Melia Las Antillas — Hotel in Cárdenas

Melia Las Antillas is a 22 year old resort which has recent undergone renovations to its lobby, and main dining rooms. Its guest rooms appear to be in clean and good condition, but are showing their age in terms of the style of furnishing, bathroom fixtures and the general layout is circa 2000. Plans are underway to start a large scale room renovation process likely starting in the main building. We found the staff to be generally helpful and to be genuinely interested in guest welfare and experience. Most seemed to be long term employees. The food in the buffet was generally good, but as with just anywhere in the Cuban resort system it tends to repeat and there are sometimes shortages of some vegetables and beef. The food at the two specialty restaurants was good and well presented. Both a la carte restaurants appeared to be sharing the same kitchen and staff on alternative evenings during our early season stay. The outside pool grill served pretty average grill food during the afternoon and early evenings and then pivoted up to specialty dining on a couple of evenings. These meals were passable but not not close to as well prepared or served as at the dedicated specialty restaurants.

We stayed at the Melia after a week at the similarly rated somewhat newer Memories Sanctuary. The Melia is significantly smaller than the Memories location and does not allow children (who tend to wander into The Sanctuary from the shared Memories facilities) . We found the food and dining experiences at Melia much better than at Sanctuary. This is largely because outside of one dedicated Sanctuary restaurant all other dining is in eateries shared with families and kids. The beaches at these locations are similar, however they tend to be less crowded at the Melia because the resort is smaller. Entertainment at the Melia was very good and much more intimate. They have a resident dance team which does everything from aquatic ballet to vaudeville and talented roving dinner musicians performing jazz by sax and guitar and classical renditions of Lenard Cohen by cello and violin. At The Sanctuary there one night of OK dinner music and the large scale circus like performance to the general audience at the 400 seat theater with general seating. Lastly, Covid protocols were evident at both facilities, but guests and staff alike seem less interested in them at Memories and more assertive guests seemed able to avoid the rules.

One thing that we noted at both resorts that Canadian travelers should be aware of if they are concerned about C19 spread. Over 90% of Cubans aged 2 and up have been fully vaccinated with their home grown Soberana vaccine (WHO recognized), so C19 appears not to a major issue health wise for them directly. Canadians dominate the Cuban tourist market right now with 40-50% of guests flying down from the north via Sunwing or one of the scheduled carriers. Canadians have a generally good level of vaccination and have to show proof of status before getting on board an aircraft, so we are generally safe if we keep to ourselves and Cubans. RUSSIANS are one of the other major nationality visiting Cuba these days. They probably make up 20% of the guests (with Cubans making up 25-35% and Europeans following with 5-10%). The Russian full vaccination rate for their 2 dose of Sputnik vaccine is 47% (CDC). While the Cubans require all tourists to be fully vaccinations prior starting out on a vacations, it is doubtful they have much control over Russian documentation processes. Cuban officials do run temperature tests and questionnaires arrival, but I suspect it is pretty hard to vet the truth from a determined Russian, especially after they are arriving off of a 12 hour flight. The long of the short of what I am saying, is that if you are staying in a resort with Russians, be aware that there are potentially significant problems with Covid spread from these guests. It is probably not a good idea to party hearty, go on excursions, or deep sea fishing expeditions involving them or even...

