Hotel Playa Costa Verde Reviews

Just got back from Cuba and it was the best holiday we have ever had! We got caught in Hurricane Ike towards the end of our holiday but we still intend to go back when the hotel is rebuilt. The staff were amazing and looked after us really well. I wouldn't recommend going in Hurricane season but it certainly was an experience.

The rooms are lovely and the beds are HUGE!

The food is good and the a la carte restaurants are a nice treat - especially the Japanese.

Do take insect repellant to avoid nasty looking bumps in your photos but the repellants work really well so they can be avoided.

There isn't much to do outside the resort unless you book the organised trips so it is better for a relaxing holiday.

Your every whim is catered for - even down to free breakfast in bed.

Can't praise this place enough and hope they are able to reopen soon!

Returned from our holiday to Cuba and the Playa Costa Verde yesterday and we were eager to add our own review of this excellent hotel.

First time in Cuba and had some pre-hol jitters for various reasons (mossies, weather, long flights) ALL of which turned out to be of absolutely no impact to what was a fantastic, relaxing and totally problem-free trip.

The hotel was beautifully maintained, service friendly and efficient at all times and the rooms were top notch and serviced efficiently (with impressive daily alternatives of towel folding designs!) Was quiet in our first week and much buisier in our second - at which point service and choice of buffet food went downhill a little bit. As vegetarians, the buffet (understandably) wasn't very inspirational but the restaurant was nevertheless lovely (thank god for the pizza and pasta chefs!). Choice of A La Cartes are great but, again, nothing in the Cuban, Italian (suprisingly) and Japanese restaurants for those who don't eat meat or fish. The vege restaurant was very nice though.

We, suprisingly, hardly saw any mossies (after taking enough repellant to stock the hotel shop!) and, whilst we were very anxious about the weather as we went during rainy season, we only had 1 day of continual rain. The others were simply up to an hour of heavy rain, then beautiful sun straight afterwards - hardly any sign of rain in our second week.

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.

Disabled? you may want to give Playa Costa Verde a try.

We are not disabled but unfortunatly Lynne dislocated her ankle and broke her leg on the dolphin catamaran trip, on day 5 of a two wek holiday. As a result the hotel hired us a whelchair and moved us into a ground floor room with disable facilities. Prior to this trip we had never had to consider disabled facilities and we do not consider ourselves experts but this is our review.

All of the rooms are spacious so this room was the same overall size as the others. It had two very large single beds, terrace and bathroom. It is that area that surprised us the most. All 3 wall mirrors were angled so could be clearly seen by the wheelchair user. The sink was large and by lifting a metal bar the sink angled and lowered to a suitable height,the taps were fitted with a retractable nozzle. The shower room was a wet room, no shower tray, rails all round, removable shower seat, seperate shower head near to the toilet which was slightly higher than the ones in the normal rooms. No steps or door frames to get over. The only criticisms would be the hair dryer is situated too high for the wheelchair user to reach, but once removed from its housing is on a long enough lead to be fine. The safe is also not accessible as it is too high and situated in the wardrobe.

As for the complex, there is nowhere you cannot get, we even went to the beach, and the staff could not have been more friendly or helpful. We used a taxi transfer to the airport which cost 40 pesos which is about £23
Now to our other comments, the rooms were spacious, and well kept, the maids worked really hard and did wonders with the towels. I was a bit concerned about the food given the other comments on this site. However we were pleasantly surprised, I do not trust buffet food, but here there was always plenty of freshly cooked food, omelettes or eggs for breakfast, fish, meat, pasta, and pizza at lunch and dinner and then there were the freshly prepared pancakes, they were lovely. We enjoyed all of the ala carte restaurants, the italian may not be like any other you have been to but it is still a very pleasant experience, but not as entertaining as the Japanese, you must do this even if you don't like sushi.

