Food was horrendous. The Cubans are blaming the state of the place on the Credit Crunch, but if they can't afford to buy decent food then they should not be open. The Cubans who came in at weekends took over and were like locusts eating everything in sight. One of the most memorable dishes was peas, garlic sausage and silverskin onions - for breakfast!
Room was extremely disappointing. Mosquitos a nuisance especially when they didn't spray the resort on Sunday. Felt obliged to tip all the time or you don't get any decent service. Though even after tipping it is still grudging. Couldn't talk to Ivan the rep without being subjected to the hard sell for trips. If you didn't want to book a trip, then Ivan didn't want to know. The staff were incredibly unhelpful - I speak fluent Spanish and yet they still did not volunteer any helpful information. In the brochure it said we could sail for half an hour per day - which we never could as the staff use the sail boats to run excursion trips. We also could not get masks and snorkels; and one day could not change beach towels.
It was one star not three star and we were extremely disappointed. Running our own business, time for holidays is really precious and I feel that we squandered a week's time here. We were taken in by the photos on the website which make the place look fantastic but the reality is a grubby pool, the planks on the jetty are coming away and quite shabby and the worst restaurants we have ever been to.
We have been to Cuba before and had the best holiday of our lives - we expected this to be similar, how wrong can you be. The island itself is gorgeous - do visit Playa Pilar if you go and make sure you go out to the reef to snorkel, but as for this particular 'hotel' - just don't go there!

Im so dissapointed as i have been to many places around the word all different star ratings and boards and i was most dissapointed yes the scenery and location is perfect allthough the lack of civilisation is a big problem nowere to walk to to brake up your day only the bridge and nothing there really to do unless you have a couple of hundred pounds spare. The trips are sooo expensive so thats no good really. The staff on the thomos cook plane going to cuba were shocking they were awful rude and sooo arogant the plane itself we had to have due to problems with the plane we were suppose to have it was BAD!!! not even a plane i would fly to london on and some one had been sick off the previous flight and non of the staff had botherd to clean it was gross and 9 hours on a plane with a a t.v that was old didnot work and the colour was funny and if you were lucky to sit near a decent television the audio ports were all borken so no sound marvelous?!?!?!!......a nightmare. and we were stuck on the run way for 2 hours in that before flying due to them hitting the door with the stairs so damaging the door !!!

From the airport to the complex there was nothing totally derelict like a ghost land we were worried...we got there and to be fair the reception was ok not as posh as some of the other hotels on the island, but it was ok furnirue was dated......but ok, then we went to the rooms more dated furniture and creatures in the room wich i didnt mind so much, the air con was broken before we got there so had to be fixed my mam and nan had to be moved as their rooms had not been the new done ones and were awful !!!!!!....sooo the food just not edible horrible !!!! im not a fussy eater................................but there was CHIPS CHIPS CHIPS CHIPS cold chips and this what they caled pizza was awful, the pork was nice just dont eat it they dont have any cross contamination rules we were all ill at some point due to undercooked or contaminated meat you were safer having the pasta cooked fresh infront of you it was dilicious but got anoying eating it everynight. the ice cream was lovely the cakes were horrible.

The one thing good was the beach and the entertaining team during the day we had a laugh and loved them all especially jo (mini acorn ) the shows at night i didnt think much about really the danicing love one was too slow and all dancing so got bored the comedy one funny in parts the band was ok but you beter sitting in the lobby bar and just having it as background music. The bar staff was ok apart from the women who were totall arogant gits if you were english really rude they would serve the cubans and spanish before you even if they just joined the cue many arguments were caused because of this......The WORST part is that in cuba they come for the weekend for a Butllins type holiday so from friday night to monday morning you have hardly any food left they eat loads and also waste alot the push in and are arrogant!!! go to brekfast early on the weekend or you will go hungry !!! they pretend not to understand you but if you tell them if they dont move your gna kick there faces in they know what that means as many of us found out dont be pushed around by them....!!

