Playa Cayo Santa Maria: Playa Cayo Santa Maria was just ok

The resort grounds and pools are nice and beach is stunning. Lots of rocks to get to the beach though. Hours of restaurants are bad if you have kids. Rooms were very average. Def not a 4 or 5 star hotel.

Royalton Cayo Santa Maria: Over the top resort!

The Royalton was superb! The grounds were immaculate, the rooms super clean. All amenties rate at ten out of ten. Excellent value for your money. Want to visit Cuba, then this is "the place to stay" Relaxing!

Royalton Cayo Santa Maria: Fantatic, service,quiet, super-clean and beautiful

Stayed 3rd week of July. We had perfect weather, which is scorching hot. This is relatively small hotel (250 capacity) and you can walk anywhere on the grounds in a minute or two. The staff are friendly, articulate, and often speak (a bit of) several languages. You can do most arrangements in English if you prefer. It is common for your butler to inquire if everything is to your liking, or the chef or maitre'D to ask if the food was good. New contruction (2010) and it shows: the AC, fixtures, p [... read more]lumbing, electricity, are all top notch. Everything is spotlessly clean and dry, including the poolside toilets. If I have any minor complaint, it's with the other guests doing dumb stuff like reserving three Cabanas, and only using 1. Finding shade can be difficult and the Cabanas are 80% reserved but 20% in use. But this is a problem with us as guests, not really the hotel IMHO. The beach is beautiful white sand and you can walk safely for miles. There is snorkling off the beach at the Sol Cayo Santa Mariato the East (cab or catameran ride).. Or a 30min walk to the West. Scuba is available as an excursion and is excellent. This Island is 1.5 hrs from airport. It's attached to the mainland via a 48km causeway.The island is exclusively tourists and industry staff, there are no local Cuban towns on it. You'd need to take a $35 tour to drive off the island to see the "real Cuba". For $5 you can take a cab to another hotel/beach on the Island. for $1 you can take an hourly bus. The Royalton is adults-only, and mature in it's style of service. Not a loud party-place. Next door is the Paradisio (capacity 2000+) where you can use the resturants, bars,Kayaks etc. we visited once and left pretty quickly as it was overrun with kids, and not nearly the same level of quality, or even maintenance. Royalon nightly entertainment was quite good. Better than most I've seen at all inclusives in Carribean. Of particular note, are the numerous musicialns. (duets and trios) playing live music in the restaurants. One evenening we saw an awsome flute/violin duet on the beach! To my delight, the playlist included romantic covers of coldplay, metalica, led zep. It sounds odd, but it was fantastic! Would visit again.

Royalton Cayo Santa Maria: Loved the resort, very friendly and helpful staff.

This was my first time to an all adult resort, and I loved it. I loved the fact that the resort was small so I didn't need to take a shuttle from my room to the beach and back. But the highlight for me was that there were plenty of beach chairs with palapas no matter what time of day you arrived at the beach. Everyone could get out of the sun and into the shade. This is a very important feature for me and my husband, as I'm sure for most people. Also, the beach is fabulous!!! Breakfast and lunch [... read more] was very good, but I was somewhat disappointed with the dinners. They were just okay. Entertainment was awesome. Evening entertainment as well at breakfast and lunch. The resort is very well maintained and very clean.

Playa Cayo Santa Maria: Not Amazing :(

We booked a 7 night vacation at this resort but left after 2 days and switched to a nicer 5* resort close by. Others seemed to be enjoying themselves at the Playa Caya but it was just not for us. Positives: The beach was really great and pools and grounds were very nice. Our 3rd floor (no elevators) sea view room was decent although the shower didn't drain and would overflow if you didn't keep your showers really short. Negatives: Our biggest problem was the awful main buffet where we were expec [... read more]ted to eat most of our meals. The place was dark, dingy and extremely noisy - not an environment we wanted to spend any time in. The beach buffet was marginally better but that was open just for lunch. The resort's food was about par for Cuba we learned. It seemed awful to us but others said it was worse in surrounding resorts. We were very relieved to get out of there and enjoyed ourselves for the remaining 5 days in the other resort. The trip ended up costing a bundle because we had to pay again at resort #2 but at least our holiday was saved.

