this supposedly four star hotel has a lot of handicaps: quite distant from the city center, although some hotels can be even farther (playa district), an old building which obviously has not been rehabilitated (one elevator only is working, everything seems out of age), food served at the buffet restaurant is edible ,but not good.We tried the other hotel restaurant , where the menu offers what looks like a better cuisine ,it was a mistake, the lobster was overcooked ...but we are in Havana, and everything is probably like that...

We stayed in this hotel in MAY 2007. I am a little late writing the review.

Reception Staff: Maintained a consistent high level of rudeness that is difficult to ignore.

Reception: It is quaint and comfortable, but watching the staff drive unsuspecting guests crazy is just irritating.

Rooms: We had 2 as the first one was flooded on our first night. The flood came from the bathroom and after complaining twice to reception we moved to a much better second room.

The second room was much bigger but the towels and bedclothes had a funny smell. The air conditioning did not work in either room.

Restaurant: Breakfast was good with lots of fresh fruit. By night the food was good by Cuban standards in the restaurant. We did go to much better places in the old town so if you are not staying all inclusive then avoid.

Location: Not the best. It is necessary to get a taxi to the old town. Negotiate the price before getting in, we paid on average 5 each way.

You have to consider that you are in Cuba when staying here. Expect things to be a little rough around the edges, but this hotel could do a lot better by employing some decent staff. I would not return here and would advise other readers to get a different hotel closer to the old town.

We arrived on the evening of Friday 25th May 2007. We placed all our valuables, wallets and cash in the room safe, which was operated by a swipe card.
On the following Sunday, we noticed that a credit card and £60 was missing and immediatley reported it to reception.
The manager organised a print out of entires into the room and safe since we had arrived. The print out showed details of our card and other cards that had been in the room such as the cleaners.
On 2 occasions, records of our cards were recorded as entering our room and safe at times when were were in Old Havana with our room card.
The manager was extremely proud of his `fool proof `system and stated that this was impossible to have happened.
It did happen and it could have been worse.
The Police were very unhelpful and despite several officers sunbathing outside the station, they claimed to be `too busy` to deal with our problem.
If you do go to this hotel or any other in Havana, I would recommend that you shrink wrap your valuables.
Beside that the room air conditioning was useless, staff were very jobsworth and `too busy` to deal with routine mattrers such as changing money.
The breakfasts were in fairness OK and we did manage to have a good evening meal after a dreadful time trying to get served in Old Havana.

I choose this hotel based on the Tripadvisor reviews but was very disappointed in this place. When we arrived after a long journey from Washington DC after midnight we only wanted to sleep. This was however almost impossible since the sheets and pillows were absolutely disguisting. It smelled like persons who have not washed themselves for 3 months. Welcome to Cuba. I am not kidding or exagerating, it was trully disgusting and I have been to many developing countries and definately didn't expect some 5 star hotel. The airconditioning didn't work while the opening the windows was also no great option with noise from street (cars, parked busses with running engines, music etc) plus musqitos. The shower made at times noise like the whole building would collapse. The towels were pretty horrible too. The next morning I gave the cleaning lady a few convertible pesos and requested clean sheets and pillows. The location is as mentioned by others a 10 min. taxi ride (5 CUC) and the neighbourhood is nothing special. Breakfast is plentyfull but very mediocre and dinner is expensive and mediocre as well. Better to take a taxi downtown and eat there. This Soviet style is really not recommandable. Hotel Los Frailles in old Havana were we later stayed was the same price but 100 times better. Opt for something else if I were you!