Havana, June 28th, 2007

Dear Trip advisor user and reviewer,

Thank you very much for the time you took to post such a positive review and also to the other next 2 posters a big thank you! It is always a pleasure to read that guests had a wonderful stay and such comments just are a great motivation to continue and improve where we can.

Anyhow, to get back to your 2 less positive comments:

1. What has to be borne in mind by visitors is that this is Cuba and certain services that we take for granted in the west, e.g. wi-fi and fast internet services and certain foods are simply not available there and it is unfair to blame any hotel for this.

Well, with pleasure I hereby announce that within approx. give or take 3-4 weeks we will have WIFI available in the lobby area. If this test proofs to be succesfull, we will extend the service throughout the hotel. Just a few contractual issues pending.

2. Slightly tongue in cheek, we did feel a bit 'under siege' by the roaming hotel band, who did seem to pop up within 5 minutes of taking a seat anywhere in the lobby to serenade us - even at 3 o'clock in the afternoon! That said, they were perfectly charming and a very talented troupe, but perhaps better suited to the evening ambience in the hotel?

This comment made me smile! Anyhow, I was somewhat puzzled by that 3 o’clock hour, since the band in the lobby doesn’t start playing untill 5 o’clock? At least that’s what we contracted with them.
(maybe they were very much motivated that day and decided to start earlier….LOL).

I do however understand the under-siege feeling. In the afternoon – evening I always take half an hour and sit in the lobby bar drinking a coffee, observing what goes on. Various times I have called their attention that they should be a bit more discrete and reading your comment, I will do so again. Honestly deserves to say however, that there main income are the tips they get from our guests for playing a song, so you can’t really blame them. But thanks anyhow for pointing this out.

3. the reason that it can sometimes feel warm when returning to a room is that this is controlled via the card that it inserted to turn on the electricity in the room - so if it is really too warm for you, suggest that you ask for a second card and leave this in place when out of the room, so that the power and thus the air con remains on at all times.

Although this is just a regular observation, I do feel obliged to all past and future guests to make an additional comment here:

These type of doorlocks are actually designed to save energy…so your suggestion is not helping me here (smile). I know however, that many clients leave their card constantly in the lock and there is not much we can do about it, although the room-maid has the instruction to deactivate the lock when she enters the room for cleaning.

This year has been declared by the Cuban government as the year of the energetic revolution. Throughout the country and within the entire industry, energy saving is now priority number one.
We already have this energy-saving plan in action since 2001, so for us nothing new. But please take into account that this is an Island with relatively few resources to generate electricity. So all future guests, please help us saving energy and take your card out when you leave the room.

Once again many thanks to you and all the other reviewers for the positive comments.

(still number 2……but working on this to be number 1, smile).

Hospitable Regards
NH Parque Central

Maurits M.X. Looijen
Director of Sales and Marketing
sales@nh-hoteles.cu