Playa Cayo Santa Maria: great resort/wonderful staff

My family and I had a great time at this resort. the service was amazing; rooms were clean and kept very clean every day. The entertainment staff were incredible; great Michael Jackson show. My only issue was prior to arriving at the resort, I had requested two side by side rooms for my family as there were 7 of us. Upon arrival, we had rooms that were several room apart but this was rectified immediately. Fortunately, it was not peak season and thus the change was not difficult to make. The cat [... read more]amaran tour is exceptional....definitely would recommended. Food...overall, very satisfactory given where we were. fresh seafood everyday, fresh grilled meats daily, fried rice cooked to order....fresh fruits. Mangoes were incredible. A few days we had issues with beach towel service but we were able to improvise. at the end of the day, it is a vacation, and one has to make the most of what is available. Beach...a bit rocky before you get to the actual beach area as there is a bit of a down/up tapered climb (3-5ft) but once you are there, it is awesome!!!!

Memories Paraiso: It was very nice !

Everything was excellent expect for the lobby and theatre bars ! They made there drinks SO strong I had to toss them ! They also didn't know many drinks just the basic ones ! But other than that it was awesome !

Memories Paraiso: Relaxing vacation

The hotel and grounds are very well kept, very clean. A couple of things though I did notice some of the washrooms did not have toilet seats whether it be in the airport or the hotel. Mosquitos are really bad here as well, even wearing bug spray didnt really keep them off and are twice as bad in the theatre. Stay out of there if u can. There were lots of pools for the kids which is one of the reasons we chose this resort for our daughter. Also the children's characters. Toopy and Bino and the B [... read more]erinstein bears were great and my 19 month pf daughter had a blast. The beach is amazing here. Very clean and no seaweed. Considering this is a 'family' resort there are no elevators. Which isn't a deal breaker but just turns into a pain in the butt when they put us on the top (third) floor for an oceanview room with a baby so every time we go out we have to carry a stroller, baby and beach bag up and down.

Valentin Perla Blanca: Relaxing brand new and modern resort

Went here june 26 - july 03 and it was fantastic. The food was good, beef tasted better than expected and the rooms were brand new and really nice. The bars were good and the resort was not too busy. Pina Colada was really good - slushy. The beach was simply beautiful. The mosquitoes were a big problem so spray is needed but apart from that and the long 2 hour drive to get there from the airport, it was amazing.

Melia Las Dunas: 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

Valentin Perla Blanca: Beautiful people, beautiful resort!

First trip my boyfriend and I have ever taken and I think we chose right! The staff were wonderful and made you feel like family, the resort was beautifully maintained, food wasn't bad but the beach was the best part! It was a fantastic trip and I would go again in a heart beat!

Resonance Blu Santa Maria: Beautiful Beach..Resort was good for the price!

The beach for this hotel is beautiful.. we enjoyed the pool and 24hr "grill" which allows hotdogs and burgers all the time. However, the night before we checked out our safe was robbed :( Everything but our passports were taken from us... Including a precious family cross. Be careful as we heard this happening twice on our resort... Very disappointing end to our trip, however the employees of the hotel work very hard. We found the wait for things to be fixed (ex: our air conditioner broke, we di [... read more]dn't have a remote) to be a while, but I've been to Cuba before and this is not unusual. We had a good time for the price, however the hotel and the robbery left us disappointed.. do NOT bring ANY valuables at all on this trip! we brought very little: just our wallets and one or two pieces of jewelry... and everything was taken. -our friend had his iPhone 6 stolen from the room. - our other friends got robbed of all their belongings inside their suitcases.

Melia Las Dunas: 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!

Playa Cayo Santa Maria: Pleasantly surprised

Resort was well maintained, staff was very friendly and accommodating and food exceeded my expectations. 24 hour snack bar and bar service was a bonus. Pool had algae 1 day but was quickly dealt with.

Melia Cayo Santa Maria: Disappointing

First I would like to say that the bartenders and servers worked very hard to do the best they could with so few staff. They were always friendly and anticipated our needs. The beach was beautiful and the ocean was warm and enjoyable. However, housekeeping was not thorough. Dirty dishes piled up in the common area outside our room and were not picked up once during our stay although it continued to pile up daily. This did nothing to help the ant problem that was even in our bathroom and never ad [... read more]dressed. The robes provided for us were tattered, and one even looked like the belt had been chewed. The pool was poorly kept and often greenish black. Air conditioning was minimal in the rooms to say the least. I thought the food was fine. I always found something I liked to eat. Sadly, on our second to last day, the entire resort lost power. There was no ice, no water, no air conditioning at all and eventually we had to be evacuated to a nearby resort. That was a waste of a day. Very disappointing for a Melia Resort.

