July 2008

Arrival and Flight
My husband and I, booked our first time trip to Cuba thru itravel 2000. Good deal so far. Travelling with 4 years old twins and two seniors. We left Toronto on July 9/08 at 9:25 am, & left Varadero on July 16/08 at 1:45 pm via Camaguey to pick up more passengers and left at 2:35 pm. We arrived back Toronto at 7:15 pm on time. Sunwing Airlines, was awesome to fly; large portions of food and flight-attendants cautious and courteous! Tourist Visa Card is given at the plane (cost $20.00 if you loose it or made mistakes). Customs are not as friendly as in Toronto. Hardly can understand what they are saying, so soft but FYI. You must stand straight and look at the camera behind them. No fidgeting. One at a time even you're family of four, no excuses. I almost wonder what about those 4 years old kids, how can they be alone? cannot reach the counter either?...LOL. We manage.
The transgaviota tour bus was waiting for all passengers who've arrived same time at Gomez Airport, Varadero. They'd designate bus numbers for destinations and dropping passengers to their reserved hotels. The guide gave us so much historical information during our way to the hotel as well coming back home. They gave us an indexed card with passengers name and information's to be filled by us later and return it back to our Sunwing representative during orientation.

Check in/Out
Not so bad. Checking In: One person to tend to our needs in the lobby since we are the first in line among the group it only takes us 15 minutes to do 3 rooms processing. We have a cold drink upon arrival part of sunwing deal. Bell boys are helpful. Our room is not yet ready so we hang around to one of the rooms prepared for seniors. Check Out: 5 minutes process. We have to wait an hour for airport pick up. Hot and Boring.

Rooms
Need updating, Simple yet neat and tidy - no dressers (only little night side tables). The bed is low and hard. The fridge is a one time filled up - upon arrival only. (Mind you, not too cold either) So whatever empty water bottles you have please save it and refill from the bar. Safety deposit box is available inside the closet. Basic washroom with a bidet. Shower with half glass door. Also, if you are traveling with children who is not fond of powdered milk, you make purchase of whole milk in a carton at store down across the lobby or make groceries at Plaza America for a cheaper value.

Orientation
A must if you want to be on the right track. Since the regular guy is on holiday himself our fill-in representative from Sunwing, was informative and considerate enough to give us some ideas of what to be aware of and give us some helpful recommendations as well as safety precautions. Thanks so much you did a good job, Miguel.

Restaurants
Buffet: not much of variety - same food for most of the week b-fast/lunch/dinner. Recycled some of them. But, we always find something to eat. The twins are fussy eaters so we sticked to food they're familiar with. B-fast at 7:00 am, Lunch at 11:30 am and Dinner opens at 6:30 pm.
24 hrs snack bar: (by the pool) had fries and hot dogs. Hamburgers/chicken burgers on odd days. Thanks to one of the guy who was nice serving us hot dogs with buns, even though they are closed (4:30 pm) during our day of arrival. The twins are so hungry as well as the seniors. Again, we appreciate the effort.

3 A La Carte
Italian Restaurant: out of 5 it could be a 2. So much with authenticated, eh?
International Restaurant: was alright. Pay extra & get the lobster for 15.00 pesos. (bring extra cash- violin serenade tips.)
Cuban: We missed it. So sad.

Bars
The bartender ladies are nice in Lobby bar but then closed at 11:00pm. You where then forced to go to the 24 hrs bar located by the pool - it smell. No blender to make a good slushy drink, so your options beer & rum. What a shame. Need upgrade.

Beach and Pools
The beach was awesome, great location, white soft sand & great chair/huts all over. We appreciate the effort made from beach guards to set up our spot at the beach. The pool was nice & spacious, however they closed it at 7pm for maintenance purposes (adding chlorine). So much for night swim.

Grounds
Not maintained on a daily basis. Yet not so bad either. Gardeners effort is appreciated.

Activities and Entertainment
Not a lot of activities, they had a full board of activities but you couldn't always find an activity coordinator. The hours of kids club is not affirmative. You must have patience to wait for the room to open or upon arrival of the coordinator (Hours of Operation should have been posted) Also, you must have one guardian/parent to watch your child at all time. But not so bad. There is always room for improvement.

Tours/Excursions
We wanted to book for Havana Tour for historical sites, but we are so occupied at the beach and pool. The twins are having so much fun. The Seniors are getting exhausted. Perhaps next time around we decide to come back.

We booked Jeep Safari thru Sunwing. Adult for 71 Pesos and child for 54 Pesos. Party of five (2 kids 3 adults). Left at 8:20 am for pick up (paid receipt upon boarding the trans tour bus). Dropped at rental office for jeeps (drivers license needed if your driving, please). Oops! This is only available for standard transmission (so much for the automatic). Our party in one jeep together following our tour guides/mechanic in one long line, altogether 9 jeeps cruising along the country side of Varadero, Cuba. With an open mind you will experience the local lifestyle and make the best out of it. We brought some candies to share to some children waving along the way (buy it from dollar store). We stopped 5 times during the excursions. Some went snorkeling. Swim at the cave sweet water to cool down. Visit a local farmers house. Lunch at the ranch. Did horse back riding, photo shooting with the bull, hammock relaxation, sight seeing etc. A boat ride along the river. It was a wonderful experience for us. I shall recommend this to whom who is interested in this sort of activity.

