Latest Reviews for Guardalavaca

We had a fantastic holiday in Cuba. The Occidental Grande Playa Turquesa was execllent.The beach was lovely and natural with mangrove trees for some shade and fine white sand. During the day there were a range of water sports - mini catamaran, wind-surfing, kayaks and pedalos with great instructors. By early evening the beach was deserted aprt form the herons, buzzards and humming bees.

There are seven swimming pools - catering for all tastes (toddler to adult quiet area and a swim up bar. Fresh towels were available evry day (you just handed the wet one in and got a new one).

There are a range of restuarants. The main buffet had a wide selection - including great salads, fresh local fruit and cook to order fish and steak. The breakfasts were great too. There was also an asian restaurant, italian, cuban, french a grill and a beach bar serving pizza and ice-cream.

We did a number of trips - a catamaran day out which including snorkeling off the coral lunch, lunch, free bar and swiiming with dolphins - a great day out and excellent value.

The Into the Countryside was also very good - a jeep safari which including a trip to local cigar factory, riding western style, a barbeque lunch and a speed boat trip in the local lagoon.

For Cuban history, try the trip to Santiago de Cuba - a short flight over the mountains and then an excellent tour taking in the key places in the Cuba revolution. Our tour guides were also excellent - open, friendly and very knowledgeable. We learnt a lot.

The hotel staff were all excellent and worked very hard.

We also spent 3 days in Havana - at the Parque Central hotel (good hotel, super swimming pool on the roof).Havana was also beyond all we had imagined - vibrant, lively and great architecture. We loved the vintage car tour and the horse and carriage ride, as well as wandering the streets in the old town.

We have travelled alot - and I can honestly say that this was the best holiday we've ever had. I would also recommend The Holiday Place as a tour company - both in London and Cuba they all went out of your way to make sure that every thing went as planned.

Downsides - its a long way - a 10 hour flight from London. There are hungry mosquitos - take lots of DEET and use it often.

Would we go again - we are already planning our next trip!

We spent 10 days here as part of a split centre holiday (3 nights in Havana at the end of the trip). The hotel is in a lovely setting, with a great beach and rooms set amongst trees. The rooms themselves are great, with much needed air con and the fridges stocked with cola/water every day.

The pools are good, but the beach was better. The sea was warm and clear and there is a nice breeze on the beach. The bar and watersports are handy. Worth taking a pedalo out to the reef and snorkeling on it and the other watersports help pass the time.

The buffet food is good, with plenty of choice - I am sure those that moan about it are the typical burger and chips/fried breakfast mob who are unwilling to try anything. I cannot believe that peaople can moan with fresh meat and fish cooked to order, lots of salad and vegetables, fresh pizzas and pastas and plent of other choices! We tried the restaurants as well and found the Grill and Cuban to be average, but the Italian good and the Oriental excellent.

The staff are very friendly and happy to help. Take a few coins out with you each day for tips.

We did two excursions. The first one was 'Inside Cuba' (steam train from an old sugar plantation, visit to a cigar factory and lunch in the hills) which was a good opportunity to see more of the country. The best excursion by far was the 'Sun Cruise' (trip on a catamaran, snorkelling on a reef and then swimming with dolphins, followed by a lobster or chicken lunch). There are a lot of different trips involving the dolphins, but judging by what we heard from others the sun cruise was by far the best way of doing it. Other trips go by coach and include a dolphin show, but the highlight of the day is swimming with the dolphins, not watching them perform, so why bother?

All in all a brilliant trip and Havana afterwards was great too.

I travelled to Cuba last July with Watson Holidays and stayed at the hotel Playa Costa Verde. The hotel was absolutely wonderful and was exactly what we had been informed it would be.

The hotel has a really large swimming pool with a swim up bar. It also has a number of very good restaurants to choose from, including the buffet, Italian and Japanese!! Well worth a visit.

The entertainment was very good and there were many live shows performed by the animations team.

Our room was a villa style and had a great sized balcony and was both clean and spacious. The staff at the hotel were amazing and nothing was every too much for them to do,

The beach is exactly as it looks in the brochures, white sand, clear blue waters.

