Fantastic Staff

new resort with a few growing pains to work out. Also many of the rooms only have bathtubs with a shower wand, no overhead shower. A very quiet location but is a very long trip from the airport, it took over 2 hours to reach the resort. Staff is wonderful, beach area is very narrow with not much shade but clean and a lot of lounge chairs.

Great Resort! Cuban 4 star.

Our family of 4 (kids 11 & 8) went to this Resort from March 20-27. It is a new resort. The gardens are still a work in progress, but looked better everyday! Our room was spacious and clean. The shower was awesome. The food was excellent, we always ordered from the grill, with options of Chicken breast, turkey breast, steak(not the best), calamari, shrimp, Huge prawns, Mahi mahi, tilapia, salmon. (most selections were available every day) The pasta bar was also a great option. The food on the bu [... read more]ffet was mostly the same every day, but if you get something from the grill & added a bit of the salad and rice/potatoes/squash/brussel sprouts/ etc you never had to eat the same meal twice. The banana foster station was amazing, as well as great quality ice cream!! The beach was clean with great waves. As a few others mentioned there are a few rocks in the water but nothing that would affect you. If you walk to the right there are large spots with no rocks at all. Honestly the rocks are a non issue!! We did not go to the shows, just because it is not our thing.... all southern destinations think that louder is better and our kids just find it too loud. The things that night bother some, you don't always get clean towels, sometimes they just hang them up to dry, your room night not be ready when you arrive at the resort (we arrived at 1:30 and our room was ready for 3:00) I would recommend this resort. It is small with really just one pool area right now, but good for a family. The one downside to Santa Maria is the 90 min bus ride. :(

Fantastic Hotel

This was our first trip to Cuba and we had a blast. The hotel was new and the rooms were real clean and nice. The food was great and the beach was nice. Highly recommended and I think we will go back!

Not a 5 star that's for sure

The Ocean casa del mar was nice but for 2 days straight we had the air cond leak into the room all over the floor and hitting on the walls. For 2 days straight no water to shower or flush the toliet. They had no money in the hotel to be able exchange currency for the whole week we were there,we were told to pay 2 cuban money and get on a bus to exchange money only problem we didn't have the proper currency to take the bus in order to make the exchange!!!! .

Have potential

It think hotel was not ready and not prepared to accept so many guest they have to work on improvement .Rooms were not bad. But no no hot water for 2 days in a room .I had shower with cold water and get sick after 2 the days .Then by the end of my vacation there was no water for 2 days on the resourt . All public toilet were very dirty and disgusting and nobody was bothering to bring water at least from the pool to flush ,no any sanitarisers for hand cleaning . In order to flush toilet in the ro [... read more]om I have to get empty bottles and bring from the pool to flush toilet .in order to wash out sand from the beach instead of shower I have to wash myself ( as well as other people) in a pool . Even to get extra bottle of drinking water was not easy , pritty much you have to beg and plus long way to carry in a room ( for drinking ,washing face and teeth. )They should at least offer and bring in each room extra water . And of course for 2 day there were no tea or coffee. As well I got sick which could be not a big surprise taking in consideration water problem. Not much initiative from staff to help guests to deal with situation. As well no announcement , no information to update what was happening . The beach was very dirty ,not cleaned ,so many see weeds ,very few areas for shade. Not once beach towels were changed .And there was not seen any lifeguard or person wth Red Cross in case of emergency which is very concerning safety concerns. My vacation was ruined .

Beautiful New Resort

The ONLY water view from the rooms is on the top floor of the various buildings. You could not walk the beach other than our resort and the next. Beach was shallow, maybe 30 feet before the water. Nice white sand with beautiful blue water. Service was great in the restaurants and bars. The food was not great as the meats were tough and string tasting. The snack bar menu was not usually avaiable and other options were offered which you had to ask for daily/hourly. Menu stated every meal with fri [... read more]es and vegetable(s). They did not have fries. Part way thru the day they would run out of what they offered. Staff was very accommodating and friendly. Rooms were brand new, bright and adequate. No bathtub just large shower. Really liked the attention to energy conservation in the room, ie room key inserted to the wall kept power active. It was very difficult to get more than 1 water bottle daily. Ran out of toilet paper and had to go ask for it. Not all ala carte restaurants were open yet, however ala carte meals were not limited to 4 as per our booking. Pools were very nice and grounds will be very nice once mature. The only thing to do on the island is go to the market. Which can be accomplished in less than 1 hour. Taxi driver to the market drove like a crazy man driving down the middle of the road with his music blasting. Second taxi home from the market drove responsibly and respectfully and was less expensive. We would maybe return to Cuba but not Santa Maria.