Meliá Varadero Hotel — Hotel in Cárdenas

I've never felt so mixed about a place before.||I'll start by saying I understand that star ratings mean different things in different countries and that I've been reading about Cuba and all of its struggles and woes for two decades now. And this was our second visit to Cuba. We've stayed in 3* places on Greek islands as well as 5, a range of stars throughout the Mediterranean, a 3 in Tunisia and a 5* in Thailand. We know what we should expect, through lived experience.||We saw the photos of the reception area, atrium, gardens and beach and were sold immediately.|When we arrived at the Melia Varadero, we were happy with the surroundings and the atrium was even better in real life. The sound of the water, the warm air sifting through the leaves and the birds chirping captured us straight away. It was everything we hoped it would be.|When the time came to check in and go to our rooms, I was excited at what we would see next.||Our Premium Sea View Room was huge, with a massive wrap around balcony and the views... I can't put into words. Even the carefully considered, unfiltered photos don't quite do them justice. You just have to be lucky enough to witness them through your own eyes.||The room itself... It disappointed. Firstly, we thought we were getting interconnecting rooms with our daughter. Reception told us they don't have interconnecting rooms. Even on here, it says they do. I guess we'll never know but unless there's a secret passageway (Narnia, anyone?!) that we missed, we definitely didn't have one! We can deal with lampshades that don't sit straight, a cupboard door hanging off, patchy grout and flickering lights where the bulbs can't be taken out because they're taped in. But, do all those things equate to 5, in any country? I don't know. The next issue was the toilet. It was so slow to refill, we could probably only flush it twice a day. Not ideal when you're drinking copious amounts of liquid due to the scorching Cuban sunshine... Next up, the ceilings. They leak and have clearly done so for quite some time. In the bedroom, it leaked over the very end of the bed. In the bathroom, effectively, we had two showers. I preferred the safer one, that didn't pour out water through the light fitting.||Our daughter's room... We didn't travel for 10+ hours and spend £8000 to sit in a room, watching TV. However, it would've been nice, during the occasional down time, if it had worked. The air con control panel had the clip snapped off, so it was permanently set to 'Arctic'. It offered some much needed freshness after being outside in the sun but, at times, it did feel a bit too... Frosty. There was a gap in the patio door, maybe to let some warm air in?!||Rooms aren't that important to us as we don't intend on being in them much on holiday but, for the amount spent, we felt we should have had better. And that they could have been safer. We know Cuba has difficulties with repairs, we're well aware of that, but the communal areas look very well maintained so how can they manage those areas but not the rooms? (We know they're working on renovations at the moment, on the third level, as we heard - and occasionally felt them - being on the second, but these rooms seem to have not been looked after for years. We weren't told about the works, we found out when we heard it all. Again, not what you might expect from a 5 hotel.)||We didn't complain, we were concerned that a move might mean we wouldn't get neighbouring rooms, which was imperative for us and our daughter.||The one plus for the room (other than the aforementioned views) is that it was so spacious, with a huge double bed, bedside cabinets, a desk and mirror, a dressing table and a double wardrobe.||Irdelis was the cleaner for ours and our daughter's rooms. She is an absolute asset to the hotel. She did a great job, every day. Not that we leave any mess but you know! We especially liked her notes in addition to the towel and bedsheet arrangements! Irdelis would always say hello and we would have little chats. She always greeted us all with a smile. I hope she and her two little children enjoyed the presents we gave her on our last day.||On to the main buffet restaurant... We don't usually opt for AI accommodation and usually prefer the type dubbed "Small and friendly". However, we understand, unless you go for a casa particular, this is what's on offer. This restaurant is incredibly loud. There is a lot of food but it is repetitive (again, we know this is probably somewhat down to the situation in Cuba but we find it the norm for the AIs we have visited before). It would be nice, if possible, with the money you've paid, to have some different things every so often. We found it odd and a bit frustrating that national dishes like ropa vieja were never available, and arroz con gris only brought out twice. There is a huge amount of fruit available to buy from roadside carts but only watermelon in the hotel. We don't understand it.||On a positive note, there is A LOT of food. Piles of pastry, freshly grilled meat and fish (chicken, pork, beef, salmon and monkfish), pasta and sauces cooked to order, etc. Drinks are a little more limited. Knowing the ration situation in Cuba, you cannot complain about the amount of food. Knowing the locals struggle to buy eggs and rice, for example, it did anger me when people shovelled food on to their plates with no intention of eating it all. Please never do that. It must infuriate the staff, as they scrape platefuls of food into the bin, knowing they probably won't eat when they get home. Knowing how it feels for themselves, their family and friends, to queue outside the ration shops for next to nothing.||The staff in the buffet all work so hard; the bar staff, cooks, cleaners. They're like machines, tirelessly rushing around, trying to keep guests happy. Well done to every single one of them and thank you, again.||The Guantanamera cafe is far more relaxed. You can have hot drinks, soft drinks and alcoholic drinks at the bar, there is also a small buffet. Jose Carlos... Thank you again for your hard work. Pretty much every day, he would be there, providing endless Shirley Temples to our daughter (how will she break that addiction??) and a chat. Good luck to you, Jose, with whatever your future holds for you.||We definitely recommend booking as many A La Cartes as you can. We stayed nine nights, so were allowed three. We went to Fuerteventura, the Mediterranean restaurant, Las Brasas, the Cuban restaurant, and Sakura, the Japanese one. These were all booked for us by the lovely Ramón at the front desk. All of them were beautifully decorated, the service was great and the food good. My husband ordered the £50 lobster and chose to have it at Sakura. What we didn't expect was for him to still be served the same food as the rest of us, on top of the lobster. It was great he got to have some of everything. The one place I got ropa vieja in Melia Varadero was Las Brasas. And the Cuban dessert plate was very nice too.||We also - finally! - found the paella! I'd heard about it online but not seen it anywhere. It's served in Las Brasas, near the pool. You will also be given a Cuban Sangria, which was surprisingly nice (for someone who never drinks red). Yes, it's made with tinned vegetables and it is advertised as seafood but is actually chicken with a tiny bit of seafood, haha, but the setting was beautiful, al fresco dining surrounded by sunshine and palm trees. Be quick though, the opening time is brief.||We were really looking forward to the Cuban Street Food Concept van, after I saw it on social media. Turns out, my visions of ropa vieja, churros, chicharrónes and fresh fruit were dashed. It serves soft drinks and icecream. Try to get the guanábana, if you can. It's the best!||The beach bar is nice, it's calmer than the pool ones, obviously has astonishing views, is close to a handful of stalls selling souvenirs and a few minutes walk to Plaza America.||The beach... It's perfect. Our favourite part was the skinny stretch of soft, pure white sand to the right of the massage area. The sea is like a crystal clear, warm bath. You can walk round to the other busier side of the beach in a few minutes but it's best to take your time, looking out for the crabs, big silver fish, stripy yellow fish and needle fish along the way. Treat yourself to a later lunch so you can have this bit to yourself for a while!||The Hop On Hop Off bus can be caught a few minutes away from the front of the hotel. It costs $5USD or €5 (cash or card) per person (under sixes go free) and the guide at the front will tell you where to get off if you let her know of something in particular you want to visit. There is no timetable, unfortunately, and they say it's due every 30-45 minutes but I think that's "Cuban time"! ;-)||There are plenty of taxis outside the hotel if you prefer but I didn't take one. My husband paid $5USD to get one to the golf club a few minutes away, to give a rough idea of cost. ||You do need some sort of transport to get to places though. The only other things nearby are other hotels. ||If it hadn't been for the disappointing rooms and the lack of local food on offer, I would have scored it higher. Everything else was great but we feel it should either be cheaper to reflect what we got or the star rating should be reassessed...