If you fancy going out and about, there is a mini train which takes you into Guardalavaca for the markets and you can also go to Holguin.

My advice would be to shop around before you book. We had quotes of about £800 per person, but eventually found it with WatsonHolidays.co.uk for just under £550per person for 2 weeks!

I'd def reccommend this hotel.

Holiday ok, biggest word of warning! Do not book this with Thomas Cook Direct without checking all the small print. Flights to this resort go via Varadero at certain times of the year absolutely horrific spoilt the whole holiday. If you want to spend 24 hrs travelling from UK to Cuba then be my guest. There are few other things in the small print to stitch you up, but of course it was all my fault because I ticked the magic box, accepting anything I failed to spot. When I asked TC why could they not be more transparrent like Eclipse/First Choice, their answer was "we own all them anyway". Great customer service answer eh? To be perfectly honest why waste all that time travelling there is plenty of places better just a few hours away from the UK.

We had an excellent all inclusive week at the Brisas before transferring to Havana for a few days.

The Brisas is a large hotel comprising of rooms and villas - we had a room. This was clean and comfortable - the maids work very hard and make animal shapes out of the towels etc every day which was a nice touch. The hotel has a main restaurant and 2x a la carte restaurants (which require a booking - 1x booking for each a la carte restaurant per week). The food in all the restaurants was very good and plentiful. there is also a 24 hour snack bar and numerous bars. The pool is large and clean - it also had a swim up bar which came in handy! The beach section is state owned so the hotel aren't liable if anything goes missing - however in the week we were there we never heard of anyone having a problem with this. We did the catamaran and dolphin swim excursion which was one of the best days of our lives and well worth booking, (approx £75 per person). My only slight gripe is that the hotel seems to be the first on the coach pick ups and also the last on the drop offs so you tend to spend at least an hour on the coach when you go anywhere - minor point but just to let you know. All in all a great place to spend some time.

i would thoroughly recommend it.

If you don't want to see anything of the resort you are staying in and simply want a beach/poolside holiday then Cuba is ok. We like to get out of the hotel and explore the local area which you really cannot do on a holiday like this. There is nothing there apart from the excursions put on by the holiday companies. This holiday felt like groundhog day. Same thing every day. This is the first time we have gone all inclusive and I would not recommend the Brisas for this. It would have been worth paying more for a 4/5 star hotel. You are in it all day everyday so it really needs to be a good base and the Brisas wasn't.

The food was awful and repetitive and the snack bar (burgers and fries) wasn't open when it should have been. All you got in the room fridge was a bottle of water which you had to take to the bar to be re-filled with tap water when it ran out. I could not believe either that they did not provide bottles of water as part of the all inclusive. Brisas is fine if all you want is lager and rum.

Brisas hotel is large and set in nice surroundings but it really could do with being refurbished. It is dated and well-used. Being all inclusive I didn't think we would need a lot of spending money but as you are expected to tip continuously for 2 weeks we spent much more than expected.

We made the most of this holiday but it really was a let down in terms of the standard we were anticipating. The best thing about the holiday was swimming with dolphins which is a great memory to have and a trip we would highly recommend (although expensive given it was just half a day).

One very disappointing aspect was the evening entertainment. Although we usually like to go out of the hotel at night, we were aware it would not be like this in Cuba so expected a decent level of entertainment. Everything was over within about an hour so after 10.30pm that was it finished.

Overall, there is nothing in Guardalavaca so as a resort there isn't anything to see or do. If you are thinking of Cuba then choose something better than the Brisas.

Arrived on the 8th July. Altogether there was 8 in our group ranging from 44 to 12 years of age. This place has something for everyone, there is entertainment for young and old and the facilities are kept immaculately spotless 24/7. The staff go out of their way to help and if you do have a problem it is sorted out as quickly as is possible.
Rooms - We had upstairs rooms which were maintained daily and although the decore is slightly dated the air-conditioning is spot on and we never saw any of the local insects for the whole 2 weeks.

