Ocean Casa Del Mar — Hotel in Caibarién

So now ,having journeyed there and back again "A Canadian's Tale" I bring you this review packed with information and tips. If you have questions ask and I will do my best to answer.

Exchanging currency for CUC: It is easy. Exchange what you need at the money exchange in the resort.

Tipping: Tip often. The staff need it. In a resort that is a small city it gets you noticed. You will wait less.

Getting service: Whem something is wrong with your room or service it can be frustrating. The resort is huge. In my opinion it is understaffed for maitenance. The maitenance guys are always fixing stuff. When voicing a concern always remember that if you sound angry your service will suffer. Nobody wants to work in a room while the guests stand there and complain loudly. When the repair guy does come tip him. If you have further issues they will want to make sure they get to you first. Your room is cleaned daily. They do a great job. My wife always left gifts and CUC on our bed for the girl. Bottled water is delivered to your room daily. If you are not there then they will let themselves in and leave it so use your safe.

The Food: Well it is everywhere. Seriously. There are two pool areas. Each have a restaurant for food and drinks seperate from the bar. There is a beach hut on the East side of the resort beach area that serves up lunch. It is usually a fantastic seafood platter with rice. There are three restaurants for evening meals other than the main buffet. More about those later. The main buffet is located in the main building. Basically beside the main bar below the lobby. It has a decent selection of food. Little known fact ,Cubans are not allowed to eat shellfish or beef. It is reserved for the tourists. Most of the Cubans have never had it. They get their government ration of rice and beans.

The resort restaurants: There are three and they are themed. Japnese ,Italian, and Seafood. They open at 6:30pm. If you want Japanese or Italian you have to make resrrvations at a booth in the main bar area. They fill up fast. They are both located above the main buffet across from each other. The seafood restaurant has no reservations. It is a stand in line and wait for a table type thing. If you opted for privledged status then you can go straight into the privledged area and not wait. The seafood one was my favorite. It is located as a seperate building in the center of the resort between the main bar and the beach. The enterance is on the West side of the building.

The Beach: The beach is North of the resort. It is hard to miss as there is a large ocean that borders it. The water is salty and warm. There is no shortage of lounge chairs and palopas to relax on and under.There are hobbie cats that a crew person will escort you on if you want a ride. They will ask for a tip. A sage warning about how to avoid the unpleasant expieriance of eating yellow snow is not appreciated or understood. All water craft are restricted to 1 km distance away. Many days the red flags were up meaning the waves are too big for pleasure craft but boogey boards would have been awesome. If you wander East you will come to a open market and stripmall. The stripmall has a spa and a store with toiletries. There is a cigar bar and the Cha Cha lounge and bar.

The pools:

There are two pool areas. The East one has older kids and adults. The West one has play areas for the kids. Both have a swim up bar. There are showers for rinsing off.

Tennis courts:

On the West end there is a tennis court. Rackets are free and if you are alone or want a lesson the attendant seemed eager to play. He walked around swinging his racket and looked with longing gazes at the courts.

The excursions: There are quite a few options. Some are a full day and others are not. Booking them can only be done in the lobby between 9:00 am and 12:30pm. The excursions run on certain days so if you leave it too late you may not have time to go. I suggest booking these on day one.

Conclusion: I would definatly go back. I may even take the kids next time if...

Do yourself a favour and do NOT book this resort. We went for a destination wedding as a big group which was nice to be together. When we arrived it took us two hours to check in due to the amount of people which was understandable. LOBBY: The lobby looks nice and modern but do not let that fool you. The resort is very big they have 17 buildings. The grounds are not kept nice and to be honest the walk way to the beach looks like a desert. No landscaping in that area and it is just dust and dead grass. Their is also stray dogs that stay in this area near the beach. The washrooms in the lobby smell of terrible sewage and their is never any toilet paper in the both lobby bathrooms.

FOOD: My standards for the food was low as everyone says food in Cuba is not the best. But I think the worst part was when they RAN OUT of basic foods. Pasta and French fries were available for 3 out of 7 days that we stayed at the resort. My next concern was at the omelette station they were using one spoon for all the different ingredients such as cheese,onions,peppers, and ham. As someone who is allergic to dairy, when I saw this I was automatically turned off and very upset. I spoke to the manager on several occasions and he did not follow through with what I told him. The absolute WORST part of the food was when we went to origami (Asian restaurant) and my cousin found a COCKROACH in his rice. We were ALL disgusted and very upset about this. We expressed our concerns to the manager which he proceeded to tell us that the bug they found was a “butterfly” which was absolutely ridiculous because we know what a cockroach looks like. We also went to the Italian restaurant and we had hopes that they would have pasta as they ran out of pasta two days before we went. The waitress proceeded to tell us that their was no pasta. After talking to her about it she said she can do pasta for two people only. Which we then had to decide who wanted pasta and who didn’t. Snack bar is a joke especially when they run out of fries, and pasta which is what most people go to the snack bar for. One day at the buffet their was a leak from the bathroom upstairs and it was a sewage leak. They left the buffet opened and only closed the area where the leak was. The buffet smelt of sewage for a few days. The day of the sewage the plates were not cleaned as we found black goop on one of the “clean” plates.