My husband and I just got back from a one week stay at Melia Varadero and I must say it met and/or exceeded our expectations in all areas. We did a bit of an upgrade to the Premium Ocean View room that has the large two-side balcony. Our room had recently been renovated (bathroom had not been yet but they are in the process of updating those as well).

The view from our room was stunning. The resort is super easy to navigate around and everything is in close proximity so you don't have to was your time getting from point A to point B. Upon arrival we were greeted by SUPER friendly staff who referred to us by name as soon as we walked in. Thanks to Yanet and her colleagues that work on the reception team for being super accommodating to us. We were walked directly to our room by Yanet as well which was lovely. Check-in was seamless.

Food & Drink: Noe is the food & beverage manager and has that area of the resort running better than I've seen at most resorts. Hardly ever a wait for drinks at any bar and always staff assisting you at the buffet restaurant which you don't always get at buffets. There was always someone coming to our table almost within seconds of seating and everyone always friendly with a smile on their faces. The food at the buffet far exceeded our expectations. Breakfast has multiple options from omelettes, scrambled eggs, different variety of sausages, smoothie bar, several fruit options, breads, pastries and even someone making fresh donuts everyday. Lunch and Dinners at the buffet had a pasta station, a meat/seafood station where you could choose your meat and have them cook it for you however you wanted and they even had a carving station where they would have either roast pork, chicken or turkey. The pastries and desserts at this resort are also phenomenal. I don't have a sweet tooth but my husband does so I tried some of the desserts he had on his plate and they were mouth watering.