The pool was nice temp for the heat but the bottom was horrid paint coming off and under the ledge at one end there is algee growing because there is no sun getting to it...and also on the last week some little lad had a bad tummy in the pool was HORRID they were cuban and they didnt have a nappy on him they didnt tell anyone what he had done we seen tho so we told the reception who also did nothing no cleaning, checking nothing so we stayed out of it from then on totally discusting.
dont go to the alacart italian i love italian it was so horrid the night of my nans 65th we decided to have an alacart god we wished we never so horrid all the menu was gross...now people told us the cuban was horrid yes the decor not marvelous and dont have the fried pork but was by far the best meal we ate the whole 2 weeks so egnore the decore and writing and enjoy the meal your could have chips and adleast they were hot.
The maids in the room are ace, they are so gifted with the towls and sheets in every shape and colour really good and room always clean i left a tip or two and the toiletries and bits at the end of the holiday.......if you like a decent sized drink or pint take a cup with you a plastic one or a ice cooler one as they give them to you in small plastic cups but will fill cups you have up also so best to take them we were gutted we never but alot of people had become wise to it. The trips were expensive so we never went on any of them we went snorkeling for 15pasos each and the fish were lovely you go on a katamaran with the beach hut people worth doing.....pilar beach is lovely big food hut but take money and go in the morning best 1 paso each bed and yes it is a lovely beach but people made it sound like we were missing out on something but its just another beach so dont get your hopes up...its 5 pasos each on the nifty little train wich was nice as you got to nose in all the hotels as it did the collecting rounds. the second week we went on this boat pane awsum 30 pasos each but was the best thing eva if any1 wants the video of it email me and ill send it sooo much fun and one way of seeing the whole island.....,

oww and take tea bags if you want a decent cuppa and i found myself craving pg tips as there tea isnt as nice as ours..... and also i craved something nice so was buying biscuited from the little shop in the hotel.

TAKE MOSCITO STUFF or you will be EATEN ALIVE i am never bitten ever and i was bitten to hell they do try help the situation by going around every morning and most nights it done not make a bit of difference your best bet is to take them tablle burning things with the smoke as we realised we were sitting with people who smoked cigars to avoid the mosquitos horrid little devils ruined the night because the shows were no good but outside and you couldnt even sit and have a drink as a group as you were getting eaten aliive no fun :(.....they dont seem to mind 50% deet at all i think they like it ha.

so all in all yes it is a picture perfect place but behind it all its shabby dated and sooo boring would noever go again it reminded my family of spain in the 60s apart fomr even spain has somethings to do.




all in all really its not my type of holiday long days nothing to do weekends were awful and food shoking i would not rekoment you go here honestly i would rather go to spain. sorry i dont normaly moan and loved all m holiday so far but this place was so bad.


owww p.s they have got interntet 2 computers 6 pasos an hour but if i were you i would use the time all in one its sooo very slow i found that if you were alone on them with noone on the other it went faster also dont enlarge your screen as this also takes longer it took my mam 24 minuites to get the google page on.

This was our first visit to the Cojimar, the 7th to Cayo Guillermo and about 30th to Cuba/ Dom.Rep; staying 3 to 5 star. Comments are in this context.
We stayed here 11th to 18th June. We do not usually visit the Carribean between May and September because of the heat, and usually stay for at least two weeks because of the length of travelling time. This was a one off.

We had a room on the beach. Some rooms have recently been renovated to a good standard, (we viewed one!}. Ours hadn't but everything worked well and the view was so stunning we still gave it full marks. The mark up for an ocean view is not high by comparison with some hotels so we would recommend it, especially as, although this is a small hotel in terms of number of rooms, it is well spread out. Pleasant walks through the gardens in the dry, but worth packing an umbrella!.

It was hot and humid; perfect weather for mosquitos. We tried repellant with limited success so stuck to a daily routine of anti hystamine tablets. I imagine it would have been very uncomfortable without them and a few fellow travellors appeared to be suffering.

We had no problems with the facilities. There are two pools.
The upper pool is smaller and more popular than the lower and appears to be very clean.My guess is that it has recently been refurbished. However there are no steps and we would have had difficulty getting out of it.
We had a good look at the lower pool. The plastic lining is well worn and a few small patches are missing. I rubbed my feet over the edges of some of these and did not detect any roughness. The conclusion being that the pool is not nearly as grubby as it might first appear. We enjoyed the beach type walk in at both ends, the informal shape and spent all our swimming time here because of the beach.