Day 1 – July 21|My flight arrived late, but that doesn’t excuse what followed. When I got to the resort, not only was my room not ready—they couldn’t even locate my reservation. This made it nearly impossible to get dinner or access anything that night. I had to wait until they created a Wi-Fi account for me just so I could email them my own booking confirmation—something they should’ve had on file already.||Day 2 – July 22|Upon check-in, they told me I’d receive two beers in the mini fridge daily, based on consumption. Spoiler: if you don’t hide or chug them immediately, don’t expect a refill. I reported the missing beers that day and again the next. Later, I learned from other guests that the maids often don’t restock them because they resell the drinks outside the hotel to make ends meet. So if you’re excited about the “amenities” they advertise—don’t be. Most of them are just empty promises.||Day 3 – July 23|A day of stench and mosquitoes. The resort urgently needs pest control—the lake is covered in green sludge, reeks terribly, and is a full-on mosquito breeding ground. Even drenched in repellent, I got eaten alive.|That night, I made the mistake of dining at the Italian specialty restaurant. If you’re Italian—or just someone with functioning taste buds—avoid it at all costs. The pasta was a disgrace, the pizza even worse, and they topped everything with a random mess of frozen vegetables that had absolutely nothing to do with Italian cuisine. It was a culinary insult wrapped in cheese and regret.||Day 4 – July 24|I finally escaped the resort for an excursion and it was the best decision I could’ve made. I couldn’t stand another second in that place. Sometimes, self-care means booking an activity just to flee your own hotel! 😂|Sadly, I had to return—and was greeted by the rudest bartender at the pool bar. No name tag (probably for a reason), and I didn’t dare ask for his name because I didn’t want to end the night by telling him to go to hell. 🤣||Day 5 – July 25|It was my birthday, and I’ll give credit where it’s due: the small birthday gesture—a cider and a dinner reservation at the romantic restaurant—was appreciated. The food was okay, but the service was amazing. One of the rare highlights of my stay.||Key Considerations About the Resort||Rooms – What you see in the photos is not what you get. The HVAC system was broken and outdated.||Water Outages – We had no running water—for showers or even brushing our teeth—for three days due to a broken pipe that wasn’t fixed at all during my stay. I’m writing this on July 28th… still no water.||Cuban Staples? Forget it – Cuba is famous for coffee, tobacco, and rum. Out of those, the hotel only pretends to deliver. The coffee? Undrinkable. Especially in the buffet—more like dirty water than coffee. The rum? Watered down to absurdity. Bartenders ration it and secretly sell full bottles to locals, so guests are left with weak, sad cocktails.||Staff –|Reception and Guest Experience: kind, helpful, and professional.|RAMÓN (Coffee Bar): One of the rudest servers I’ve encountered. Bad attitude, zero respect. Frankly, I hope he’s removed from guest service duties entirely.||Food –|Go early if you want a chance at proteins like ham, eggs, or cheese. Staff only display the good stuff at opening hours for show (in case supervisors walk by), and once it’s gone—it’s gone. I stayed near the staff entrance and witnessed them hiding food in their clothes as they left for the day.|Snack Bar: Being outdoors, it’s a haven for pests. My burger had an extra crunchy topping courtesy of the cockroaches. I saw them crawling through the food. Hope no one ended up poisoned.||Final Verdict|Melia should seriously reconsider putting their name on this resort. It falls far below the quality and standards one would expect from the brand.||Save your money, save your vacation, and save yourself the trauma—book literally...

Hotel According to the description, it is a hotel for guests  16 years, in my opinion definitely more 50 years. The glory years of this object are behind it a long time ago. The common areas are modern, renovated, bright and clean.

The room  in the main building willuse, spacious, comfortable. Beds huge, very comfortable, bedding clean.  The tea set is just a kettle and cups, there is no tea, coffee, sugar, teaspoons. The sockets are in the European standard, 220 V network.

The bathroom is simply sleazy, the bathtub is grey, rough, you actually have to bathe in flip-flops. Wooden elements and doors are rotted, rotten from moisture, covered with mold. Equipment dilapidated. On the floor there was water leaking from the pipe in the wall all the time, the failure for a whole week no one even tried to remove despite repeated interventions at the reception.  There is no shortage of hot water.

Noise on the roof of the restaurant on the lowest level, renovation works are carried out, from 8 o'clock to the afternoon you can hear the calls of workers, the noise of tools, it  is impossible to sleep any longer, the siesta falls off.

Guests during the weekend are mainly Cubans, besides a lot of Germans and Russians, some Canadians, few Poles. You can easily communicate in English.

The bar at the reception is open around the clock, but there is neither piña colada nor mojito, they are made by a very nice bartender Jorge in a tiny bar hidden among the vegetation right next to the beach.

The food is boring, monotonous, repetitive, often cooled, although of course there are a lot of combination possibilities; there is actually no fish or seafood.  It is worth putting yourself under the care of waiter Jose Xavier with a very dark complexion, he is a very caring caretaker!  Recommended are à la carte restaurants with prior reservation – El Pepperone (przesympatyczny waiter William) and Romantico (you must try lobster!)

Beach large, wide, covered with fine light sand, plenty of space, clean. Sun loungers and umbrellas are available everywhere without any problem. The ocean is beautiful, blue, the water is clear.

Animations In the hotel there is no clear information about the evening attractions, you have to look for yourself and look around what, where and when it will take place. Concerts by the pool are very loud, music sounds late into the night.

Internet available literally everywhere (lobby, restaurants, rooms, swimming pools, beach), works efficiently, at the reception you receive a login and password, the limit of use is 70 hours / week.

The service is ok, not very contact due to poor language skills, employees often talk a lot among themselves. After giving a tip, everything becomes much more pleasant.

In shops outside the hotel you can pay only by card, in souvenir bazaars any payments are accepted (euros, dollars, at the rate of 1 dollar = 1 euro). For a tourist, double-decker bus circulating in the loop around the peninsula, you can pay in cash at the conductor (despite  the different  information at the stops, but payment only in euros / dollars). A  ride on an open bus is a great attraction, on one ticket for 5 euros you can ride all day without any restrictions.

A one-day trip in Havana is a dream trip, a real journey in time, in addition with a guide Mrs. Karolina, an efficient organizer, a mine of knowledge about Cuba, with great personal charm and a wonderful smile, able to resolve even the most inflamed conflicts caused by irresponsible participants! I highly recommend: this trip is worth the sin!

The hotel has 4.5  stars in the catalogue, but in the European standard  it is a maximum of 3 stars – mainly because of the bathrooms: using them fills...