Enjoyed resort

Pools and grounds amazing. Rooms nice and clean. Beach is lovely however big step down sand bank to waters edge. Resort wasn't very busy last week. Food not the best typical of Cuban choices. Staff exceptional, will try to please you if possible. Overall enjoyed trip and would recommend to others.

Nice resort clean

the rooms were clean i cant complain but the first day air condioning the last day before leaving back to montreal no electricity someone chit in front of our door secondly we had problems with or door know knob and no one come to repair. thirdly we went to complain at the desk but didint seem to care i was very disapointed.my husnand and i dont think that we will go back.thankyou.

Just OK

Had a great time but the resort isn’t one I’ll go back to any time soon. Food and service needs to improve. Perhaps more staff is needed, never any clean tables at the buffet in the morning. Even tipping the staff didn’t improve service.

We LOVED this place!

We have been to Cuba many times over the years and we both agreed that this was our favourite of all the resorts we have visited. We liked that it was a smaller resort so it was easy to navigate and we never experienced any long line-ups for food, drinks, etc. The food was really good! The buffet had a good selection, good quality; the 24-hour snack bar was very good; lunches at El Ranchon near the beach were very good - we really enjoyed their vegetable salad and hot-off-the-grill (literal [... read more]ly) chicken, pork and vegetables, plus the view was amazing! Our room was very nice, clean and spacious and we always had a good supply of hot water for showers. Water, beer and pop were replenished daily. The people were fantastic! We have always found the Cuban people to be warm and welcoming anywhere we go, but they were doubly so at this resort. They were all so genuinely warm and friendly and happy. They were like family. We hated to leave and we are already making plans to return to this resort next time.

Great Time Had By Capers

My husband and I went on a 5 day trip. Absolutely amazing. There is something to say about a smaller resort. It's more personal. After one trip to the bar or restaurant they would remember your name and your beverage. Never was there any gratuity expected but VERY much appreciated. Relaxing atmosphere mostly, variety of ages from young couples with children to older couples with their grandchildren. Cuban food is Cuban food. You won't starve for sure. We took our Heinz ketchup and Parma cheese w [... read more]ith us. It does help. Fish and fruit is fresh and a variety. Fries, pizza and omelettes from the snack bar were our go to. Great staff. Have no complaints. Mich & Laura and Stephanie & Jonathan great meeting you guys. Mich will wait for your review as discussed. ☺

Great resort!

This hotel is great value for the money. The entertainment, food, accommodations and people were great. The grounds were very well maintained. The large pool was spotless. A couple of the bathrooms were in need of some maintenance, but otherwise the resort is fine. You can't go wrong with this resort. After all, this is a Melia, would you expect anything else!!

Fantastic resort!

Very small and walkable. Staff feel like family and they are over generous and go above and beyond. Buffet was amazing, thanks to Chi Chi, eyelash boy, Ariel, Daniel, Betsy and many more. Juan at the lobby bar was so speedy and efficient and Nestor and his staff at the beach bar were so much fun! Loungers were dragged down the beach for us by the life guards and the beach was like a picture from the cover of a magazine. The grounds were immaculate and the rooms were huge. Water, pop and beer was [... read more] stocked in your room fridge everyday and the maids did a good job cleaning the rooms. A la cartes were good, with the Japanese one putting on a fabulous show. Great stay over all and will definitely return.

Lovely resort

Grounds: Beautifully taken care of. The staff working day and night at times to keep it looking neat and clean. Rooms: our room was okay. Not the most comfortable bed, but how much time are you really spending in your room? The only thing that I had an issue with was the musky smell that stuck around. We kept our bathroom door closed, that helped a bit. Food: I loved the selection at the buffet. Breakfast was my fave. Fresh buns, cheese and meat. Pancake station, with caramel and vanilla syru [... read more]p. Mmm. A la carte restaurants were okay as well. Japanese, French Mediterranean and TexMex were the choices. The beach snack bar opened from 1pm -330pm I believe. You gotta have the bbqed blood sausage. Delish!! And their salad and the bean rice. Mmm. Staff: Everyone was wonderful. Friendly, hard working and always willing to help. Hint: get to know them, make conversation and appreciate them. And you will have no issues. Beach: BEAUTIFUL and clean. Go and reserve your seats. If no luck ask the guards for help, they will help. Entertainment: this could've been a little better. I liked the shows, but I myself loooove dancing. There wasn't much for a disco. There was a disco nearby the resort but nothing on site. When they played the music, it was shortly after the show and didn't last for long. The retro/rock show was the absolute best. Overall experience: I will definitely be going back.