The hotel was lightly occupied during this week. This was most obvious at the beach where there were loungers to be had all day. The ocean is very shallow here at both low and high tides so that you may have a long walk to get to a comfortable swimming depth. It was too far for us,(only knee deep at the end of the pier!), but we still had lots of fun laying in 1/2M of water and just splashing around. I imagine it would be close to ideal for families with young children.

The buffet restaurant we liked. It was enclosed and air conned., so no flies and only the very occasional bird that gets through the door. We have seen more variety of food on offer at other places but this is a relatively small hotel so we got what we expected. I always found something I could enjoy, not always the case at larger and higher rated establishments.
We went to the Italian twice. The first visit was good, on the second the pastas were dissappointing. However the waitress cheerfully changed them for pizzas that were excellent so that the evening was not spoilt.
We also went to the Cuban twice. This is a rather ordinary room on the beach front brought to life by an ocean view, graffiti covered walls and a ceiling rapidly catching up the walls. Oh yes; and we enjoyed the service food and wine too.
A recommendation re the wines. The house wines here are of similar standard to most 4 star hotels in the region i.e. extemely modest in quality. At the speciality restaurants ask to see the wine list (the same at both). They have some good wines at far lower prices than most other hotels offer. You may also need to order the white wine in advance and ask for it to be cooled; we did and it was well worth the effort.

We knocked a mark off for cleanliness. Our maid Juliet was great. We seemed to aquire a personal gardener, Edy, who kept the area around our room neat and tidy. Most of the hotel and grounds were to a similar standard with the exception of the beach snack bar. Uneaten food seemed to be left on the tables and floor for too long, inviting birds to help themselves. We did not spend much time here. Behind this snack bar were two large waste bins with the lids often left open. They had a most unpleasant odour but the strange feature was that it never difted; I could take a deep breath before going past the snack bar, walk about 6 paces past the bins and not smell a thing. This was very fortunate as our room was little more than 6 paces past that.

Cubans and weekends have been mentioned in these colomns. As mentioned previously this was a quiet week and probably affected that situation too. There were a lot of Cubans who arrived on Friday and left on Sunday. They gathered in large groups and made lots of noise. However we found them to be good company and well mannered so no problems getting served in turn at the bar!.

The service throughout we found to be excellent and a good deal better than many hotels in the region. We have travelled to the region many times with Thomas Cook and Ivan our Rep. here was well up to the high standard we now expect.

We have attached some pics. to colour the text. Most of all, sunrise and sunset from our room - almost worth the cost of the vacation on it's own!.

We loved this place. The best feature was the ocean view from our room, and our criticisms are all minor and could easily be worked around. We are recommending the Cojimar and ,God willing, we shall be back for at least two weeks before the next year is up.

We thought the scenery was really beautiful, and the sea the most amazing colours of green and blue. When we arrived we thought the room we had was a little shabby and certain areas could have done with an extra clean, but overall it was fine. The staff really pleasant and happy. There was toilet roll missing but soon rectified, generally we found that if you had a complaint about anything they would deal with it quickly. The welcome meeting was good and didn't go on for too long. Ivan the rep. was excellent and very informative. Although because we were quite isolated the only real choice to see Cuba was with the organised trips, which we thought were a bit pricey. We particularly enjoyed the "Now that's what I call Cuba" trip, and was packed with lots to do and see. The tour guides had a really good sense of humour, which made it enjoyable. Breakfast was our favourite with eggs fried to order in the restaurant, and decent bread for making toast. There was Chicken on every day but cooked differently, and quite a variety, and even when it didn't look very appetizing it actually tasted really good. We didn't think much to the Italian restaurant on site for the pasta but the pizza's weren't bad. We still got bitten quite badly with mozzies even though they sprayed the site heavily every morning and night, although I think perhaps a lot of them came from our trip on the road train to Pillar beach, which is absolutely stunning and great for swimming. Not every one took advantage of the free trip on the catarmaran, canoes, pedloes but we enjoyed the Catarmaran and if we had wanted we good have gone out to the Coral which was apparently fantastic for snorkelling. All in all we had a great time and would recommend it if you like to relax and unwind