Public Transportation
Taxi: 1 peso/kilometro.
Bus: 2 pesos per person.
Tricycle: Per Kilometro
Horse buggy: Per kilometro
Beach Tour Bus: for 5.00 pesos per person for whole day trip. Stopped at calle 13 for main flea market. Hop back into the bus for more sight seeing around loop or to Plaza America for other shopping spree.

Tips
It is an individual preference. We gave change and small bills. In return we have a swan made towels and blanket. A thank you notes. We left behind goodies and toys that my kids does not want no more.

Conclusions
With an open mind. Learn the basics. This place is in average. The service and staff are friendly yet far away from we experienced in Dominican Republic. This place is on the right track for improvement. All they need is more research to enhance their skills and knowledge in public relations. Upgrade their equipments and learn new things. I shall recommend this place to Families with small children and seniors. Definitely not for adult. Keep up the good work guyz.

I'm gonna try to make it simple,The hotel lobby and reception area looks tipically like a 2 star hotel,the public washroom (rest room) is thirty and very smelly (both men's and lady's), The room, first when you enter the room, you will say "what's this smell " actually we(my wife and I) realize that smell comes from the ceiling of bathroom, there must be some leaks of pipeline becouase it smells a mix of urine and etc..plus cigarettes smell as well.. The food ,actually we didn't expect very much but this was way below our expectation.

I'm not a negative person , and there's some good point of this place . Safety deposit box at "No extra charge" You can keep your passports and any valuables. worry free.
Staff are generally friendly and some are excellent. the
Beach ,the best I've seen yet;

My final advice : If you booked already ,take some airfreshner (like fibriz or something) make it in your shopping list.
Tipping. you don't have to but remember Cuba is one of last Comm country on earth and this people (Hotel staff) working hard
to make some extra pesos and to get their basic needs.giving 1
peso or $ evry other day at least wouldmake the difference

I admit we did get a good deal of $994 Canadian but the next week after it was about 1200 to 1300 and I would definitely be dissappointed if I had paid more than what i did for this hotel. The hotel is older and we knew that but the biggest problem was the service. My goodness the service was horrible. It seemed like no one person was in charge of the resort and that to get any kind of help from anyone was a huge upset to any of the employees. Sometimes i would stand for 10 minutes at the front desk in need of help and the two lady receptionists would be chatting to themselves, it was in spanish but you could tell the talk was social talk. Many times i had to interrupt them because i had been waiting for so long to be noticed. The 24 snack bar and the 24 drink bar is definitely not that. they stay open but one night the 24 drink bar was out of everything but whiskey.. the snack bar is ALWAYS out of something. You have two options.. hot dogs or fries and they were ALWAYS out of one or the other and it wasn't because there was none at the resort. the cook was too lazy to go into the main building to get more and when he did get more he would get 2 bags of fries KNOWING he had a line up of about 10 people and the fries only served 4. I have been to alot of resorts but i was very surprised I walked into the breakfast buffet that was open until 10 and it was 945, yes I still had 15 minutes I had just wanted to grab a quick bite and the sign said OPEN. i go inside and the man there said 'HURRY UP..." I will never go back here or tell anyone to go back. The pool was nice, it was very big and the beach was BEAUTIFUL. the resort was decent too for being a 4 star just the service is absolutely horrible. horrible service. I would pay the extra 300 dollars and go to a 5 star.

What a dissapointment!!! My husband and my 2 yr old spent 7 days at this hotel, from May 24th to May 30th. Even though the hotel is old there is no excuse to be dirty. The pool area is OK, the lobby is outdated, there were leaks on the roof , the reception area looks like a 2 star hotel, the drinks are just OK, washrooms are dirty and smelly, the hallways were never cleaned or vacuumed all they did to my room was making the beds and sometimes sweep the floors, they changed the white towels every one day and remove the garbage, it was dusty at all times and beach towels were never replaced for 6 days even though we asked and leave little gifts and tips every other day.
The food was terrible and I arrived with very low expectations, I've been in Cuba before... the buffet is very poor , we ate bread and butter most of the times, the staff at the restaurants don't care, they are not polite at all, you dont feel like tiping them 'cause if you do they treat exactly the same way so there was no point.
A la carte restaurants are litlle better... try to book them every day.

This was a family reunion, luckily other family members were at another hotel and we managed to spend a couple of days at their hotel and just sleep at ours, both hotels are 4 stars and the price of their hotel was even cheaper , I have to mention that Sol - Sirenas Coral was way better, the food was above average, the staff were nice at all times, even the snack bar was good, the hotel in general was clean and it looks that they try to keep it that way.
I could go into details but there is no point, I read reviews before about Arenas Blancas and most of them were good, that is why I've chose this hotel and will never do it again. Maybe people don't mind stteping into dirty floors and smelly hallways, food that is crappy and bad customer service, I do ! and even though we managed to have fun and forget about it the reality is that we felt that we paid for a 2 1/2 stars or 3 for the price of 4.
Vardero beach is indeed gorgeous and will come back in a heartbeat of course to another hotel.