Iberostar Selection Varadero: great resort

excellent beach, soft sand, wide beach frontage amazing swimming pool very good food excellent entertainment, great evening shows great maid service hotel villas, pool and other buildings: fabulous architectural design. In general, the hotel catered to details; very impressive. Need to improve: - Front desk - Employees were not very friendly and not knowledgeable about the hotel rooms. - Returning guests - We were returning guests and asked for king size bed when we booked. At ch [... read more]eck-in, we got a room with 2 double bed. The front desk employee promised another room with king size bed the next day. We viewed the room the next day, it was still a room with two double beds. Therefore we decided not to change room. - We asked for a room facing the beach when we booked, our request was not honoured. However, our friend who was the first time to the hotel got a standard room with the view we asked for. We had the feeling that the hotel does not value returning customers but to please new customers. If this is the way the hotel treat their returning customers, we doubt if we should do the hotel a favour as to refer it to our family members and friends.

Starfish Varadero: Decent 3 star that falls short

The hotel is undergoing quite a few renovation's- new rooms, painting, windows, decor etc. When they are finished it should be quite a nice resort. Service is quite good, grounds are fine, beach is great. Food and cleanliness is this resorts downfall. I know what to expect from a Cuban AI in terms of food and Starfish was lacking even by Cuban standards. Hot food was non existent(except for the very limited grill station) even made to order food at the snack bar was usually cold. Cold cuts and  [... read more]cheese sat out in 35 degree temps for hours. This is the only vacation I have ever lost weight and normally I'll eat anything. The one exception was Cuba Day...pig roast , grilled fish, chicken etc was all quite good. The common areas of the resort are quite dirty... windows, tables, floors need a serious clean. This resort has potential but for now I'd say you can find a better value at the same price point.

Hotel Los Cactus: Cant wait to come back!

I cannot say enough good things about this resort. PLEASE if you're here, book a night at the cuban restaurant that they have on site, ignore the Italian one - it's not that great. I found the food at the buffet AMAZING. I don't eat meat though and that's where I heard a lot of the complaints - but my god do they fry some great potatoes. They have entertainment every night where the buffet is held around 9pm. I believe on friday's they have a trivia night and that was the best time I had there.  [... read more]It was so fun participating and competing for a prize (bottles of rum). The beach is right outside your hotel room so that's also great. The pool is really nice and they also have entertainment there every late afternoon. I only showed up on the last day which I regret because IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. They had a soap dispenser into the pool creating mass amounts of bubbles; it was great. Not to mention how lovely the people were. I miss it already and I can't wait to go back. Only down side is that there was a lady at receptionist that didn't seem to know what she was doing. We had our sunwing booking agent leave tickets for a tour at the front desk, and the lady who was working had no idea what we were talking about. She "looked" for the tickets but literally just opened one drawer and said she couldn't find anything, we almost missed our tour that we paid a couple hundred dollars for. The other guys at the receptionist were fabulous. Can't go wrong by staying here.

Barcelo Solymar: Wonderful time

The staff was great, there was a few issues that were caused by the hurricane. But that was to be expected, and our time was fantastic. The beach was gorgeous and the entertainment was wonderful. The fridges were restocked every day

Palma Real: Amazing locationn

The staff were awesome ! The resort was in a perfect location to wonder around and explore. Make sure you get a massage while you are there.. she's awesome ! The food was very repetitive but it is very inexpensive to eat out at restaurants where the foot is great. We had a lobster dinner for my birthday for $15 pesos.. can't go wrong with that ! All in all good resort , staff were great, the only complaint is that I wish I was aware that the main pool was closed for renovations while we w [... read more]ere there.

Club Kawama: Great Time

There was lots of renovations/improvements going on but was not a inconvenience to our stay. The staff was very friendly and helpful. Beach and location were excellent. Overall amazing place to stay and great value for the price.

