Good Choice

Pleasantly surprised. Property has a lot to offer and was clean and safe. Food and service was very good. Adult pool was fun and relaxing. Beach was great and was safe to walk/run everyday. Lots of entertainment.

Beautiful beach

The hotel grounds were beautifully maintained. Our gardener, Juan Manuel, greeted cheerfully us every morning as he worked. Staff were generally very friendly. Despite all the sand that followed us into our room, Yaima, our cleaner, did a good job of keeping up with it. We enjoyed several catamaran rides with the great staff at the Punto Nautico. We chose this hotel over several others (and paid a little more) because it offered archery. My son learned a lot from Yadniel, our archery instructor, [... read more] but we were very disappointed to learn that archery was canceled before the end of our stay and will no longer be offered. Staff at the buffet were all friendly and by the end of our stay, Ivania and Alexander were anticipating many of our needs. That being said, we did tip fairly after every meal. The artistic pancake lady, whose name I have forgotten, left my son with a huge smile at breakfast everyday as she made him artistic pancakes with designs of fish or boats on them. We were very surprised to be told on three different occasions in one week that fresh pool towels were unavailable. This included the day we arrived, which prevented us from going to the beach until the second day, despite having arrived at the resort in the early afternoon. Unfortunately, we often had the sense that tips were expected for a simple service, like getting a beverage at the bar, or participating in an activity, and that made an "all inclusive" vacation feel a little uncomfortable at times, and be a little more expensive than I had anticipated.

Family Family Resort

I took my daughter. Found that a lot of the restaurants had shorter hours than I was use to. Dinner buffet didn't open till 7pm which is her bedtime. She loved the kid area and friendly staff all around.

Best Resort I Have Stayed At

This resort was amazing. This was my tenth visit to Cuba and the Melia Las Dunas was by far the best resort I have ever stayed at. The pools are huge and spotlessly clean. The room was lovely (second floor, 51 block), the bathroom was a really nice size and there was a lot of room for sitting. The food was very good with three omelet stations in the morning and grills for grilling whatever kind of meat you like during lunch and dinner. I didn't try any of the a la cartes because the buffets were [... read more] so good. There were a lot of places to eat and drink. The cappuccino at the lobby bar is amazing. The lobby is very large and spacious and a wonderful place to go to have a drink or two before dinner. There was always some type of entertainment going on in the lobby bar prior to dinnertime. I will definitely return to this amazing resort.

Not a bad place

The hotel in general is ok. Nice green area. Good pool. Room are below average. No ac in many rooms or barely working. Very bad mattresses( worn out or piece of foam on top) lots of ants. Good restaurants and food, staff is very friendly.

Beautiful resort

This is a beautiful resort with lots to do and we would highly recommend this resort to anyone that wants a memorable trip to Cuba. Resort was clean and well kept. No complaints about food, room, or the resort as a whole.