The entertainmaent gets a bit repetative and the bingo etc around the pool is annoying, but you can always escape to the beach. The grounds were immaculate. We did tip but not all the time, and to be honest I don't think it made any difference to the service we received, which overall in a full hotel was good.
Would we go back? to Cuba definately, but not to Paya Costa Verde, only because we do not go back to the same place twice.
Lastly, I would like to thank the rep DANAE who was superb and all our fellow holiday makers who helped us to really enjoy our holiday despite the accident. We received such kindness and offers of help that it restores your faith in mankind.
Thank you and God bless
Lynne and Michael

The hotel and complex were exactly as described to us by the travel agent. We stayed in a villa style room on the second floor with a really big balcony. The resort has an excellent swimming pool with a swim up bar and and loads of sun beds etc. During the day there was lots of entertainment in the form of activities such as sports etc. A great range of watersports were available on the beach. The beach is exactly as pictured. White sand, crystal clear waters. The all inclusive programme was excellent and was 24hours a day. We had a mini bar in the room which was re-stocked everyday. A great selection of restaurants and bars to choose from including the main buffet which did all the specialities you could imagine, an italian - beautiful and a Japanese restaurant which was a super experience.

At night the entertainment was ecellent. The shows were quite professional and included - Grease, Dirty Dancing and Cuban music.

There is lots to see and do outwith the hotel. There is a market near by, a nice town and of course, you can swim with dolphins.

We had a great time and would definately go back. Two weeks in the summer cost us abut £499 per person. It was well worth it!

Just spent xmas in Playa Costa Verde and had a great time.

The Cubans are the most friendly people I have ever met. They do not pester or beg and are just genuienly nice especially with the children. The hotel was as you would expect for a 4* and the bathrooms could have done with some new tiles and some paint but they were very clean. The hotel had 4 excellent restaurants as well as the buffet which we were most suprised about as we were warned the food wasnt up to much in cuba but we all, including the children loved the food.

All in all we had a great holiday and although I normally like to try somewhere different I would like to go back there again. Just take loads of mosquito spray!!

Also if you can avoid Thomsons do as the flights there and back were via Valedero and Canada inbound and outbound (which we were not informed about) so fly first choice direct with more leg room aswell!

This hotel was fab, food was great, hotel was immaculatly clean, we had a fantastic time.
Our hotel room was really big with a queen size bed, it was fab.
The hotel has five restaurants, 3 a la carte, one snack bar(fantastic) and 1 buffet restaurant. The Japanese a la carte is gorgeous.
The nightclub is quite good, free drinks until 4am, but u will soon get sick of hearing the same songs over and over again. but dont let this put u off!!!!!
At 4 oclock everyday, they play bingo round the pool, its a right scream....we won twice and won 2 free massages.
The beach is about a 5 min walk over a bridge, lovely white sands and clear waters.
If you are thinking of booking this hotel, do it, it is fab!!!!!

Warning - take plenty of mosquito repellent with u, Cuba is really bad for mosquitos.

Would highly recommend this accommadation, the hotel, food, facilities, entertainment were excellent.

When they say all inculsive it is ";all inculsive";

we did scuba diving free of charge, we went on a bike ride into the local village as an excursion and this was very good eye opener to local life of cuba.

Our only downfall on this holiday which there is nothing that the hotel or anyone in fact could do is the mosquitos and flies. they were a pest, but what do you expect in a tropical country!

we will be on our way back there very soon. My husband and i could not fault this holiday!!!

We arrived on wednesday may the 18th to find our room full of cockroaches which once killed continued all through the holiday,in the Buffet Restaurant the food was covered with flies and Birds eating the food with the Hotel staff ignoring this,when they held the buffets outside you had to fight the flies to eat,there was no covers over the food.

One day I went to the Snack bar and had a Stuffed Pizza and there was a cooked cockroach inside and from what I heard was not the first to find cockroaches or beatles in the foof ,that evening I found a beatle walking in the vegetable dish the waiter removed the beatle but left the food there.My wife was ill for 5 days and actually lost weight on her holiday.

When you go out you are miles away from and mian town with nothing to do after 9.30 in the Evening ,its all open and there is no respite from the heat in the evenings apart from the disco or your rooms,whey you do leave the Hotel nad travel into Holguin, if you visit any Bar there is no water in the toilets to flush or wash your hands,this was the same at the Airport which was disgusting,you also have to take your own toilet paper if leaving any resort.

I must conclude that Cuba is the most Unhealthy island I have ever visited and when you leave they try there best to rip you of anyway they can at the Airport,and make so difficult to get through customs you just would not go back.