Barcelo Solymar: Average resort

I would give this hotel about a 5 out of 10. Rooms (they call superior) were at the most average, even for Cuba. The grounds were nice and well kept, even after hurricane Irma. The hotel staff were nice and were helpful. And here we go again about the hotel food in Cuba. In short for food, not good. After 2 days of eating the "same old" off the hot buffet table, I switched to the salad bar and survived on it, 3 meals a day. It was almost impossible to get a snack between meals. Overall,  [... read more]wouldn't go to Sol Palmeras again, but I might try the sister hotel next door, Arenas Blancas. We did have access to that hotel as part of our package and I was wishing we were staying there. So I would say, as much as Barceló would like to say how good they are, they are just another Cuban economy hotel.

Muthu Playa Varadero: not amazing resort

the hotel is like 2 stars in Canada, slowly everything going down, we were there in May 2017 , and now second time October 2017, so we can see the difference. There was a little damage from the Irma, like about 15 palm threes removed from the resort, and the beach was almost with 1/3 shades compared to May, and they started to add simple sun protecting umbrellas. The room is with AC unit that you don't have control over it, so it blows cold air all day and night. The TV has bad quality satellite [... read more] programs, only CTV Montreal for Canada. There is a hot water but the quality of the shower is below 4 stars (talking about both times). when going Into the only buffet, since the Mercury( France) is not the owner, (now is grand Caribe from Cuba), all hotel people have lunch and dinner there, and there is always over 10 people in front of you everywhere. The swimming pool is also going down.

Be Live Turquesa: Quick and successful recovery after IRMA

We stayed in Be Live Experience Turquesa 14 days, from September 27 – October 11, 2017. That was second time in Turquesa. When we arrived we noticed damage in resort: palm trees did not have leaves, big trees in pool area (ficus and others) did not have leaves, buildings damage on the walls and roofs, big damage on the main restaurant (buffet). All three meals were served in restaurant on the beach. Cuban people were working day and night in the Main restaurant. Two days after we arrived, they [... read more] finish inside work and start to serve all three meals in it. We were very happy with quality of the meal as well as whit variety. Lot of fruits: papayas, oranges, guava, pineapples. Service was excellent, everybody in restaurants, bars, maids and at receptions were very polite and tried to make us happy. When we arrived all umbrellas at the beach was gone. After few days, management put on the beach around 60 new folding plastic umbrellas. That was very good job. Big waves move sand from the ocean on the shore, so now is the longer way to walk to reach the water and longer shallow water to reach deeper water to swim. That is no big deal, I just notice changes. We share opinion other people in Turquesa than Management of the Hotel together with all employees did very good job and made successful recover Turquesa after hurricane Irma. We (three couples) look forward to come back and enjoy in the Be Live Turquesa again in the future. Hopefully next year.

Club Tropical: Typical Cuban experience

Expect to get what you paid for. In this respect, this hotel is one of the best. The main problem, as many other have commented, is that the music is too loud. Unable to even hear the T.V. in the room. For this reason, I will not return to this hotel. ( same as others ).

Roc Barlovento: Roc Barlovento Hotel Snapshot

My husband and I stayed the week of October 7th to October 14, 2017 at Roc Barlovento, Varadero, Cuba. The city of Varadero had just been hit with Hurricane Irma. There was a lot of damage done. I believe the locals, hotel staff, army and university students shut down Varadero for two weeks in order to clean up the fallen trees, debris and try to work with damaged infrastructure. The hotel surprisingly was up and running without too much damage. The staff and locals were in good spirits desp [... read more]ite the damage and shortage of certain staples in their diets. The hotel was out of tomatoes and bananas but other than that had a good choice of foods. My husband and I brought an extra suitcase full of clothes and toiletries for the locals. We went to the market downtown and the locals were happy to be selling their awesome keepsakes again. The airport was almost empty when we came through as Westjet was the only airplane in on October 7th at the time we arrived. All and all, we did have some issues with the bed being too low and hard. The resort was full due to other hotels not being up and running so reception was unable to change our room and was unable to address our concern. Would I return, yes it was within walking distance to the main street of Varadero and the resort itself was very clean and the hotel staff were very friendly.