Awesome Resort Melia Las Dunas

My husband and I (and our 3 kids) have been travelling to Cuba for 15 years as we love the people, beaches and beauty of the untouched landscape and have been all over Cuba. In the past few years we have discovered Cayo Santa Maria which we love. This year we stayed at Melia Las Dunas for the first time. We left our kids at home and brought along another couple and a friend who has never seen Cuba before. The Hotel is beautiful, grounds/gardens/flowers stunning and the Beach is spectacular. The  [... read more]Front lobby is amazing and comfortable equipped with a bar, store, a lot of lounging area and just a nice place to hang out. Great Ala Carte restaurants - Romantica has romantic sitting area outside for two and my husband and I were celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary and it was perfect place to celebrate (bring Off though mosquitos have a feast as well). The Rooms are clean and spacious but suggest that you do something about the front doors so lizards don't make their way into the rooms. If you could put screen doors on the balcony doors it would save on air conditioning because the night breeze would be lovely to sleep with the door open. Buffet you can get a variety of food and it was great contrary to what people say about food in Cuba (made to order pasta, pizza, made to order fish, meat, chicken, salads, fish stews etc - you will not go hungry) Yusinel, Frank, George and Martha were fantastic waiters who took great care of us the entire week at the buffet. Enjoyed the ice cream parlour every afternoon and of course the Beer Garden was a great place to hang out anytime and all the waiters there were awesome - thanks for a great time. The Beach bar and grill superb try their grilled sandwiches to die for ham, cheese, cucumber and a special sauce grilled. Of course the Pool Bar now that was a place to be in the afternoon - beware though sitting around the bar in the pool could be dangerous if you are not careful. Fun in the Sun with Javier and Yusieny (I am sorry if I didn't spell your name right) but she is the beautiful bar tender that works with Javier. Now I recommend you try the Javier special These 2 bartenders made our week they are fantastic, friendly and have a lot of fun with everyone- Big Big Thank you for making our vacation great. I bet you miss Billy Jo calling "Javey" need another special...lol miss you guys. Lots of bars Pool bar, beach bar, lobby bar, beer garden not only for alcohol but coffee, cappuccino, tea etc. nice sitting areas to relax. At night the Mojito bar was awesome - they did have a smoothie bar but it was not open while we were there. Grounds is very big but they do have golf carts to transport people around. Although one thing I was not happy with we had a gentleman who stayed in our building and he had a walker. A few times he called for a cart to transport him and he sat there for 45 mins. I had to call to the front and ask for them to come and get him even though he had already asked. This was not his first time at this hotel and he never had this issue before. - This was disappointing to me. Some suggestions I would like to make (this is not a put down just observations based on going to Cuba for 15 years). I feel the Entertainment staff needs to be more active with the guests, have more of a variety of activities on the beach/pool. The same things everyday get a little boring i.e. some more games like to get all ages involved. Same thing at the pool, there should be Cuban music playing in the back ground while activities are not going on we are on vacation want to feel the vibe of the Caribbean. The band each night was great and nice to listen to and see everyone dancing enjoyed that. The nightly shows however need to be greatly improved compared to what I have seen at other hotels. Although Carlos was great and his partner -sorry forgot his name but they were good in getting the crowd going. Other hotels the entertainers have been more engaged with the guests and had more fun I felt. I know that we went in low season (Oct 3-10) and not as much stuff may happen as in high season I felt there was enough people at the resort to be able to do more then what was done with the entertainment and some of the staff didn't make me feel like they wanted to be there. I was not impressed with some of the attitudes of the people who worked the front desk although one gentlemen (sorry can not remember your name either) shorter guy, with glasses, dark hair was very nice and extremely helpful thank you for everything. My Friend at customer relations helped and planned my anniversary dinner and my friend Billy Jo 40th birthday dinner and My friend Priscilla's birthday dinner and made our celebrations very special thank you. She is fantastic and very funny!!! Overall we had a fantastic time enjoyed everything, it was a relaxing, fun time for all of us and the resort was beautiful. I would recommend you go there you will not be disappointed.

Beautiful beach with wonderful staff

Grounds are very well kept and the gardeners work really hard. Our room is a little bit far but shuttle seems to be there whenever we need one. All the hotel staff are very accomodating and very nice. From cleaning staff to restaurant servers we admire them and thank them for all their wonderful service.

Gorgeous

Spa was wonderful and relaxing. Every package included time to enjoy the sauna, steam bath and whirlpool. All the staff were super nice and caring. A lot of activities going on for all ages and types. Beach front was gorgeous, not a bad spot. Would go back for sure!

Best resort in Cayo Santa Clara

This was my sixth visit to Melia las Dunas. I've walked through many other resorts in the area and spoken to many people and this resort is first class. A super holiday for family's , singles and couples. Safety was never a concern as the only people allowed across the causeway are workers and guests. All vehicles pass through a military check point. The staff are excellent as well as the food. Once you've been to the best you don't even want to to try anything else.

Awesome family vacation!

The resort is huge and beautiful! The staff is so nice and everyone is smiling and greeting you. Very diversified meals which is great. But the most amazing is the beach. I've been to Turks and Caicos but the beach at Cayo Santa Maria is more beautiful! Wow! :)

Beautiful beach, friendly people, sanitary rooms

Loved my stay. Made a lot of friends and everyone was very welcoming. The buffet was not that great, but I definitely recommend the beer garden and a la carte restaurants. I was also very impressed with our rooms and how clean it was. A lot of dancing and disco at night which were very enjoyable if you know how to dance. Miss Cuba so much. Will definitely return again!