The a la cartes are super impressive for Cuba! We went to the Japanese restaurant the one night and the atmosphere was the best! Food was really good too but overall it was just the interaction that made it great. We also went to the International restaurant where both my husband and I had the beef sirloin and it was fantastic. We had a complimentary lobster dinner included with our stay because of the fact I booked the Premium Ocean View room with Sunwing (in most cases there is a charge for this so just be aware of this). We had that dinner in the TexMex restaurant was such a beautiful experience. View of the ocean from our table and beautiful music being played on the cello. To be honest, that evening literally brought me to tears because we were leaving the next day and I was just so happy and awed with the beauty of our entire stay.

Drinks: FANTASTIC. Bar service is phenomenal and their specialty coffee is to die for. Always had every type of liquor available you could ask for and plenty of mixes.

Rooms: As I mentioned our room was renovated but the bathroom was not which was fine with us. They are working on completing all of the rooms so I imagine by next year at this time everything will be done. Had super hot showers every day and towels, fridge replenished daily and room always left tidy.

Beach: stunning..... as this resort sits on a bit of a "cliffed" area, as you walk down the stairs to the beach there is a bit of a rocky area for access into the water. BUT having said that, if you just walk about 50 ft. further it's all sand. If you like to listen to music all day while on the beach, stick closer to where the beach bar is but if you want a bit more quiet, just walk a bit further down towards where the volleyball net is and it's super peaceful. TONS of lounge chairs too. We could go to the beach at any time of day and get a lounge with no problem. They will even bring an umbrella to you if you want one.

I feel like I am probably forgetting something here but all I know is that we WILL BE BACK! Already thinking about when we might be able to take...

I was expecting more from a 5 stars hotel. We arrived late at the hotel, and we were greeted by cold, slowly moving receptionists who were taking their sweet time to deal with us. No welcome cocktail, no nothing. They recommended us to take the bell boy with us to show us where the room is, because our room was far and it was hard to find in the resort. They didn't give us a map of the resort, just told us we have to go "to the left and back". The room was nice. We had a one bedroom bungalow with a view to the garden. The room was cleaned every day, but I didn't see too much of the nice towel decorations we got used to in other hotels. We had a mini bar that should have been replenished daily, but it was only filled up 3 times during our stay. The worst was that there is no coffee or coffee maker in the room. There is a water heater and we found two instant coffee single use bags at arrival. No sugar at all. We had it in the first morning and we were expecting to get other coffee every day. No more coffee (not even the instant one) was left in the room during our stay. No tea or sugar either. The food was good. We got to eat at all 4 a la carte restaurants and we enjoyed every single one of them. The best, in my opinion, were the Japanese and the International restaurants. Even the buffet was very good and they had something for every taste. The service at the restaurants was good too, and most of the servers were very attentive. The bars were always crowded and at times it would take way too long to get a coffee or a drink. If you like Irish coffee, be aware that the bartenders are very generous with the alcohol. Let them know if you like just a hint of alcohol, or you risk to get drunk from your coffee. The beach in front of the hotel was nice, wide and flat, but going towards the bungalow area, was narrow and it was on a steep incline. I wear a FitBit watch and each time I would move around the beach it was recording that I was climbing stairs. On Saturday and Sunday there were more locals coming to the beach (which is public). The kids would play and throw plastic bottles, wrappers and other garbage on the beach, and parents or the beach security won't say or do anything.The beach was not cleaned every night as stated in the hotel's website, and the second day we found the garbage piled up from the evening before. The entertainment is equal to none. During our one week stay, the theater was used only twice, and even then there was no real show. Once was a gathering of three couples from the audience where a few jokes were played on them and that was all. The second time, it should have been a beach party, but the weather was not the best, so they moved "the show" inside. This time, the DJ played some music and we waited in vain for something to happen. An older guy from the resort's entertaining team invited some tourists to dance, and that was all. No real entertainers to engage the audience, no nothing. The rest of the evenings, we were directed to go for the show in the hotel lobby. More exactly to the hotel bar. The place would become very crowded and most times there was no place to sit. And then we would wait again, and the show wouldn't happen. Really disappointing! Oh, yeah, and the entertainment on the beach: none! The entertainers may have been on a vacation that week. Really disappointing!!! On our last day we had to check in at 12 pm, but our departure from the hotel was at 7 pm. Since the resort was not busy at all, we asked at the reception to be allowed to use the room until later that day. We would have been allowed to do that if we were ready to pay 9 pesos per hour. We found the price a bit too spicy, and then we were offered access to a courtesy room where we were able to take a shower in the afternoon. However, the room was in a total mess, with dirty towels all over the bed and the floor, did not have any clean towels, no soap or shampoo. I would suggest to the hotel management to do regular checks to see if the courtesy rooms need cleaning, towels...