arenas Blancas: Horrible Resort - Could not wait for Vacation to end

Was at the Barcelo Solymar Obtober 19-26 with our family. It was a group of 6 ranging in age from 20-70. Our group had all traveled to Cuba previously at least once and most more that one trip. Me personally I love Cuba, the people, Culture. If the Solymar was my first trip to Cuba I probably would have never gone back and all members of our group feel the same. The upside. Although slightly larger than what I would prefer the grounds were very nice. Well landscaped and overall well kept. Th [... read more]ere was some roofing work going on but that was well contained and never a problem. The Downside... 1) Staff. Considering one of the things I love about Cuba over most other "Resort" destinations we have visited is the people. The Staff at this place are horrible. Outside of 1 or 2 people we came across the staff were very unfriendly and not very Helpful. At many times the staff were down right rude. Case in point, on our last day our 20 year old decided to get a manicure while we waited for our departure. After the manicure the woman said she needed to pay at front desk. So my wife went with her to pay as her nails were still wet. she stood there for 20 minutes while 3 different people would not take the money telling her it was the other woman's job. My wife finally said that she did not care whos job it was she just needed to pay. At which point a woman walked up snatched the bill and the cash out of her hands without saying a word and walked away. This type of experience was evident throughout the resort by all levels of staff. 2) Rooms - The safe in our room was half ripped out of the wall and only held on by one bolt, The sliding patio doors were so sticky it took 2 people to open them. Both our room and our Daughters room the handles on the sliding doors were broken and not usable. Hot water was something we had none of the whole week nor water pressure. Generally in resorts we are used to low water pressure but at least can get by with a warm shower. The water in all 3 rooms never got to even warm status. Again we tried moving showers around hoping to find some point in the day or night where we could get pressure or warm water. But never happened. We were on 4th Floor in main Building and pretty much every light bulb was missing in the hallway that connected our rooms and he elevator. Which left you trying to find your room in complete blackness most nights. 3)Food Everyone knocks the food in Cuba, we always knew what we were getting and had never had issue on previous trips. We always knew stick to fish and pork and it would be generally a decent meal. This trip set an all new low in quality of food. The selection was so repetitive but worse was it was always freezing cold. We tried hitting at the start of dinner, middle and end and it made no difference. The food was cold and poorly prepared. Again we always found a positive at every other resort we have stayed at in Cuba. But by final day we just stopped eating. Ala carte - We had Mexican and Italian. They were both at least hot meals but nowhere near the quality we had elsewhere in Cuba both on resorts and off. Entertainment - the nightly shows resembled more young school children putting on a made up show for their parents. A Cast of Dancer's walking around lip syncing songs they don't know the words to becomes tiresome show after show. Which is a bit of a shame since a number of the dancers were actually quite talented. If they had allowed them to dance to the numbers rather than pretend they were the original artist it might have been quite good. We are used to traveling in low season as my wife and my anniversary is in this time period. But there is nothing to do at this resort after the show ends. Pool Bar, Lobby Bar, Cigar Bar all close. Leaving the Disco which was so bad that even most the younger crowd chose to sit out in the dark by the pool with their own blue tooth speakers. Which led me to discover passed out drunks laying around the pool when i would go for a morning walk at 6:00am. Which has you wonder what security actually was doing. But also lead us to returning to our rooms by 11:00pm wishing there was something else to do.

Barcelo Solymar: Good

Good for vacation everything was ok nice place for fans and relaxing......................... .. .......................... .................................... ..... ................................. ok

Barcelo Bavaro Beach: Awesome resort!!

Everything is this resort was very clean. The rooms were cleaned by the maids everyday. The workers at the reception understood english very well and I had no problems talking to them. Checkin and out were very quick. Everyone at this resort was very friendly. You could go off resprt and walk around and no really bothers you. The beach was awesome! Warm water and clean sand the whole time I was there. The food was very good and they had a lot of different foods every day. Love the people in the  [... read more]entertainment group. They were very good at getting people involved!

Occidental Arenas Blancas: Good for what you pay

The hotel overall is really nice, lots of pools, bars and restaurants. The best bar is the lobby bar, the drinks from the pool bar and beach bar weren't very good. The rooms are okay, we booked a queen room and had 2 double beds though. The shower head was broken but my husband kinda fixed it so we could at least shower. We were missing half of the shower door but it wasn't a big deal and after talking to other people it sounded like theirs was the same. The room overall was fine for how much ti [... read more]me you spend in there. The food isn't bad but you definitely get sick of it after a few days cause it's mostly the same stuff. There's the a la carte and other restaurants though. The beach is amazing, and the hotel is only about a 10 minute walk to downtown Varadero. The majority of the staff are so nice and friendly, we loved Sandra who works in the lobby bar, she makes the best drinks and is the sweetest person ever. The lobby bar closes at 11 then there's a disco which is open till 1 and after the buffet closes at 11 the a la carte serves snacks (hotdogs, hamburgers and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches) all night which are actually really good.

