Great resort!

The hotel was great. All the areas are clean and well maintained. The rooms are big and with all you need for a comfortable stay. Bars are restaurants are well stocked, food doesn't impress but also doesn't disappoint. Overall 4out of 5*

Needs more time to recover from pandemic

Facility is nice, on the smaller side as a resort, and kept clean. Cleaning staff do a great job. However, asking for things like towels, toilet paper and water to drink was hit and miss. Admin staff - not so much. With most at the resort being Canadians and most of those speaking English, at the front desk there seemed to be lots of times they begged off a question with "No English"! Wait staff in the buffet were generally very good, but the meals suffered from lack of variety and amount. O [... read more]ne morning - sorry, no eggs. Stock would come out to the buffet, but in small quantities with long lines waiting for re-stocking, but very slow to accommodate. I would not recommend going here for some months until it gets settled down again. Beach is beautiful. Beach chairs a bit dated and several were broken. Pool is beautiful but not heated, so no one is actually in the water - just sitting around it. Information about the hotel for those who are on site is terrible. No maps, no explanations at check-in. Just left to yourself to figure it out. That is terrible service.

Would not recommend: Jan 14-21, 2023

Our group of 4 had a great time together and loved the sand, sun and ocean but the "resort" itself leaves soooo much to be desired. It is one of the last resorts to get dropped off so if you don't want an hour and 1/2 drive after your flight, take a cab! From the shortage or lack of variety of food to the rundown(ness) of the resort, we were disappointed to say the least. The staff for the most part was friendly but a lot did not speak english or understand what we were trying to say or didn' [... read more]t bother at all. The lounge chairs on the beach have been around forever and were terrible to lay on for a week. We went for the ocean for sure, although the pools looked fabulous, but the water was so cold there were very few people swimming the whole week. The drinks were so sporadic and the taste of them was terrible, there was no snack bar on the beach at all and the snack bar that was on the resort ran out of buns (for the hotdogs) everyday and they had no more access to banana chips (which was the best tasting thing on their menu) about 1/2 way through our week.. The buffet had the same food all week long, no change ever and the only meat they served was pork (all week). The a la cart's were ok but again a lot of the same food there too. That being said, I know the pandemic has hit hard everywhere but there needs to be something done. One of the things we did like a lot was that you can use Canadian money at par and the Cuban people are mostly very warm and friendly!

I wanted to like it...