Valentin Perla Blanca: Anniversary get Away

First off I want to say my wife and I had a wonderful time and well worth the ~ $775 per person for Low Time and I would return during Low Season Pros: Privilege Club: very inexpensive to upgrade to this level, Noli tours I was told the resort can handle 2000 people in High Time, there were only ~200 people last week beach was long, fine powder sand and No seaweed & No sand fleas ocean water temperature almost equals air temperature, high eighties F staff very friendly and command of English exc [... read more]ellent Privilege bar had great AC, pool table and high end liquor Food was great, due to low #s of guests all food in buffet was cooked right in front of you and you could choose level well done, medium, or rare Tons of fresh seafood, from calamari, fish, huge shrimp, lobster and mussels steak in the oh la la (french) restaurant was 1'' and cooked to perfection breakfast omelets were thin and layered nicely room A/C was great, I set it to18 degrees C, room clean and no musty smell lots of towels and even 2 face clothes, all changed daily room safe easy to use pools crystal clean and well maintained 9-10 catamarans piloted by beach staff, no booking needed calm water, no huge waves or undertow pool bartenders serves snacks tipping is important, I budgeted 20 convertible pesos per day, (3 meals, lots of drinks, beach boys, speciality coffee bar, ground staff, etc) Cons; BUGS; lots of mosquitos at this time of year 1/2 of the resort was shut down for Low Time No Caesars in the bars (I love this drink) 2 hour bus ride from air port ocean view room only when out in balcony gyms closed no free WiFi limited in-resort convince store, bring your own junk food a few small jelly fish, vinegar antidote at the beach bar only 1 swim up bar per side buffet only open 2 nights out of the 7 days Room Tip: ask for 3rd floor to see over the shoreline vegetation to view the ocean See more room tips Stayed June 2015, travelled as a couple

Melia Las Dunas: 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.

Playa Cayo Santa Maria: Worst trip ever....

Resort was nice, huge and plenty of room to enjoy. But I was sick on the third day. Diarrhea...good thing I brought some some Lomotil that fix that problem. But on the 4th day i woke up early shivering uncontrollably and need to go the emergency. We ask for hotel help but to no avail. They told us to grab a taxi and we did, though the clinic was just a very short drive outside the resort 3 CUC only. The doctor told me I was dehydrated and had infection. Stayed there for 3 hours 2 IV's and anitib [... read more]iotics for 134 CUC. 5th day was worse as my right leg start to swell up and fever was so high. Bad infection and more antibiotics from our second trip from the clinic. I tries to catch an early flight back to Toronto but to no avail. Raul, air transat rep was very helpful. I no choice but to stay in the room for the rest of my trip with my leg elevated and wrap with ice. During this whole ordeal, there wasn't a single hotel manager that came and ask me how they can help. None. Zero. Obviously, they dont care once their guests arrived and assigned their rooms. Major reason for for sickness is insect bites. Our hallway and room is infested by mosquitos and butterflies. I even killed a cockroach. Please stay away from 709 & 711. There are tons of dead mosquitos in the ceiling and walls as we killed them every night to get a descent sleep without those buzzing sound around our ears. Is you plan to stay at the lobby at night or watch the show, be prepared for some insect actions as they are all over you.... I wish they would do something about this as it is a shame for this nice resort for guesst leaving very unhappy. Oh and don't even triy to request for another room if you don't like your building as they will tell you all the lies to keep you where you are!!!

Valentin Perla Blanca: Outstanding Service

I highly recommend Valentin Perla Blanca. The service was fantastic. I had an issue with my room and they immediately resolved it. Beach is an amazing. Food can use some improvement. I would definitely return to this paradise.

Playa Cayo Santa Maria: worst resort ever

First of all its not 4 star its more like 2 star hotel. Rooms are very dirty not cleaned at all by maids, only thing they did is change towels and make you bad that is it. When eating at buffet meat station or any other station where they were making food was 1/2 to 45 min wait also glasses and cutlery that was on tables were dirty. Staff was very slow and uninterested to serve you water or anything else to drink. tips didn't make any difference. First floor rooms had bugs spiders and not small  [... read more]once they were huge. Didn't have running water every day for at least 2 hours and on last day had cold water for few hours then non so no shower until morning. Have been in Santa Maria before different resorts with less star rating but better service and resorts then playa for sure.