183 reviews
At $1500, a decent place to stay
The google review for this place says it's 5 star. While nice, it is NOT 5 star. 3.5-4.0 at best. We booked our spot for Feb in November. It cost us ~$1500 per person. I feel that this was a fair value for what we paid. The gripes below are mostly minor annoyances and didn't really hurt our trip. I checked those last minute sites the week before we left and the price was $3500 per person. I would be LIVID if I had paid that much, thinking it was 5 star. Use the information as you see fit. Apparently they are not "fully open" yet, (Feb 2024) as they are renovating since the sale. Perhaps that impacted the efficiency, but it could also mean more shortages if they were full.
In short: for the right price, I would go back.
The Good:
-Place is lovely
-Beach is great to sit, stroll, and look at
-a few small shops and restaurants just west of the beach selling things at a better value - bring your haggling skills
-Pool - big and has water slides, and a separate kids area
-CLEAN
-mostly great selection of food
- many restaurants to pic from
- Margaritas at the Tiki Taco restaurant
- Alvin at the burger stand
The Decent:
Beach: Bring aqua socks, as there are lots of stabby things in the water for bare feet
Shows: There is a large theatre showing something most nights
Food: Lots to pick from, *mostly good portion sizes
There is one small shop open 24 hours that has sandwiches and snacks for the after bar munchies. Grab mustard and mayo packets from the other restaurants during the day, or they will be very dry munchies
lots and lots and lots of HAM
The Bad:
- Most of the staff seemed annoyed all of the time. In Cuba the staff all seemed genuinely happy to have you there.
- local coke and sprite taste odd compared to US/Canada version
- The english skills of most of the staff were poor making it frustrating to order food, drinks, or ask for help. Simple requests like "rum & coke" or "pina colada" would often result in mystery drinks showing up
- Outside of a couple of bottles, it's all generic alcohol
- not enough chairs at poolside
- after about 08:00, there were no towels available. Every once in a while a few towels would show up, resulting in a mad rush to go and hoard them
- everything is slow and inefficient. I don't mean "island time", I mean chaotic and disorganized. Especially in the restaurants. If you are the kind of person that like to park next to the pool, give one person a big tip to keep you drinks full without asking, you might have a bad time
- no mojitos anywhere for the 1st half of the week
- vanilla ice cream always had raisins in it
- in room fridges would not get re-stocked without putting a couple extra dollars under the empties
- you could get orange fanta in your room, but nowhere else.
- there is no way to get any real food before 07:00. If you book early morning excursions, I suggest getting pizza from the buffet at roughly 22:00 and putting in your room fridge. The do not offer packed lunches at all. You can get some paper plates from the hot dog bus to "wrap" them.
- all the restaurants close at 23:00