I wanted to like Paradisus Princessa Del Mar, truly - but I cannot recommend going to the resort over others in Cuba for a few reasons. I will however highlight the pros: The beach, absolutely beautiful, clean (even in the water), and an easily accessible bar with lots of activities going on every hour in the morning into early afternoon (aquafit, dancing, etc.) - very easy to find loungers and usually they were in pairs under umbrellas. Very relaxing. The pool as well, it's shallower but  [... read more]beautiful, well maintained & clean - all the fountains too were functioning and looked great, except for the courtyard fountain wasn't on but was clean & freshly painted. Again, loungers and personal cabanas were in abundance. Few people ever seemed to be in the pool vs. the ocean, except for the swim up bar area. We arrived late to the hotel (thanks WestJet for changing our flight... /s) and the front desk man was very pleasant and fast in getting us checked in. We were driven straight to our room and shown some of the resorts amenities on the golf cart ride. The room left more to desired. It felt like I was breathing in mold, I couldn't see it but it was very damp feeling even inside the sheets of the bed! Speaking of, there was only a thin sheet on there but thankfully extra blankets in the closet. There was a safe that was very old, circa 1980s looking and it didn't work & no instructions were there anyways - just gave an error code when trying to use it. It didn't feel great leaving anything in the room like a passport/cash. There was a nice little welcome package of 2 in 1 shampoo/conditioner and some body wash - no face towels, but some hand towels and 2 body towels & 2 beach towels. No toilet paper, which I know usually you bring your own to Cuba when in public, but we had to wait until the next day for the cleaner to bring 1 roll for us. There was bottled water, an interesting carbonated drink I can only describe as "heavy iced tea" and a few cerveza cans. The mini fridge was restocked daily with these. The rest of the room was fine, the sliding patio door was a bit broken around the lock (there was the door lock, a chain lock and a door guard bar), the curtains were clean but stuck in their tracks constantly, and the furniture/couches looked faded and definitely not comfortable. The food was... bad, even for Cuban standards. I've been to resorts in Cuba that had access to food even throughout COVID and this was interesting in how bad it could get. They had the raw ingredients to make great food but they didn't. They had bell peppers, rice, chicken but couldn't make fried rice or some stir fry for example - instead they'd steam some plaintains, basic rice, and maybe some fried eggplant then separately cook some bell peppers in oil in a pan. There were potatoes but you could easily make mashed or fried potatoes, but instead they were constantly cold/just cooked with some sauce. If you wanted something cooked like beef/chicken/pork there was 1 chef doing this throughout the meal time so normally you'd be waiting behind 4-8 people but also the lines were in front of food people were trying to get to. A note to the resort on food, if you're just cooking pork/beef/chicken to put on someones plate, just do a bunch of it and then have it in hot dishes so people can get what they want! It would save so much time and make people happier. Every morning you'd have to line up for eggs to get cooked - to the resort, just have scrambled eggs and fried eggs available in hot dishes too and you'd save a lot of time and effort there too. If you're worried about waste, just don't replenish in the last hour of the meal and then have people come up/line up to get what they want. I didn't need amazing food, but I needed edible/warm food. 6 different types of rice and some cold cuts doesn't make a meal. The bread was good, as were the small desserts but it felt like there was something missing constantly - perhaps low amounts of sugar/butter. The saving grace for the food were the restaurants such as Sakura which I do 110% recommend for the experience and food quality vs. the buffet. Speaking with other travelers during our trips we learned they had great access to food, no idea why this resort isn't able to get the same level of food quality and/or chefs. I weighed myself before/after the trip and I lost 4lbs even after drinking/eating at least 1 plate of food per meal because it wasn't filling/calorie. The beer was great, the alcohol availability at all the smaller bars was limited to basically rum and some mixers (no name brand things like Coca-Cola/Sprite but offbrand that didn't taste great, the embargo I think however does apply here.) The main bar by the check-in desk (piano bar) is the only bar where you could get something with crushed ice or even a bit nicer than a mixed drink in a paper cup. The staff were friendly & helpful but some of the dining room staff consistently ignored us, even if we tipped - and it was hard to flag them down as they seemed to keep themselves behind the servers areas or didn't walk around. I would maybe get 1 beer/drink per meal even if I was there for 45 min to an hour. To the resort - your dining room glasses are small, for items like beer there needs to be larger 16 or 20 oz pint glasses. I won't be returning unfortunately, I'll come back to Cuba but not to this resort. The location was one of the farthest resorts also! So, be warned you'll usually be the last people on the bus getting dropped off, and first ones picked up for any trips (meaning early morning + at least 40-60 minutes of turning into other resorts to grab people)

Great beaches,dissapointing resort

Great beaches but not hard to find in cuba. What is increasing hard to tolerate are the resorts. This one is is promoted as 5 stars but if you know anything about cuba that equates to about a 3 1/2 star resort anywhere else. The staff were pleasant and helpful but expected to be tipped for just about anything. It is supposed to be an adults resort and spa. No quiet zones here! Its cuban dance music everywhere. Cant get away from it and on the beach they offer rides on three different ultrali [... read more]te aircraft. Very noisy and annoing! The worst thing about the resort is the buffet - unless you really like rice. Same thing for lunch and supper - more rice! They even had a cook station doing fried rice? Nobody I talked to were happy with the food choices. They want your tourist dollars but dont want to feed you. We had our best meals in town. We also had items stolen from our luggage on the flight back. Wont be returning!

Fantastic vacation!!!

The whole experience was great. The grounds were beautiful and clean. The Staff was amazing. Food was yummy for the most part. Overall, we are already planning when we can come back to the same Hotel

Good resort

The beach was amazing, you could walk for miles, safe and no seaweed. Plenty of beach chairs and an employee was there full time organizing chairs and helping people move chairs as required, etc. Drinks were ok, not the usual beach drink quality you get at other places but the beer was good and it was cold. Service at the buffett was great but patio service was horrible, workers need training on service and in english. The resort was clean and attractive. The food was fine, we never went hungry  [... read more]and it was what we expected. Overall a strong 3 because of the great beach.

Resort okay - not 5 star

-This resort was okay, we had issues with the rooms, not being what was represented on the website. We had no water for approximately 18 hours and when notifying the front desk, they said - "it's a big problem" - no explanation, or offer of another room to have a shower/use the washroom. We had to ask for a key to another room for these necessary amenities. -Food was as expected. Japanese restaurant was good, entertaining. The others were pretty much all the same meals. Buffet was good with  [... read more]some good variety. -Hotel lobby entertainment was excellent! -Friendly staff many who speak mostly Spanish, which was at time difficult to communicate. -Lovely grounds, well maintained pool, beach is great. I did get bit by sand fleas on our last few days which made it a little uncomfortable.

Assuming it’s beautiful

I had no opportunity to check out your resort as the East Coast was in a turmoil due to the weather conditions. It would have been up to trip central travel agent to contact you about me not able to take my vacation as there were days with flight cancellations .