Amazing holiday

The hotel is lovely. We had a wonderful holiday for the most part and we wanted to acknowledge that this was largely due to the wonderful staff. The staff are very hardworking and go out of their way to make the guest happy. Our housekeeper, Maidelyn, was just wonderful. We looked forward to coming to the room every day to see what creation she had made with the towels. She always had a smile for us and kept the building No. 49 and its rooms very very clean. The entertainment staff were incred [... read more]ible going the extra mile to keep us entertained and happy all the time. Gy, Carlos, Andy, Yasser, Teo were some of the few staff that worked tirelessly everyday to keep us happy on the beach and in the evenings. As well, we always looked forward to the evening shows and the music by DJ Lewis who was just so entertaining. The gardener, Frank, who was always working between buildings 46 to 49 was a pleasure to talk to. He always had a smile and flowers for me when I passed by. My only regret is not taking the names of the two ladies at the buffet, the "pancake lady" and the "omelette lady" who were so wonderful. As well, we had a server by the name of Meiling who went out of her way to anticipate our every need every time we visited the buffet. Please pass on our grateful thanks to these staff for the hard work they put in to ensure we have a good holiday. All in all, we had a wonderful vacation and we would have no hesitation in recomending Melia Las Dunas to others as well as we would love to come back again.

Nicest beachest in the world!

The beaches are beautiful and the ocean views are breathtaking. The hotel has very nice pools as well and the en carte restaurants have great food. Not so much the ones at the buffet. The rooms are very clean and the service is impeccable. 10/10 would come back.

Resort rating

not a 4.5 star resort as has been advertized, but 3 maybe 3.5. The ocean the best, but service was very poor, the worst so far ( out of my 9 trips to the Caribbean, 4 to Cuba alone ). buffet was smelly and not clean dishes, rooms were not dusted, towels were not changed daily, etc.

Average

The hotel was unbelievably long and exhausting to navigate. They actually had buggies driven by hotel staff to take guests from one place to another. The snack bars closed at 5 every day which left you with no choice but to go to the buffet for dinner ; which meant a walk of more than 10 minutes depending on where your bungalow was. The food was average. The specialty restaurants were better. The beach amazing but again a long walk in the heat to get to. The pools although great - very busy alwa [... read more]ys ; at all times of the day and constant noise due to people getting a little too happy (drinking) or the constant entertainment.

First time in Cayo Santa Maria

I've been to Varadero a few times but first time in Cayo Santa Maria. While it does take longer to get there the drive didn't seem as long as I anticipated. The room was good, and I was pleasantly surprised that it had a balcony as it stated on our booking that it didn't. Couple of downsides with the room was that the bed was very hard and some of the sheets/towels had stains on them. Food was pretty good, I'm not a picky eater so it's hard for me to really judge how good it was. My partner is  [... read more]a chef and he was worried about how the food would be but he was able to eat just fine while there. The only thing he didn't like was the seafood lunch buffet outdoors as it lacked flavour, and the calamari at the sports bar as it was chewy and salty. Make sure you bring long pants for the a la carte restaurants, we weren't able to go to Romantico as my partner didn't have any. Perhaps they could keep a couple of long pants on hand just in case? Drinks-no complaints. Entertainment- the best night was the beach party. Beach- of course it was great I've always felt that Cuba has the most beautiful beaches. Very glad at the amount of lounge chairs and shade available, where I've been before you'd have to get up very early to save a seat. None of that here you can saunter on at any time and still get chair Staff were great, friendly as always in Cuba no complaints. Buses were a bit delayed but as one of the staff mentioned "there's your time, then there's cuban time"-how do you even argue with that?? ;)

Great resort!

Room was clean, and staff were friendly. Food at the buffet could have been better though. The Italian and Oriental restaurants were very good!! Beach was beautiful! Nightly entertainment was a lot of fun

Nice resort

The grounds were very nicely kept. The room was nice but could use updating. We enjoyed the resort but the food was only okay, we found it odd they never had bacon at breakfast. They ran out of plates several times at the buffet and had a line up to get in...........weird? The entertainment at night was good, especially the "rock band" night when they played 60's, 70's,80's and 90's music! We really enjoyed the beach, beautiful sand and clean. The pizza place was FANTASTIC!

Las Dunas Vacation in July

This was are second stay at Las Dunas. Resort is nice, beautiful beach and great people. Overall, we felt that the resort was a bit run down over the last time we were there. We had problems with our air conditioning for the first 3 nights until they finally gave us another room. The board walks to the beach were in rough shape and there were problems with the sun shelters on the beach being washed away at high tide. Food was typical for Cuba but overall we had a relaxing vacation.