Food - We read one of the earlier reports slating the food here and all of us agreed they must have gone to the wrong Hotel. The choice is enormous and all the time we were there we heard no one complaining of dodgy stomachs even though the heat never dropped below 90. The waiters never stop cleaning and providing drinks and whether you tip or not, they never stop smiling and trying to get to know you all. The a la cartes are easy to get into, but beware men must wear trousers not three quarters or dress shorts.

2 years ago we stayed at the Paradiso Rio De Oro and were informed that it was the best hotel on the island, and although this is not the Paradiso i can assure you it's not far behind, in fact some facilities are even better.
The only gripe we would have with the whole holiday would be with Thomas Cook Airlines, come on TCX sort out your checking procedures at Gatwick it";s a shambles, we arrived with 3 hours to go and still had to run to catch the plane, because some bright spark came up with the idea of getting 4 flights to que up in one line and then sorting them out when you got near the check in desks.

Well done the Playa Costa Verde, we'll see you next year.

We are just back from Cuba and we have to say it was one of the best hols we have ever been on. Hotel is really big with lots to do, 24 hr bar and snack bar. all staff are really friendly even the gardeners. we tipped the bar waiters and they made sure you were ok all night by getting you new drinks and cleaning table and emptying the ashtrays.

Pool is huge and lovely and relaxing to lie at and also there are pool games all day long and a kids club, not the coolest though as the heat was unbearable but we didnt complain thats what we wanted. had a few days rain as it was the rainy season but it was at 4 in the afternoon and that suited us fine as we only lay out until 3 as it was roasting. take plenty sun cream we went through lots. there are always plenty sun loungers at the poolside the only thing its hard to get is the shaded seats they are taken quite quickly because of the heat.
we didnt have any problems with mosquitos or insects, expected it to be really bad from the other reviews, but we didnt get bitten once, we did get cochroaches in our room twice but thats all but we did take repellent with us.

Food was good, great choice, you have to reserve the restaurants you want to go to by going in to a conference room at reception and the lady there does it over the computer and gives you a receipt with the date and time on it. some times there was a que for this which was the down side or go to the buffet which doesnt need a reservation and alot of choice.

We tried the karaoke disco a few nights, fully air conditioned and non smoking. was the coolest room in the whole hotel. Good music and open till 2.
The beach is the most beautiful thing we have ever seen so peaceful and the sand and sea is lovely, the water mathces the blue sky, and the water is warm. there is a man on the beach came over and asked us how many beds you needed and brought them to the exact spot you wanted. quite alot of crabs on the beach, we watched them digging holes. you can go on the pedallos and catemerrans for free on the beach aswell.

we did the dolphin trip, it was good worth the money, they are great, really clever. once you have swam with them you get out and go and watch a dolphin show, amazing and then a sea lion show, funny.

there is a full menu for cocktails which i lived off the whole fortnight, think i tried every cocktail on the list, they were all nice, my faves were varadero sunrise, mojito, bldy mary and screwdriver.
i have recommended this hotel to all my family and friends and we are thinking about going back next year with the family.

swarms of biting insects everywhere.
completely mismanaged. 1400 rooms full, and only 2 toast machines at breakfast. at main meal times queues to get into the very, very poor main buffet restaurant, which was terrible, imagine the queues once you werein!. cold food.brussels sprouts served at breakfast 4 times while we were there. altogether the worst , by a long way, holiday in Cuba of the 8 we have had.

reception staff were a law unto themselves, we had asked for sea-view, second floor, 2 rooms together. our room was ground floor, half a mile from our friends second floor room. there are no rooms with sea view, why do airtours offer them? we complained. that night there was a cockroach in the middle of my wife's bed, between the sheets.cockroaches in the room on 6 occasions.
airtours response to my letter of strong complaint was nothing more than 'tough', wont be using them again!

excellent resort. food could not be beaten it was excellent and the restaurants were fab best food i have ever had.

pool area lovelly, however if you like to sit in the sun it was hard finding a good spot because a lot of the pool area is shaded by trees. we went to the beach which was fab.

staff cant do enough for you and they are all very helpful.

trip to havana was good but very tireing.

would def go back a lovelly holiday and resort.