ROOMS/CLEANLINESS: The rooms are pretty basic but rather modern. Do not count on the sheets to be changed because that is NOT going to happen. We had the same sheets for an entire week. Also do yourself a favour and bring your own towels as the towels smell like mildew. Everyday I put my dirty face towels on the floor and I noticed that they were hung back up as if they were clean towels. I also noticed the shower was not cleaned throughout the week. I did a test where I put a tag from my bathing suit on the shower floor and it was their for the rest of the time that we were there. We also found a cockroach in the shower near the drain. We also had no lightbulbs in 3 of our lamps and I told customer service TWICE and it still did not get fixed. The maid only gives you one toilet paper roll per day but only if you finish the roll of paper.

STAFF: Most if the staff was very polite and accommodating but others not so much. If you have a concern and you go to customer service don’t count on them being understanding. When we found the cockroach in the food, I automatically went to customer service and one of the managers was very rude. He told me I had to fill out a paper and they would get back to us about the situation. He also continued to talk over me and would not allow me to express my concerns. I find most of the management was very defensive in a sense that it was not their fault .

Do yourself and the favour and do not book this resort. It is over priced and is a absolute complete dump. This is no where near a 4/5 star. Even if you want to book it for a last minute vacation for a good price... do not do it you will be...

Beach is absolutely beautiful. White sand with lots of huts and chairs, get the blue chairs if you can. There was always a lot of huts available, no need to wake up early to “save” a spot before breakfast unless you have a favourite spot. The water is extremely clear and shallow with miles of beach to walk along. There are sand fleas but bug spray doesn’t seem to keep them from bitting your legs. The closest bathrooms to the beach are at the pools but they are disgusting and often do not have toilet paper.

Rooms : We were in Block 4 and our room had 2 double beds. Water, pop and beer are replenished daily. The cleaning staff typically got to our room around 2 pm. Sometimes they would take the hand towels but not replace them. If you devices require a 110v plug bring a converter. The only 110v plug is in the bathroom and most people we spoke to said their outlet didn’t work. Request a room with a shower as you might get one with only a bathtub. The shower is huge with good water pressure. There is 1 pillow per bed and it is long and flat. You have to fold it in half in order for it to be comfortable. Ask for extra pillows but no guarantee they will give you one. Biggest issue we had was that everyday we had to walk to the lobby to complain that the keys to our room would not work lock nor would the key for that the cleaning staff tried. Reception/customer service would just give us new keys no matter how often we stated that the issue was with the door. We found that repeatedly hitting the lock with a fist would make it eventually work. It took 4 days and 9 trips to reception and customer service before they finally sent a tech out to repair the door.

Pools and pool towels : Huge warning-DO NOT STEP ON the white grates around the pools. They are brittle and break easy. We saw numerous people get injured every day as they stepped onto a section of the grate and fell through. There are 2 main pool areas, each consisting of 2 larger pools and kiddie pools. Each pool area has 1 swim up bar. Finding a chair was not an issue however several chairs are busted and are not safe to sit on. Games are only held at the pool near buildings 11 through 18. Pool towel exchange hut hours were 10 am until 5 pm. Sometimes they open sooner and close sooner but there wasn’t a day during our trip where clean towels were available after 11:30 am. We were able to get clean towels on 2 out of 7 days. Meals Buffet - lunch and dinner, more often than not, served the same type of food. If you like French fries grab them if you see them as they don’t last long or go to one of the snack bars for fries. The buffet food is not the greatest but we didn’t come here for the food. A-La Carts - worst reservation system I have ever seen. Get ready to start waiting in line at 4:30 pm. Around 5:30 pm each night a staff member places a sheet of paper under a piece of glass that contains the name of a restaurant. He/she then repeats this on 3 other tables. People quickly try to line up at each table not knowing what restaurant they are in line for as you can read the writing on the paper until you get up close. On top of that we always had to deal with rude people that just walk up and cut in line. Dinner times start at 6:30 pm and last reservation at 9:30 pm. Italian food was really good. Mexican wasn’t the greatest and we saw a lot of food being sent back.

Night entertainment: Standard resort entertainment consisting of dancing and music. Speaking of the music, bring hearing protection as it is too loud for the size of the venue. If you are travelling with young children, for the love of all that is good, put some hearing protection on them! Airport - just over a 2 hour drive to the resort. The airport has duty free as well as a snack bar along with a few small shopping booths. boarding the plane was nice and easy. Show less Room Tip: Ask for a room with a shower, if not you will just get a bathtub and ask for...