My husband and I stayed at this resort from Nov 18 to 25/12. We had asked for an upper floor room in the Holguin bldg. as I had heard this was a quieter bldg. When we arrived at 6:30 PM, after a long, dark bus ride, There was no "welcome drink" to our dismay, but we were checked in immediately. Unfortunately, we were given a room right above the main lobby bar which was extremely noisey. I returned to the main desk and asked again if we could be moved at which time we were given a key to another room in the Varadero Bldg. to check it out to see if we preferred it. The difference was night and day. We immediately returned to the desk and changed rooms. The Varadero Bldg was wonderful with one entrance leading to the pool, buffet etc. and the other leading to the beach. The resort is relatively small, so walking from the beach to the buffet, or the pool to the rooms etc, was all very manageable (this coming from a person who has difficulty walking alot due to a healing broken ankle)
The rooms need some sprucing up, but they were clean and welcoming. I didn't like having to pay for the safe. We are frequent travellers and have never encountered having to pay for our safe, but at 2 pesos a day, and a working key safe, I guess I shouldn't complain.
The rooms were well lit and the balcony had a light too if you wanted to sit outside to read at night which I did once. The bugs/mosquitos however prevented me from doing it again. The smell/fumes from the fogging is horrible and should not be done while people are eating their food at the pool bar or there should be a barrier of some sort so the fumes do not make you feel ill.
The beach was definately my favorite. Santiago the beach chair man set my husband and I up every morning with our 2 loungers under the palapa we chose the first day we arrived. He just had to see us coming and he had our loungers ready. What a sweet man he was to talk to.
The fellas selling fresh coconut milk and coconut on the beach were lovely too often stopping to give guests a small figurine (a rose, a grasshopper, a fish etc. ) made out of palm fronds?
Villinas was our favorite server in the buffet, she made us feel very welcome and before we even sat down she had our table ready and our coffee ready. Always smiling even after a 2hr ride to get to work, working some days all 3 meals, then a 2 hr bus ride home. TIP these people ! It's what they live on and especially with the resort closing for renovations, these people are counting on the tips to see them thru. Kudos to the resort management however for giving the staff lots of notice and giving them 1 months salary while the resort is closed.
The meals at the buffet were good, lots of variety, loved the grilling stations. Would like better signage telling what things were tho.
Fruit was to die for especially the pineapple...yummmm.
Great breakfast options, and I LOVED the bacon. The platters were filled constantly, very short wait time.
Only went to Mexican ala carte....so so prefer the buffet to be quit honest. Would have liked to see better presentation of food (main course & soup) at the ala carte.
Animation team, best I have ever encountered. Tell Pablo Julie and ROB say hi !! He was always smiling, funny and made us feel like more than "just a guest" even made sure to come and say good bye to us when we were leaving. We did archery, rifle shooting, ring toss, darts, water arobics and bingo, all so much fun.
All in all, a fabulous relaxing holiday and we would definately return.

It has been a while since our last visit to Cuba. We mostly spent our vacation in the Domenican Republic after a few disapointment in Cuba. But this time, the deal was just too tempting and we decided to trust the Iberostar brand once again.

The room:
We unfortunatly took a non-direct flight wich ment we arrived quite tired at the hotel. We weren't happy with the room, we felt smelly. The hotel was full and we were asked to be patient and they would offer a different room the next day. But after a good night of sleep, and a good venting of the room, we decided we loved the sea view and location of the room, se we kept it. It was perfect since we were steps away from the pieer and quite isolated, so it was quiet and peacefull.

The furniture is old and in need for restauration, but the bed were comfortables and the room well cleaned. So i dont complain here, for the price i paid, i was expecting chasing bugs all night :).

The food :

my major concern before leaving home, and the biggest source of complain about Cuba. Well it maybe not the finest i've ever seen, but still it was quite correct. I'm pretty difficult to please and i always found something good to eat. Since our son is autistic and wasn't in a very patient mood, we only went to the buffet or snack at the beach. We didn't booked any A la carte restaurants. There was something different everynight and i even found some meals quite tasty, so I this was fun.

We like have a few glasses of wine while eating, and we were happy to get a decent wine in plenty. We are good tippers, so the waiter recognize us, so the minute we sat down, we had our wine and my son his diet cola :).

The beach :

Wonderfull white sands and pristine water. Yes there is a little weed flating aroung on windy days, but they work hard to remove it twice a day. It's the same thing on many beaches locations. But the cayo Guillermo beach is soooo nice and we love the pieers! You can walk a long long way on each direction and no vendors will bother you. Incidently, we didn't saw any timeshare sellers, a great plus for this hotel!

Only problem with the beach, at high tide, it's quite smaller and it's a bit squeezed when the tide is timed with the hottest time of the day. Also, the beach has many chairs in need for repair. I dont know why they dont do it. It's simply a mather of thighting the ropes underneat, so the canvas wont be so slack you'll feel the bars on your back. If you sit on a comfortable chair at the beach, it might be one of the 21 i repaired during my stay ( a two minute job, we were 3 persons, change of chairs every morning, spent seven days...do the math :) ). There is a guy helping you transporting your chairs, he could spend a few hours repairing all of them.

The pool :

Pristine waters, very clean and plenty of good chairs around.!

The shows :

We didn't saw many, but those we saw were good quality and involved up to 25 dancers or singer. Real singer, no lipsink!

Excursions :

We didn't do a lot, but i can say that they are the most affordable i've ever saw on vacation. For example, i rented a brand new scooter for 15 bucks for two hours, plenty of time to go for a visit at the Pilar beach of go see the flamingos at the laguna. We also went horsback riding for 5 bucks for an hour! It was too windy to go, but the snorkling at the reef was about 20 bucks. I can't point it enauph, very affordable and fun!!

Electricity :

Remember it's 220V down there. I forgot about it and brought many 110v accessories. I was disapointed i forgot the transformer. I went to the front office and they sent the electrician. He offered a very powerfull transformer for 2 bucks a day. It's not an official service of the hotel, but it came in very handy! My wife could use her curling irons, the vecations were saved :) In fact i dont think the small transformer they sell at the lugguage stores would work on the big energy consuming devices. So if you forgot about the electricity, someone might help you and earn a little extra money at the same time:)

The good :

Very nice place, superb beach and friendly and helpfull employees, like you'd expect from Iberostar. Decent food and absolutely unbeatable price !
Sure, tips are helping, but in a country where people are paid 25 bucks a month, come one, dont be a cheapo and plan a few bucks a day for a royal service! You saved so mutch on your vacation anyway :)

The not so good :

Okay, furniture is a bit old, plumming also old and water flow not the best but not a major issue in our book.

Oh, one little warning : sand fleas. If you walk around at night or late afternoon. I didn't felt the bites, but the itching is very unpleasant. They fog the place twice a day, but still we got bitten. I dont know if bug spray is efficient, but we didn't felt like putting some on, so we got bitten. Like i said, we didn't felt the bites. My advice : bring some afterbite products or itch relief cream. It's not a big problem, just a little hassle that can be easyly fixed if you have the right stuff in your luggages :)

BTW: We did saw little improvement here and there everyday. There are people working and reparing stuff without the disturbance of a major renovation. So the hotel is currently investing on improvement.