Muthu Playa Varadero: Fantastic Resort!!!

I had an amazing time at Playa De Oro. My room was spacious and clean with quick access to the pool and beach. I loved how compact everything was. I didn't have to spend time walking all over and trying to find everything. The grounds and beach were very clean even though they had just had a hurricane a week before. The food was plentiful and always hot and fresh. I have to admit my favourite part of the whole trip was getting to know all of the workers there. They were so open and friendly and  [... read more]always making sure that i was ok and was there anything they could do for me. I accepted some offers of home cooked meals at their houses and they took me for tours around their neighbourhoods. They treated me like family. I will definitely be going back in May.

Sanctuary at Grand Memories Varadero: Post IRMA Experience

AMAZING time, the resort was spared, little damage(nothing to worry about) food was fantastic, room was clean and comfortable, beach was a wicked. loved the 24 hour room service and enjoyed the Diamond Club experience.

Playa Vista Azul: Great resort

All was kept clean and in order which is very rare in most resorts. Grounds were kept immaculate. Service was given in a friendly manner 98% of the time. If I were to return to Cuba I would not hesitate to stay here again.

Palma Real: Very bad

Disgusting hotel , disgusting service , disgusting pool , beach is far , dinning is just garbage , if you do not tip you get no service , there is no kids club as it say on the website . I will not recommemded to any concious people to go to this hotel.

Blau Varadero: Amazing resort and country

Blau varadero from the grounds to the lobby,rooms,buffet restaurant pool everything was perfect a big thank you to orlando, iris, arlie and especially harley and lovio for their kindess every moment was absolutely great.. I will be returning for a visit to the blau by may..

Starfish Jibacoa: Nice location

I was in Villas Jibacoa one month after the hurricane Irma, which had caused damage to the resort. The hotel was still recovering. I liked the surrounding nature, the beach wasn’t so good, lots of cutting stones, so entering the water to swim was difficult, only on the 3rd day I found a small place where there were no stones to enter the water. The staff was very nice. The food: sometimes I stayed hungry, sometimes there was something eat, and even it was quite good, especially the local [... read more] fish, or cakes, but the main problem for me were the flies all over the food. Grounds and gardens were clean and nice.

Hotel Los Cactus: Staff were ok

Rooms were to far from pool. Food was terrible. Not enough bars open when it gets dark . Staff entertainment were not that friendly, impossible to get a ball to play games in the pool. Food was terrible.

Starfish Varadero: ONCE upon a time

This was once the Gran Hotel opened by Castro in 1977.now it's definitely not Grand anything.Although I don't agree with the offensive reviews online..ie , BED BUGS and so on,bad food,it is Cuba and there are bugs there as there is in the rest of the world.Service was very good in ALL areas.Dasaland?In the dining room, Nancyea in the lobby bar.and the older gentleman who makes sandwiches at the beach bar they were particularly welcoming ..thus place is SOO big.there are parts I didn't know were [... read more] there.they did painting on ALL the bungalows starting the day after I got there.so I got woken up to ALOT of noise every day at the latest,7am .And work was done til 830 pm so there were ALOT of people outside my door every day.This should have been posted for this hotel before people booked.beautiful beach, regular Cuban food, edible I guess.the Pool side bar is closed at 6pm. I like sitting outside when on holiday.other than that this hotel is and always will be a 3*. Just with new paint. I would NEVER see paying more than what I paid for offseason.so just be prepared this is still Cuba and not Mexico or the Islands.

Muthu Playa Varadero: nice

Everything is nice, swimming pool is clean, food is fresh and delicious. room is a little wet but cleanly. service is ok. The snack bar has many kinds of drinks, juice. beer.rum.ect. And the music is perfect.