Nice resort

beautiful and large beach. Great services. Good food. Will recommend to my friends. We ate at Continental and Bistro restaurants that were good. Enough palappas for everybody, anytime on the beach. Room was fresh paint.

Beautiful resort but food less than impressive

Just back from a week at this resort. The staff here is amazing. Never once did you feel like you had to tip to have great service. Courteous, professional and very hospitable. However, the one thing lacking is the food. You are afforded 3 al a cartes which were OK but the buffet is terrible. No selections, empty containers and under cooked meat. We are definitely not a picky eating bunch but when Brussel sprouts and stale bread are your meal at a 4.5 star resort something is wrong. This is defi [... read more]nitely not a reflection on the staff but management needs revamp something. Been to Melia resorts before and Cuba several times and this is definitely one we will not go back to.

Staff were amazing

Overall resort was very nice considering the hurricane and what they went through. Rooms are a little dated but kept very clean. No consistency when it came to fresh towels - one day yes one day no. Mattresses need to be replaced as feeling springs in them when sleeping. The staff were fantastic and pampered us in every way - always wanted to ensure we were looked after and always did it with a smile. Became close with our dining room wait staff and would love to have brought them home with [... read more] us. Internet is a huge issue when we are now living in a world of technology. Understand where we were but would think that by now better communications would be setup. First resort I have ever stayed at that we had to pay to use the internet in lobby areas. Most of time purchased was used up just trying to get on the internet only to be kicked off. Also big recommendation would be to have a printer available for client use in business office so clients can print boarding passes for pre-online check-in of flights coming home. Had to email to reservation office and they never did receive it. Grounds were kept immaculate by their staff. Pool attendants and service staff at the pool were fantastic. Food overall was not that good - a la carte dining was very nice however the buffet lacked variety and taste. Very repetitive at lunch and dinner and by the end of the week did not even want to eat there. Suggestion that they have theme nights or change things up. Again I am keeping in mind where we were and that food items may not be as accessible for them. Pools were well kept and always clean. With the amount of new resorts being built around them - I think they are going to have to do some renovations to keep up with the new and updated resorts. We did have to change our room the 2nd day due to no hot water in our room. Also had to call to have our safe opened twice due to it not opening for us.

Love this resort so much

love the resort have been there many many times. Love the staff they are the best, no complaints at all, cannot wait to go back, beautiful beach, good food, large clean rooms, lots of entertainment, can't say enough about the beautiful Cuban peoplexoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Friendly staff

I thought the grounds were lovely. The staff did an amazing job to get the hotel up and running after the hurricane. The beach was picture perfect, beautiful blue ocean with the forever white sand beach. The first room was a bit musty, we were moved the next day and the room was excellent. I loved the small resort, easy to walk to everything. the restaurants were very good, always found something we liked. Especially enjoyed the international restaurant. overall a great place for a holiday.

Great getaway!

We recently spent a week at the Melia Cayo Santa Maria. We had some mixed feelings about it. Good points... the grounds were beautiful, the people friendly, entertainment was varied and very good. Very talented dancers and musicians. The resort is in a great setting. Spread out with 2 big pools in the center. Bad points... the music around the pool area was way too loud every day and there was no real way to get away from it. A “music free time” each day would be a good compromise. Unfortuna [... read more]tely the food and drinks were not great either. We did understand that Cuban food has a bad reputation and that the hurricane last fall created devastation to the island and its produce leaving limited fruit. This was a disappointment. I will admit that we can be fussy eaters anyway but when we talked to other couples who had been there several times before, they all said that they found the food not as good this year too. As for the drinks, they had quite a drink menu in the lobby bar but it would have been helpful had it been in English. It took a while to figure out what you were ordering. Some of the fruity drink flavourings were very artificial tasting. Almost bitter. We were also surprised at how windy it was. The wind blew day and night. Apparently that’s not uncommon for February. It kept it cool and bug free which was good. The beach is beautiful but once again the winds created extremely rough surf. Great for watching but we didn’t see a lot of people venturing into it to swim. The beach has a wide sandy area and then almost a sand “cliff” that you had to climb over to get to the waters edge. I’m assuming that this was another result of hurricane Ermas wrath. Overall we did have a great week. It’s not a big resort which was an attractive feature for us. If you are looking for a good place to relax and you keep your expectations of the food low, I’m sure you’d enjoy it as much as we did.

