Meliá Las Américas — Hotel in Cárdenas

Visited this resort with my husband and we opted for The Level Family option. ||The first impression was not the greatest|, we were dropped off by our transportation only to fend for ourselves and find our way to The Level check in we had no idea where it was and had to ask around. Usually you have people who greet you , and guide you to check in. We proceeded to the check in only to be met with a very sour faced check in representative, I wish I got her name. No welcome from her , nothing she had us sign the check in documents , stood up and left not even an “enjoy your stay” welcome. Considering we chose The Level Experience this was by far the worst first hand customer experience we had at a resort. ||We decided to head to the dinner buffet for our first meal but we ended up leaving grossed out , people were packed in there like sardines and guests were taking tongs from one section to the other which felt very unhygienic. ||Two days into our stay we came back to the room and saw a pool of water underneath the mini fridge with a towel put over the safe. I guess they saw this issue and just decided to leave it as is? We told the level team and they had someone come fix it but this should not have been left there in the first place ||Four days into our stay we decided to make use our time and visit downtown Varadero , so we headed back to the room at 1pm only to find out the door was not working. We went down to the Level office and informed Adrian about the door he said it will be fixed in 5-10 min. We informed him that we would be grabbing some lunch in the meantime. After lunch we went to the bar for a drink and came back to the room around 4pm we figured we would give them time as well to clean the room. At 4pm the door still was not working , so back down we went to Adrian , he started questioning if we were using the key card correctly, asked if we pulled down the handle , said that the door should work even with no light of green or red. We went back up to the room , still nothing. Back down we go, we told Adrian it’s still not working and asked if he can come upstairs with us ( one other thing I should mention is that a family a few doors down had the same issue ) so this must be an issue they have all the time. Adrian then saw himself that the door was in fact was not working and he said he would call someone we said this was informed by us at 1pm and if we can speak to the person ourselves , he kept interrupting my husband while he was expressing his frustration , which I found very rude. He left us waiting for the IT guy who would open the door and was not apologetic about anything. It’s as if we disturbed him and not the other way around. We even asked for his contact information as we wanted to go downstairs, and figured we can reach out to him for an update but he gave us a fake number. After we finally got in, we noticed the room was not cleaned which means the door was never fixed from when we originally flagged the issue to him. |||Our last day since we were leaving late we wanted to make use of our time and enjoy the beach one last time , we headed back at 12 pm only to find out the door was not working again ! We informed a lady on the floor which I believe was the head housekeeper , we waited 20 min and no one came. My husband went down and informed the level customer desk and said they would send someone , we waited around for another 20 min and saw that same lady again and she called back to have someone open the door for us. 15 min later someone finally came and opened the door but for this to happen twice during our stay is ridiculous. ||As level guests we had a late check out of 2pm so we went downstairs at 1:30 pm as we wanted to eat before we head to the airport ( would have been able to head down earlier if we didn’t have the same door issue). We informed Julio about our check out at 2pm but we wanted to grab some food first , he hesitated and responded saying we have 30 min to eat ???? Usually even when your bracelet is cut off you can still use their services this was even confirmed by the lady who did our check out eventually. For Julio to tell us we have 30 min to eat was very unprofessional it’s as if we were begging to eat? ||The pros of this resort is of course its beautiful beaches , the security team always did their best to keep the level side of the beach for only level guests which I appreciated. However , this resort really needs to invest in more umbrellas as many of them are broken/ripped. ||The food was good considering what you hear about the food shortages , we found eggs everyday at the level breakfast buffet along with tasty cheeses , breads , peanut butter , butter and meats||Even the food at the a la carte were good, we weren’t huge fans of the Spanish restaurant though. However the roast chicken at Criollo for the level guests was very tasty , I should add that we had one incident at the level lounge were everyone was offered a drink except us, we informed them that this left us unimpressed but they made sure to always have us leave happy after our concerns were voiced ||Dayana from the level breeza bar was very welcoming , many of the servers at the restaurant were very welcoming. Adel the bell boy was pleasant to deal with. Jose from the beach security always worked very hard , all the beach workers made sure our seats were clean of sand and were happy to set us up ||Overall the resort is okay , however management either needs to change around its level customer service team or provide...