Occidental Arenas Blancas: nice resort

hotel overall was nice but the food and service was not so good. I asked for a birthday cake never received it , had a lot of trouble because of that, however resort is nice. rooms need fixing. It was a birthday trip I was very disappointed with no cake and champagne even though I had that on the reservation and even asked customer relation for it

Occidental Praha Five: A good 4.5 star hotel

We were able to judge how good this hotel is as we were there for one week.we ate several meals there,including of course the buffet breakfast.All employees were very attentive,friendly and appeared to like their job.The housekeeping was top notch,but they could supply a few more toiletries. I don't know what a hotel must have or do to become a 5 star hotel but this one is very close to that. Knowing it was our 55 th wedding anniversary they discounted the price on 2 of our dinners by 20% an [... read more]d left a bottle of good quality bubbly in our room. We would stay there again.

Barcelo Maya Beach Resort: Good resort

Good hotel food was good service was good a relaxing holiday relaxing time on the beach and pools went to town the last two days love the mall in the resort and the market mini golf didn't think you should have to pay for bowling and the water park the al- carts were very good

Barcelo Solymar: Barcelo solymar Cuba

The hotel and amenities were good. The food could've been better regarding quality and selection. There were only two restaurants so not much selection. There weren't any nightly events that I was aware of and the front desk attendents were not very attentive. They wouldn't answer phone calls externally or from my room.

Barcelo Maya Colonial: Huge Super Clean Resort

Just me and my 2 boys (age 14 and 17) made the trip.The rooms where very clean and nice .They had a cot/bed all set up when we got there so we each had our oun bed.Room service was amazing. The resort is Huge.We only saw about half of it.Really easy to get loungers at the beach anytime of the day.The snorkelling was great right off the beach. I heard a restaurant review once that said if you want to know how clean the kitchens are ,look at the bathroom.The bathrooms everywhere are the cleanest [... read more] I have ever seen.The food was fantastic. My boys did sports all day long and eat all day long of course also. The gym was state of the art.Hardly anyone there but if you like to work out it a must. Cheers,drink the dark Modella Beer

Occidental Arenas Blancas: Amazing

loved everything! will go back soon people are friendly and the food is delicious good service! the ocean is crystal clear and clean and nobody bothers you we had a really nice time I just wish there was more entertainment!

Barcelo Solymar: in need of renovation

Resort was not well kept. in need of major renovations. Very run down. No hot water. locks on doors not functioning properly. Broken doors, locks,safe, walls, ... not fixed once damaged. water leaks in rooms, mold, and smell. air conditioner not working. told staff about problems but no repair in sight. food is limited. if something is finished during buffet it is not restocked!! example pasta was finished -- that's it no more.. the list goes on.. VERY DISAPPOINTING in general

Barcelo Solymar: great resort

The resort was very clean, friendly and fun! Very fun for young adults aged 20-35. Right beside the beach. The beach is beautiful and clean. The food was fair, drinks are very good. Would recommend i the summer and winter!

Barcelo Gran Faro Los Cabos: Fantastic Resort!

I have been to many Mexican resorts, but this one was the best ever. I enjoyed everything about the resort. The food was great, the staff were courteous, the rooms were nice with comfortable beds and the size was right. Not too big and not too small. The best part of it for me was the constant breeze from the sea anywhere in the resort. Even though the temperature was hot, I didn't feel the humidity. Even at the evening shows, you always felt the breeze and was comfortable. I found Los Cabos to  [... read more]be very safe and much nicer than other parts of Mexico. Very distinctive. It was also nice to be able to walk just outside the resort to outside cafe's and bars or just for a leisurely stroll. Would definitely go again. Hopefully soon.

Barcelo Bavaro Beach: Beautiful resort

The grounds were lovely. Everything is so clean. Food was great. Very pleasant employees. The best beach I have been on, soft sand, and clean sea water. There is nothing I would change. I have absolutely no complaints.

Barcelo Solymar: Honest review!

Since I've been to this resort 4 times I've got plenty to write .Rooms are big and comfortable as well as the beds. Food needs to diversify and certain options were consistently unavailable. As if they don't even have them. Almost every time I went to the snack bar they would only serve burgers pizza and hot dogs even though the menu had 6-7 other options . When we had a la carte dinner the menu had plent of options , food and drinks . However we could only order pizza and pasta and they only ha [... read more]d one beer available . Menu said it had Heineken corona and etc. However those were never available and they never have been everytime I've been before . This wasn't an issue for myself since I knew availability was always an issue in Barcelo However if that's the case that should be removed of the menu . Another thing I noticed this visit is that the lobby bar actually had premium imported alcohol however we were asked to pay for it. And why is this an issue , well we paid for all inclusive and usually there is a disclaimer that states only domestic alcohol is free and without that disclaimer one would figure domesti and imported would be for free . This needs further clarification as some people would maybe want to pay the extra when booking the trip to enjoy unlimited premium alcohol with having to bring the extra cash for premium alcohol . In the moment it seems as if the bartenders were trying to take advantage and make more money for them selves and this is not a good image . Our over all experience was amazing , since I knew what to expect . Except this time I know tourism is changing in Cuba and I figured honest feed back is the best way for Barcelo to improve for tourist to continue coming back instead of going to better places . In the end it's these small little things that make a difference for tourist and I'm sure others have noticed this and others will. As for trip central , the travel agents Shauna and Teelah were very helpful and nice . I appreciate all of their help. They deserve the recognition.

Barcelo Solymar: Awesome

The hotel was awesome, The food was much better then expected, the staff is friendly and welcoming. I would suggest to anyone from young to old because there is something for all age groups. The lobby is great, their coffee even better!