We went to Cuba and stayed at the Melia Las Dunas from July 13 - 20.

I will give you the review by sections and rate each of these sections on a scale of 0-10 (0 being very bad and 10 being excellent)

Hotel room, staff, and hotel in general (4/10):

1. When we got there, it was roughly 2am. We had a hard time to get to our room because lighting is poor around the resort. If you do not know your way around, I highly recommend you get someone to show you. Furthermore, the service was not great at check-in.

2. Know your spanish, it will help you A LOT. Even if your english is good, you may have some trouble with the staff since the bilingual staff have a VERY VERY BASIC ENGLISH.

3. Hotel room was ok at best.
-Some nights we would come back to the hotel and there would be big spiders on the walls.
-The walls were dirty. We also came across a lizard (gecko) that was running on the floor.
-The water was always barely hot when taking a shower, even though we would put it to the hottest.
-There is no alarm/radio clock to know the time, so we were constantly looking at the tv for time.
-Only 220V outlets, so make sure to bring adapters.
-No room service.
-We were not highly disturbed by the kids during the week.
- Get ready to walk a lot. Depending on where your room is, you will have to walk to the pool, restaurant, beach, etc.

Restaurants (3/10):
-In general, food was poor. The two buffets had the same food. The on site pancakes and waffels being made on the spot were good, fries were good, and the bread was good. Apart from that, beware.
- We reserved at three different restaurants (that is the maximum you can reserve by the way per week)
- Columbus OK at best. Do not have the salmon.
- Steak house was totally horrible.
- Isabel y Fernando (romantic) was the best out of the three.

Pool and pool area (8/10):
- Nice pool.
- You need to pick up your towel. You can keep your towel for your stay or you can change it every day.
- Well maintained each day.
- A lot of chairs, you do not have to get up at 5am to reserve one.
- Lack of music at the Adults only pool.
- No bar service at the chairs, you need to go to the bar to get your drinks.

Beach and nautical services (7.5/10):
- Nice beach
- Clear blue waters
- No waves (I like it when there are waves to surf my bodyboard)
- No bar service at your chair
- A lot of beach area with chairs
- Depending on where you are, there may or may not be any music
- Available catamarans, pedalos, windsurf board, kayak (sing/double). No real need to reserve.

I would give this hotel a maximum of 3 Stars.

If you are expecting luxury, I do not recommend this hotel.

The worst holiday i had to Cuba everything was terrible

I've been to Cuba 5 times and 3 to Cayo Santa Maria (usually the Melia next door) went down from June 27-July 11 with my husband, his brother and family and we decided to go to Las dunas because of the no kids restriction. Resort was beautiful, great grounds, very clean, but way to big to get from point A to B. Weather was great, the beach is very nice but we knew that from the start, could use a bit of a clean up, add palapas for shades, fix the bridge to get to the beach, we had to jump each time, not safe. Get the beach grill working during the day, needs music on the beach, waiters to serve drinks, hardly saw them.

- My phone didn't work for a week and a half, I complained but nothing was done, my shower head didn't stay up we had to use it as hand held. We had bugs, spiders in the room but its the Caribbean its normal.

- It was my brother in law's anniversary and I have contacted the resort before we went for them to do something and nothing was done. I contacted the front desk twice to request turn down service with something special and nothing was done, for that matter nothing was ever done with our towels in any of our beds and we had 4 rooms in villa 46, this was the first time in Cuba that the maids didn't do anything and we left them gifts or money every single day for 14 nights...

- The buffet got very repetitive for 2 weeks, we're not there for the food but even the resort next door did theme nights were we had a variety. The dishes were dirty half of the time, forks, knifes and cups on the table were dirty.

- A la cart, the seafood was so so, only the salmon was ok, no lobster for a seafood place, the steakhouse was ok for the pork, no steak at the steakhouse, the romantico was worth trying really good, didn't try the italian.

- Alot of our waiters/waitresses were nice but a few didn't show must enthusiasm to help us, I can get away with spanish but some don't and I noticed in this resort english wasn't a big forte for them.

- The shows were pretty bad except the Fantasy one, they really need to improve on this especially if they're seeing people walk out during the first 15 minutes of the show, they need to do movie night, get impersonators, something to keep us awake.

-To use the gym you have to walk all the way to the other resort we normallly stay and use that gym, way to far.

Overall it was a good vacation because of what we made of it, I would not go back to this resort but I'd definetely go back to my usual spot in Santa Maria.

What a beautiful week. Have to say that the weather was just amazing, sunny every day.

This is one of the friendliest place in Cuba we have been so far. The staff is friendly, they smile, some of them even speak french which really amazed us. We never had to wait to get served at the bars. The A la carte restaurants are good. It is great to see that they are putting that little extra effort in serving you. The "Romantico" was the beast for us. We went twice and the pianist is very talented. The food at the buffet is OK, dont expect much and you won't be disappointed.

The beach is very nice but not what we expected. The sand is white the water is aqua but somehow the beach area must have been damaged in results of a storm, not sure. If you take the time to walk a bit you will find amazing little area to enjoy the beach. There is a few bars on the beach so it is never a problem getting a drink but you have to get back on the hotel grouds to find a bathroom unless you room is near the beach entrances.

Be prepared to walk, the hotel ground is quite large and you can easily take a wrong turn, especially on first days. The little train does not go by regularly.

The rooms a good, not a problem having hot water at the end of the day. I was hoping to get towel arts every day but got none even when I tipped or left goodies on the pillow.

They have 2 large pools. One was more for families travelling with small children and where the animation took place and the other was more quiet in terms of kids. Mostly adults hung out there.

The 1 1/2 hour bus ride is wirth it and the check in procedure was very smooth.

Overall, a good last minute trip deal.