We recently spent 11 nights at this hotel, following a 3 night stay in Havana. Whilst there were some positives, this was most definitely not a 5* experience. The location of the hotel is great and the beach is truly beautiful. You can walk along the beach for about 20 minutes and into Varadero, where there are market stalls, shops and bars. On first impression, the hotel looks the part - the reception area is grand and the pool area looks impressive. The rooms are spacious and modern and appear clean, though there was a musty smell coming from the double shower. We were only given one bath towel each, no hand towels, and we found that the “fresh” towels arrived stained and smelling of food. There always seems to be cleaning going on around the hotel, but the maids were using dirty rags and dirty water so nothing was really being properly cleaned. With the exception of the children’s pool, which was emptied and refilled once during the day, we did not see the pools being cleaned at all during our stay and you could see and feel the sand and debris build up. Evening entertainment was limited - there was occasionally a singer on in the evening but quite late and only for short periods of time. The animation team work hard during the day and there was daily poolside entertainment - dance lessons, aqua aerobics, quizzes, etc. The biggest issue for us was the food, particularly in the buffet restaurants. We knew not to expect anything spectacular given the food situation in Cuba, but most of what was on offer in the buffets was unappetising and tepid at best. Much of the food isn’t labelled up so you can’t tell what it is and there is a lack of serving cutlery, encouraging people to use the same spoons/grabbers for different foods. My husband and I both suffered from severe stomach issues for most of our stay, and most people we spoke to had suffered in some way too. We assume this was down to the food/hygiene, or possibly the ice. The service in the buffet restaurants was very hit and miss - it took far too long on most occasions to be offered a drink and sometimes the drinks just didn’t arrive. The tables were often left without clean cutlery and glassware, leading to people wandering around trying to find somewhere suitable to sit. There were also A LOT of flies in there. The restaurants were better - the menus are very limited and not always what you would expect (e.g. lamb stew in the Tex Mex) and they are not what we would call “a la carte” in the UK - but the food was definitely better than in the buffets. Again, service was hit and miss, though some of the staff were really lovely and attentive (Maria Laura in the Mexican restaurant being one example). The snack bar by the pool is pretty dire. It serves pizzas (think 50p Iceland pizzas), weird burgers - no idea what the meat was - and horrendous ham and cheese toasties on stale bread. We did not see the other snack bar open during our stay, but apparently the pizzas there are better. The ice cream parlour was also closed for most of our stay. The highlight of the stay for food was the hog roast sandwiches on Cuban day (each Saturday). The service at the bars - particularly the red and blue bars - was mainly slow, though Lian at the red bar was brilliant, putting most of his colleagues to shame! Overall we were quite disappointed with what we got for the money we paid and the hotel does not seem to be using the feedback from previous similar reviews to improve. Note to Juan Pereira based on your previous copied and pasted responses: we did not waste time on our holiday finding you to complain as we wanted to make the most of the sunshine and we had read a previous review where someone who complained was asked to leave, which would not have been feasible. Just because you were not aware of our stomach issues does not mean they did not happen - the nurse was aware as I went to see her. You may believe that this is a “disease free complex” with “strict programs of hygiene” but I...

Rooms are ok, AC ice cold, Food is okay, though almost all of my friends had food poisoning multiple times. I only had it on a second day, later was ok when I learned the hard way what NOT to eat. Beach is nice, classic Varadero beach with lots of palapas, you can always find the place any time of day. Worst part of the resort was service, well, some staff were very nice and professional, always friendly and smiling, with or without tip. Miguel from the beach bar was awesome, example of perfect bartender and a person in general. Kudos to him. Also Jose from pasta station in the buffet, awesome young guy, always smiling and helpful, example of perfect service as well, something that rest of the staff can learn from both Miguel and Jose. Can't really say anything good about rest of the staff, vast majority were unfriendly, behaving unprofessional and with bad manners, even though they were tipped generously. In the beginning. Later, we didn't leave them a cent, they don't deserve to work at the resort. Especially lowest level of service was staff from La Cascada 24/7 bar. We felt so discriminated and humiliated by them, especially bartender named "Amex", he was very rude and discriminating even if tipped generously. They had french fries only for they favourite guests, mostly Spanish origins, maybe rich Cubans or so. For us, they never had French fries, and also tonic, for gin/tonic for example, while their favourite guests were getting it all the time, in front of us. I got irritated by horrible service and discrimination, and I pretended video recording them on the phone, first asked for gin/tonic, was told they don't have a tonic of course, then while "recording" them, I asked "Are you 100% sure you don't have a tonic?" They started talking to each other in Spanish, looking at me "recording" them, another lady came and told me they have a tonic, but I must sit at the table and she'll bring it to me. I said no, I want it here at the bar, she insisted I have to sit at the table and she'll bring it to me. I said no thank you, give me two glasses of water, I hope you have that, they gave me a strange look, and brought me two glasses of water. I stopped "recording", and left, pretty far from that bar, sat with my wife and told her what happened. While I was telling the story to my wife, that "main" lady who told me I have to sit and she'll bring me a gin tonic, she found me somehow, I have no idea how because I went so far from that bar, but she found me, maybe followed me, and brought two glasses of gin/tonic with a big smile and all apologetic and extremely nice. Wow. I told her I don't drink and I asked for one gin/tonic and to give them to my wife. I asked her then if they had a french fries, she said yes, yes, of course we have a french fries, any time. Oh my God. SO, I had to pretended to video record them, in order to get just the basic services. No words and comment for them.

These "little" things ruin your experience, even though hotel is nice, beach is nice, food is nice (with the exception of often food poisoning if you're not being careful what you eat), some hotel staff is very nice and professional with friendly attitude, unlike people at the La Cascada bar. Just because of them, I'm never going back to this resort, even if they paid me to stay there.

This is very honest and non-biased review, Hope people will read this and this will help them decide to which Varadero resort to go to. That’s the point of...