This is one of the best all-inclusives we have been on, and we have been to many countries. Overall the food, drinks and accomadation were very good. We highly recommend the Japanese themed restaurant. The surrounding gardens were kept to a very high standard.

The swimming pool was spacious and spotless. The pool bar (which you actually swim up to in the water) was fantastic. Plenty to do all day! The sea aerobics was great fun! The beach again is great and the water was crystal clear. Loads of watersports to go on free of charge. We highly recommend the 2 day trip to the capital - Havana. This was most interesting. The only downfall was the evening entertainment. It wasn't very entertaining and repeated itself the second week. Although the live bands in the disco were good.

Would highly recommend this hotel to all ages and we would definately go back.

A holiday is what you make of it, and if you've had a cracking good time with new friends you've made then the hotel quality becomes almost immaterial. However there are some good and some not so good points about the Playa Costa Verde that I would like to offer to all. Lets start with the good points.
Excellent location! Playa Pesquero - fishermans beach, is idyllic. Beautiful quiet cove with tropical turquoise waters, and the sea is lovely and warm and mostly as calm as a mill pond. There is also a long stretch of sand under the water rather than getting deep very quickly.

The rooms are lovely. Spotlessly clean, large, with good airconditioning that works silently so that you can have it on overnight without it causing noise. Good large TV with lots of channels, excellent free safety boxes which are locked with your room key card. Fridge. Comfortable reasonably good furniture and furnishings.
The hotel is also one of the beautiful in terms of layout and architecture that I have ever stayed in. The colours used are exceptionally tranquill and the whole hotel is abundant with well kept beautiful gardens and loads of palm trees. The buildings are only ground and first floor and are well laid out so that there is absolutely no square effect anywhere.
The service is mostly good. The cubans are friendly. The bar IS 24 hours and there are plenty of facilities from bike riding trips to beach volleyball - and lots more besides.

The bad points are the food, the entertainment, and a serious issue with broken glass around the grounds. The main restaurant sometimes can be good but sometimes especially of an evening, can be well below par. There's a real lack of the salads there should be in this hot climate, and other peoples reviews about birds in the food are true. On my fourth day at lunchtime I walked down the central isle where the pastries were and I was obviously the first person down there in a couple of minutes, enough time for the tiny chaffinch size birds to congregate and peck at the pastries. And there they were, 5 birds at five puddings and you could see the indentation marks where the beaks had pecked into the pastries. It's a shame because all they have to do is put the food under covered serving trays, and it has to be said all the hot meats etc are well covered in this respect. Likewise the food offered is tedious or not well prepared, and even I as an enthusiastic untrained cook could offer better presented better food. I have known 3* hotels in Morocco which have better cuisine than here. However, the specialist japanese and italian restaurants are fine and are almost as good as some fine dining to be had in Manchester.

The one really serious issue is the amount of broken glass on the floor around the hotel. When I first played volleyball my team mates shouted ";WATCH THE BROKEN GLASS"; as I ran for the ball off court across the scrubland / beach, and I have also had to bring an issue to the attention of the hotel manager about glass that had been lying very dangerously in grass right next to the main pathway and which could have been exceptionally dangerous, especailly for children, and had been there 3 or 4 days - not one member of staff attended to it or did anything about it in that time! But of course it was a very foolish customer who put it there in the first place.

Despite that, this is not a bad hotel, although it has to be said the whole is less than the sum of the parts. There's no atmosphere as in other hotels. You're not greeted with a cocktail on arrival, and there is no music of any sort in the lobby / bar area. Others have raised complaints that in the evening there is only one bar. There are several couples here however who are here for the second and third time, and people who have explored the neighbouring hotels on either side have all said that if they were to return, it would be to this one, the Playa Costa Verde.
If you get a good deal then come, you'll have a good time in what basically is a fine, if unexceptional hotel.
Noel from Manchester

