The hotel has a glamour/business hotel aura about it. It's quite impersonal which will suit some people, but personally I prefer hotel staff which at least smile.

The best thing about the hotel is the swimming pool, and the roof top views, they are amazing, especially for soaking up both the sun and sounds of Havana erupting benath you.

We booked into a non smoking room, which had obviously been smoked in. The stench of cigars and the clipped end of a cohiba on the floor gave that away. However the bed linen was clean which is all that matters and the bathroom, especially the shower was great.

I don't know why people rave about the breakfast. It's ok if you like queuing for food.

We stayed at the nh Parque Central Hotel in Havana in late February, 2006, for 5 nights and thought it was lovely. We had a great room overlooking the plaza with a view of the Capitol Building and it was very quiet. We absolutely loved the breakfast - it had everything you could desire, even Champagne if you were up for it! We only ordered from the bar menu in the evening, but the food was very good. There are other restaurants in the hotel but we didn't eat in them. The service was very good and we found all the staff in the hotel to be very pleasant. It is a great location within easy walking distance to the old part of town and sea. Plus the rooftop pool is brilliant - what a view!

We rented a car through a rep at the hotel but would never do it again. It is not an easy country to get around as the roads are terrible and not signposted - the Autopista (one assumes it's a super highway) beggars belief! Car rental is quite expensive and the map they provide is a bit of a joke. And people are hitching all over the place. We got lost several times and it was very frustrating. Suggest you make all your transfer arrangements before leaving on your trip.

Great city that you hope one day will be restored to its former glory.

We stayed here for two nights as part of our honeymoon and all we can say is it was pure heaven. The staff were fantastic, The breakfast was to die for and I would love to be back there right now this minute. The pool is absolutley fab and the rooms were so nice and pure luxury.

My wife and I stayed at the Parque Central in January with another couple. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay of 5 nights before moving on to Varadero. However our stay was soured at the point of leaving. We were so shocked and confused about our experience that we had no time to approach the hotel management. We gathered our thoughts over the following few days and, out of a sense of common decency to the hotel management, and future guests, we wrote a letter on our return home a copy of which follows. We have received no reply to that letter.


26th January 2006

Dear Sir or Madam,

Our stay with you January 12th – 17th 2006

We enjoyed our stay with you in room 318, check-in January 12th, check-out January 17th.

Your staff were mostly courteous, especially those in the Lobby Bar and we only had one complaint (reference the restaurant El Paseo) which was promptly dealt with by your Duty Manager.

However we sadly have to report to you an incident which must be of concern to you. We have travelled to many places and have a system of sharing our money between various containers to assist security. We placed cash, cameras and jewellery in our room safe (318) on the 12th and opened and closed the safe each day to remove and replace items but we decided to pay our tours and our hotel account by Mastercard so left our spare cash untouched in the safe. 15 minutes before leaving by taxi for Varadero on 17th January we emptied the safe and realised that some cash was missing. We were confused and shocked and were blaming each other when we departed your hotel and could not report the incident to you as we could not prove anything and there was so little time. In the following few hours we established in our own minds that 3 x 20 GB Pound notes had been removed from my wallet and 7 x 20 GB pound notes plus 1 x 10 Peso note had been removed from my wife’s wallet. Only part of the cash had been taken from each wallet therefore it was not easily noticed that some had been removed. The credit cards and jewellery remained untouched. On the 12th we had placed 5 x 10 Peso notes in my wife’s wallet in the safe for our airport departure tax. It was only when we reached the airport that we found we only had 4 x 10. We are careful with our possessions when travelling and always know how much cash we have.

We have no intention of making any claim against the hotel or our insurance company as we cannot prove anything but believe that we should inform you to allow you to monitor the situation.

Regards,


*******

We were disappointed with our Varadero resort and so deflated with our loss of cash at the Parque Central that I did not feel motivated to write a Tripadvisor review. It was only this evening that we noticed the comments of the Toronto guest.

Needs some action rather than words!