Good Beach Resort

The service was good but there was no service for drinks on the beach. The rooms were run down and did not look like the pictures. The lighting in the room was bad, it was very dark at night, even with all the lights turned on. There were sheets on the bed but no blankets. We had to use old ones that were stored in the closet. The food was decent. The coffee in the lobby bar and the snack bar was good. The beach was nice but there was a lot of seaweed on the shore. They didn’t clear it  [... read more]off so the beach looked quite messy but the water was amazing. This was rated as a 5-Star resort. I would rate it as 4.

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Beautiful, clean, relaxing

Well what can I say, the place was better than we expected. It's our second time there and it got even better this time. It's very clean, the staff are very attentive, the food is great and the rooms are nice. Jenn makes it a breeze to book through TripCentral and she also helps with all the paperwork and insurance etc. Highly recommend this combination.

Varadero

beautiful beach and resort, too bad they do not know how to run run it properly, efficiently. The food selection, quality and service in the buffet was very poor every day. I would rate it max 2 star Many popular, famous drinks were not available the whole week.

Terible experience

The hotel should not be rated a 5 but a 3 at the most. The food was terrible and the same each lunch and supper. I didn't have a good drink or coffee the whole week. The hotel did nothing to protect us from covid' there wasn't even hand sanitizer to be seen. The buffet was totally self-serve and numerous times I saw people handle bread and then return it to the basket to be served, I once observed a customer tasting a fruit drink in a bottle and then return it to be served. We got to our hotel o [... read more]n Sat. and by Tuesday we were wishing we could go home. I don't mind tipping for service but it got to the point at which the staff were expecting a tip for everything and every drink we received. If you didn't tip each time service was slow and sometimes not available at all. There were toilets at our 5 star hotel without seats on them which did not impress my wife at all. There were no soap in the soap dispensers and no paper towels to dry your hands. Overall we were very disappointed and would not return to Cuba if the trip was free.

Relaxing experience

We enjoyed our stay. The beach was great. I booked the trip online but then called to check for some clarification Carol at EXT 7259 was soo helpful. Her advice about what to bring along made a huge difference to our stay and experience.

Standard Quiet Resort

I would say that this is a standard resort on a much smaller scale. This is also a quiet resort that caters more to older adults. So definitely not for the party animals. No disco! The resort grounds, facilities and room are okay. The food situation in this resort is very unfortunate. Options are very very very limited. This probably is the result of the shortage/crisis. I hope this will improve over time. There is nothing mind blowing about this resort but I would still recommend it for those w [... read more]ho are looking for a quieter resort and not concerned about food. As for COVID restrictions, I guess pretty much like in Canada, masking optional and that’s it.

Not a 5 star

Paradisus Princesa del Mar in Veradero is not a 5 star resort. 3 restaurants are closed. Grounds are unkept. Rooms need to be updated. Alcohol choices are very limited- days without wine, vodka, gin, etc. Food is terrible.We understand the situation in Cuba, but the rating for this hotel is wrong. Should be a 3.5.

Staff was amazing!

I didn’t expect great food but it was terrible! I think they are still trying to recover from Covid. Hardly any entertainment during the day and even the music poolside you couldn’t hear because the volume was so low.

Great beach, great staff

The hotel was beautifully kept, however we did notice a few things were not open during our stay (Disco, Rock Club, some restaurants). When we first arrived we noticed not as many people were staying, but by the end of the week it felt like the resort was fuller and busier. Staff were always friendly and helpful, though we noticed they could have been short staffed at times. Food was good, we never ran out - the snack bar had limited food but we had no complaints with this since we are not picky [... read more] eaters and drinks were always available. We walked everywhere but I think if you stay in the Royal Suites you may need to call for a golf cart. If you are expecting gourmet food, I would avoid Cuba. We came for sun, sand and relaxation and that's exactly what we got. The lobby bar staff were amazing; Lazaro, Alexander, Jhosniel, Yasmany and the cigar lounge staff Jean, Yeney and Abel at the lobby was very helpful with baggage and making sure we got on our bus to the airport. Everyone was amazing and always smiling making sure we were having fun. I would come back if the disco was open :)

Great Resort

Everyone from the groundkeepers , the maids, the management ,the waiters and waitresses and the bartenders (Orestes&Yolexis)were great. They always had a smile on their faces. The food was good, no complaints! They are starting to add more flavor or spices to the food. This is a country that is doing the best they can with what they can get their hands on . Remember you are going for the sun and fun, you will not starve. With the lack of Tourism, they are focusing only a couple of building [... read more]s and the main areas. and will open up more areas as it gets busier I went in with low expectations and got more than expected . I would recommend this Hotel