We spent a week at the Parque Central in mid december. We arrived to a very clean room, having asked for a high floor at the front of the hotel. We got this-the view of the park was fantastic and the double glazing meant no disturbed sleep, despite the constant noise outside. The room is of an international standard-you could have been anywhere in the world, but I don't man this as a bad thing-the room was enormous, with a nice seating area and great bathroom with separate shower-which was fab!

It really is a brilliant location-walking distance of everything, except Mirarmar and Vedado, unless you are very energetic! We didn't have much probelm with hustlers outside the hotel and no beggars at all, which was nice. In short-you have one of the cigar factories-highly recommended-within 5 minutes, The Capitolio within 3, Floridita within 3, which is at the top of Obisbo-the nicest street in central Havana. Expect to pay 25 CUC for a taxi from the airport.

The staff are excellent here, from the reception, to the consierge, to the maid service-you have to remember what little money these people eran and are still so friendly and happy to help-please tip generously.

The pool is beautiful, if not freezing when we were there! The towels are clean and plentiful. Most of time there seemed to be enough loungers, alhtough they did fill uip quickly some days.

Food-this seemed to be such a contentious issue with everythign we read before we left! we weren't expecting much. The breakfast was fantastic-there wasn't much you could wish for-fresh eggs, cooked as you waited, cava and juice for bucks fizz, fruit, cereal, pancakes, cheese, meat, bread-the list is endless, but needless to say we ate very well at breakfast!
Lunch-we only ate by the pool-baguetes, chips etc. It was fine. this is the only part of the service which was slow, but it seems that food service in havana is always slow, wherever you are. the poolbar does ok cocktails, but they are expensive in comparison to the bars, which i what you would expect.

Dinner-we ate out every night. we didn't have any terrible experiences. The best being a middle eastern place called Al Medina-you can sit inside or ina lovely couryard which they light up at night-we shared mezze and had several drinks for about £12-really good.
Street food is interesting-EVERYTHING is deep fried. you will need moneda nacional for this, but it is soooo cheap, it is worth trying once! it might put you off a little when you go down some of the backstreets and see meat being sold on people's windowsills, just sitting in the heat.
Pizza and pasta are easy to come by and safer if you have a delicate stomach.
Paladars are very varied and there aren't very many in central Havana-this was probably the only downside of the location.

Havana is a great place and this is a wonderful hotel if you want a bit of luxury during your stay.

Stayed for a week at the end of November.

Hotel is excellent in all respects. It's in a great location within easy walking distance just about everything, with the expetion of Revolution Sq which is a ten min taxi ride.

Our room looked out onto the Parque with stunning views of the city - very quiet and excellently looked after.

There are 2 restaurants with food also available at the bar which is very good.

If you are staying in Havana I'd highly recommend this hotel.

We stayed at this hotel for 3 nights from the 18 to 20 November and experienced some problems which spoiled our stay in Havana. But first the positives

The hotel is in a great location, within walking distance of everything in the old town. The hotel itself is generally clean, we had a snack in the bar area and it was good quality and good value. The roof top pool is lovely and the bar area is very nice. The room we had when we first arrived was great, really clean, nice bathroom and although the room was only on the third floor and not at the front of the building, you really felt the atmosphere of Havana when you opened the fantastic double doors. We were really pleased with our first impressions of this hotel. Breakfast is in one of the beautifully decorated restaurants and on the second morning was lovely, great choice, good service -faultless. (the first morning was a bit of a rugby scrum, not enough tables, food or plates)

Our problems started on the second evening of our stay. We had got ready to go out for the evening, it was just after 8 pm but we couldn't get the room door to lock. We phoned reception and they said they would send somebody straight up. 25 minutes later and still no-one had turned up. We rang back and I'm sure they'd forgotten, anyways I had to explain all over again. We were assured that someone would be there soon. 10 minutes later (by now it was almost 9pm) they rang to say there was only one maintenance man on duty, no-one was going to look at the lock until the next day and we could either stay in our room until it was fixed the next day or we could move rooms. I told them that I was unhappy at having to move at that time of night when they hadn't even tried to mend the lock but they said there was no option. The attitude was a bit offhand - take it or leave type of tone. We then spent 15 minutes running round the room, stuffing clothes etc. into bags and at about 9.15 a bell boy came to move our luggage.

The room we were given must have been one of the worst rooms in the hotel, it was shabby, in comparison to the room we'd left, the toilet seat although clean was discoloured and looked disgusting, there were also a number of stains on the carpet. Most disappointing of all was that this room was an internal room with a view of scaffolding and the lifts!! We had paid for a city view room so I was not at all happy and made the hotel aware that I was unhappy. They said that this was all that was available. The room was also dark because it only had a single window instead of a double and we had to keep the curtains closed otherwise everyone coming out of the lift could see right into the room - it was also noisy being so close to the lift. Although we were disapointed with the room, we decided to just put our valuables in the safe and go out as planned. Unfortunately the safe didn't work so another call to reception brought the promise that someone would be there in 1 minute. 15 minutes later I rang reception to say we couldn't wait any longer and it was obvious that although this was the same woman I'd reported the fault to, she'd completely forgotten about it. We left the safe and went out. As far as I'm aware no-one ever came to look at it.

It was almost 10pm by the time we got out of the hotel, we went for a drink and had hoped to go for a late meal but by 10.30 all the restaurants on the Obispo had closed which really surprised me for a city - there were bars open for drinks but not food so we went to be bed hungry - the evening had been totally ruined.

The disappointing thing about this was that the hotel never apologised for giving us an inferior room when we had paid for a city view room, no-one ever checked with us that everything was alright with the room we'd moved to. we felt as if they just didn't care.

If it hadn't been for the appalling off-way we were treated, I would have no hesitation whatsoever staying at this hotel again. Problems can occur no matter what the class of hotel. However, the mark of a true 5 star hotel is that they sort out problems as efficiently as possible and inconvenience the guest as little as possible. We were made to feel unwelcome and awkward in this hotel through no fault of our own.

After a 2-week trip in Habana, moderate style, we decided to splurge on our last stay. We were undecisive between Nacional and this one ,but finally chose it for the reviews. Although it does not share the great history, it is a top hotel. Everything worked, service was escellent, the facilities were clean and modern. Only but would be the breakfast which did not have fresh fruit (canned fruit!) while in all the other cheaper hotels we had had fresh ones. The view and the pool on top is its greatest asset. We talked to european tourists, paying more for their stay, who had broken windows in their room. So we were very proud of coosing well. Would definitely come back.