Arrived at Santa Isabel at about 1am after a long flight only to be told that our room would only be available thenext day around 3pm. We were sent to Ambos Mundo, which was just around the corner but not very good.

The Hotel has by far the best location in town and is very charming. The rrom are simple with cold floors. Service varies from person to person in the hotel, but can be quite good.

Next time in Havana would stay here again since the Melias are very far away and the other hotels are not so good or have bad locations.

Apart fom the fact that one of our rooms was unavailable when we arrived at 3 o' clock in the morning (despite having warned them the night before), we enjoyed our stay at the Santa Isabel. The position is great - I would definitely choose a hotel in Calle Obispo if you want to be near the action and walking distance to everything in habana Vieja. The rooms and bathrooms are charmingly though simply decorated. The inner courtyard is lovely. Breakfast is nothing to write home about. Overall the hotel is a little overpriced but i would reccomend it.
Half our group ended up in Ambos Mundos down the road the first night and that too is a fun place to stay though the rooms are not as elegant.

I was really looking forward to staying here at the end of our trip and specially requested one of the rooms on the 3rd floor with a terrace. The terrace was great and had a lovely view of the square and the room had some nice old pieces of furniture as did the public rooms. However, the rest of the furniture was really cheap (particularly the bed) - there was mould all over the ceiling and I could have done a better job on fitting the bathroom myself and I'm highly inept. If this had been a 2 star 50 dollar place I would have loved it, but as it was supposedly a 5 star and cost 200 dollars we were disappointed. The service was poor apart from an efficient guy on the front desk and there was the sort of shabeen feel to it that you get in places in Africa - I'd been expecting poor service in the government run hotels that we had been staying in but with the help of the PR person/entertainer these places actually had excellent service. Personally I think the Parque Central is better located (if a little bland)with a bit more life going on around and the standards are much better.