Good Things: Buildings were elegant, not too crowed and not visible from the beach; some effort was put into maintenance. Also well maintained gardens within the hotel. A new system of booking water sports reduces the need to bribe staff; all-inclusive water sports (including diving) is what attracted us to this hotel. The Italian restaurant had good live music. The lobster dishes at the Cuban restaurant were very good. The service included room-service for breakfast.
Negative Things:
- The walls in our room were dirty with what seemed like food and the wall next the beds seemed to be soiled by food. some of the furniture was damaged (scratched mirrors)
- The main restaurant (buffet) was outdoors with no protection of the food from flies (neither fly / mosquito nets nor see-through covers of the food trays); although cats walk through the restaurant, at least on two occasions we saw waiters dropping cutlery on the floor and then putting it back on the table rather than replacing it. On several occasions, the seafood salad had pieces of shell left in it.
- The two main courses (meat) we tried at the Italian restaurant were disappointing (even the escallop was very hard!)
- Although the 1st dive can be booked any time between 9:00-17:00 on the previous day, guests wishing more than 1 dive per week need to queue so that they are allotted any surplus dives (i.e. in case guests at a particular time are not interested in diving) between 17:00 and 17:30; although this an improved system, as water sports finish at 17:00 and one would need to change into dry clothes, a later and longer period would have been appreciated
- Dives and beach water sports were cancelled on several days in connection to the weather (wind). There was no extension one could call to find out whether the diving and the beach water sports were cancelled, which was inconvenient if the booking was for first thing in the morning.
- Although the animation team comprised several members of staff, on several occasions nobody was visible and compared to other resorts we have been to (e.g. 4 star Paraiso Del Sol at the Dominican Republic) were delivering less activities than what we expected; some of the activities were cancelled but we were only informed when we went there. As on several days all beach water sports were cancelled due to the weather (wind), we missed not having additional things organised in the sheltered areas.
- The evening dancers lacked coordination (they were a bit better the second week of our stay)
- The blue parts of the walkway which is parallel to the beach and made from cement, resembling pebble surface, was of poor craftsmanship and ugly at places.
Mixed Comments: The standard of service from the staff varied significantly from very high to very low (this did not appear to be linked to tipping).

Fab ! Loved it and would go back in a second, we all had a great time. The rooms are big and clean, the maids do fancy things with your towels and the staff are very pleaseant in general.

We flew from Gatwick and landed at Holguin, the flight was about 9.5 hours but once youve eaten and watched the 3 movies its soon over.

Upon arrival at the hotel you check in and then you and your baggage are ferried by a golf cart type vehicle to your rooms, its great after a long flight!

The pool is a large freeform, its cleaned every day and drinks glasses are forbidden so its safe for kids to be around, if you take a drink to your sunbed ( of which there are plenty ) its issued in a plastic cup.

There is a large buffet restaurant and several smaller ala carte, you need to book the ala carte but as we have young children we just used the buffet and the snack bars, The quality of the food was pretty good, our only gripe was that they ran out of chips due to a supply problem, and having children chips are important!

The grounds are large and clean and well kept, you'll find groundsmen at work all day. There are coconut and banana trees all around, tropical flowers and bushes and if your really lucky like us you might see a humming bird! There are lizards obviously due to being tropical, and mossies which are out from dusk till dawn so take a good repellant, us adults were bitten loads but the kids ahd a good roll on type and never got bitten once!

A footbridge takes you over a nature reserve to the beach, this is clean and well looked after, the water is nice and clean, we spent many hours there, its great for snorkeling as you'll see lots of fish ( take a bread roll or a banana to feed them )

The hotel offers Scuba lessons in the pool and one dive a week in the sea, its great fun! But beware that its a group of 10 beginners to 1 instructor so you need to be confident in the water before you try it, the hotel also offers snorkels free to borrow, beach towels which can be freshend as often as you like, water skiing, kayaks and pedaloes.

Tipping is big in Cuba, so take extra for that, but to be fair the staff arnt pushy about it. We left our excess toiletries for the maid as they appreciate that too!

The swimming with the Dolphins trip is wonderful, its reasonably priced, or was for us as its local to the hotel, it was a joyful experience which we'll do again.For a small charge they will video it for you and put it onto a vhs tape which they deliver to your reception, obviously they check your region eg in the UK we are PAL. We watched it when we got home and its a good reminder, but its up to you, you are free to film it yourself or not as you choose. Children under 3 are not allowed in the water but can watch from the platform.