Good resort for family

The beach was great. The pools, with gentle slopes, were good for the kids. The food was good by Cuban standard, especially the pizza and burger at the snack bar by the pools. The entertainment was good and there were a lot of activities all week. The negatives? Having to line up 3 mornings to book dinners and the Santa Clara airport was the absolute worst.

Impressed!

Six of us had a great time at this resort. We especially loved the local entertainers. Our rooms were comfortable. The beach was just lovely. The staff became our new friends. We ate and drank well. It was nice to have the marketplace so close.

Good for Cuba

Food was good hotel was good travel time was horrible 12 hour travel time. Airport and bus ride is very difficult The hotel staff was good drinks good beach amazing food decent. I won't go back to Santa maria but if this hotel was in varadero or cayo coco I'd go back. The travel time is too much

LOVELY

IT WAS WELL KEPT. ENJOYED OUR ROOM WHICH WAS WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE. HIGH TOILET WAS GREAT AND WALK IN SHOWER WITH A PORTABLE SHOWER CHAIR. OUR CHAMBERMAID WAS EXCELLENT SO SHE WAS WELL REWARDED WITH GIFTS. FOOD WAS TOLERABLE. TWO GREAT RESTAURANTS WERE THE INTERNATIONAL AND JAPANESE. FELT IT WAS TOO WINDY FOR ME SO FELT CHILLY HOWEVER I DID HAVE A COUGH. SMALLER RESORT SO LESS WALKING..EASY TO GET AROUND. GREAT NIGHTLY ENTERTAINMENT. GEAT POOL SURROUNDINGS. LOVELY BEACH BUT WATER TOO CHOPPY. L [... read more]OVELY CUBANS.

Wonderful staff!!

The resort was wonderful in itself. However, whether it was from Hurricane Irma or aging, the rooms had quite a bit of damage. In fact, we requested a change of room because of the moldy smell in our original room. The bathroom door was rotten halfway down the door to the bottom and would not close. The second room was much better but we had to call maintenance several times as the toilet wouldn't flush. By the 3rd day, it was "somewhat" fixed. The grounds were beautiful and very well main [... read more]tained. The food was not very good and we ended losing quite a bit of weight from not eating much. But we did go to the A la Carte Japanese restaurant and it was excellent!! In fact, we re-booked it for another night. The weather was not very nice but clearly, nobody had any control over this. But the beach was not accessible for most of the time due to weather and the pool was very very cold. Again, nobody's fault. The staff was beyond friendly and helpful and we will miss many of the staff we met. On an end note, not all the excursions were available as there was not enough people signed up. However, our experience at the Dolphinarium was amazing. I would recommend this excursion to anyone!!

Decent

The resort is generally clean and well maintained (especially compared to the neighboring Sol), but the trees evidently suffered from the recent hurricane(s) (lost a lot of foliage so not much tree shade). People are courteous. Hot water pressure is very good compared to a few years ago. The beach is nice and clean, as well, with plenty of space and shade. So overall OK, with some notes: one day the bed sheets smelled musty and stinky (noticed that during the night after going to bed, so we c [... read more]ould not change them), and another one pillow case was smudged with something pretty gross looking (only noticed the next day... yeah). The food is alright but you will get so bored of it after a few days (essentially the same few items everyday). The beach restaurant makes a difference by offering some fresh daily bbq and a few things not on the main cafeteria list. I advise to avoid wasting your time waiting in line to register for the a la carte dinners as they do not even by far resemble what they are supposed to be (we tried Japanese, Mediterranean and "international"). Wifi is spotty: you need to buy a 1 CUC card with sign in information, which gives you 1h of internet access; it only works in the lobby and around the beach towel kiosk areas, that we could figure (not in room). Last thing, the AC in the room blows right in your face when lying in bed and there is no way to change that.