We will definatley return to the Hotel, hopefully next year! We met some great people, its a popular choice for Canadians but there is a good show from the British and Europeans. They also do weddings there, we saw 3 in our two week stay and i believe its reasonably priced but thats up to your tour operator.

The Cubans stoped using US dollars from Nov 8th, so you change your money into Cuban Convertible Pesos upon arrival, they dont accept American Express travellers cheques or American issued credit cards!

Our rep on site dealt with both Hayes and Jarvis and First Choice, he was very friendly and helpful when information was required.

One piece of advice i'd give the hotel, they need to put on entertainment for the younger guests between evening meal time and 9pm, the entertainmet doesnt start till 9 and it can be a little boring until it starts,especially if youve eaten at 6.30 when the buffet opens, a disco or games on stage might do the trick for the younger ones to keep them entertained, perhaps from 8 till 9 at least.

So, go, try it and im sure you'll love it, noone on the return journey had a bad word to say. Im sure that eventually it'll be more commercialised so now is the time to go.Tourism is Cubas biggest form of income so they need the business, and genuinely seem to appreciate it!

We have just returned from 10 days in Cuba at Hotel Playa Costa Verde and sadly our experience did not meet with the good reports we had read previously about the resort.

HOTEL
The hotel itself is large and well laid out. The pool is very attractive and the garden areas are well maintained. The reception staff are not the friendliest of people and are painfully slow at answering any queries. Often long queues built up at the reception area whilst they continued to answer incoming calls rather than help people actually atanding at the desk waiting to be served. The same applies for the lobby bar area - the bar staff are far friendlier but at even the busiest period of the night only 4 staff are on at any one time (at the most), add to this the fact that this is the only bar (other than the nightclub) open at this time you can imagine that long waits at the bar are part and parcel. You begin to wonder if this is some kind of money saving device.

ACCOMMODATION
Our room was ample in size and we had two twin beds pushed together. The apartments were cleaned daily and towels changed as often as you left them out, and the maids are very nice and do leave you with really pretty towel origami! We left them a little tip every day or so.

On the down side, the room itself was very basic and could have done with a lick of paint and the replacing of some cracked tiles. The bathroom was clean but in some serious need of updating and when the shower runs it leaks all over the floor which can make the tiles and walls a bit mouldy.
Additionally despite having a mini fridge and being on an all inclusive basis it was never replenished throughout our stay which we found quite unusual having been to different all inclusive resorts in the past where this is common practice.

One final thing to look out for in the room is cockroaches and mites. We had two huge cockroaches in our room and were regularly bitten in bed by what we have since discovered are bed mites - thank goodness I didn't know that until the last day because we wouldn't have slept a wink!

FOOD
The food was the worst part of our holiday, we enjoy eating out regularly at home and are not scared of trying new things however we are very fussy about food hygeine and cleanliness and this is not Cubas strong point. The buffet offered a wide selection of food but it seemed to heavily cater for their German and Canadian guests. We only ate the freshly cooked food - the steaks (when they do them) and the pasta (which is offered every night but can get very monotonous). We did not touch any of the food served in the silver trays (think school dinners) but frequently overheard people complaining that it was cold. - It looked really grim and certainly not appetising. We also could not belive that they found it so hard to cook french fries - they were never available and thought that plain crisps were a suitable alternative served with your meal?

The Japenes restaurant is great fun and the food is all freshly cooked so we would definitely suggest you go there, the italian is fine but do not expect it to be like an italian restaurant here - you couldn't even smell garlic cooking, it was just like a cuban meal with spaghetti!
The cuban restaurant is probably the most basic although the sunsets are lovely if you get there at the right time. Be warned that it is outside and towards the reservoir area so there are hundreds of mosqitoes.

BEACH
The beach is beuatiful - truly picture postcard and this really made our holiday worthwhile.

Overall we were disappointed because we felt that being 4* superior the food should have been better, the rooms should have been smarter and the staff could have been more plentiful. I think that anyone who decides to go to Cuba should bear in mind that it is a very poor country and their idea of superior quality' be it food/ accommodation/ drinks are not the same as what we are used to here or even in european holiday destinations.

Cuba is basic, very basic so if you do decide to go just be aware that this is not the luxury romantic beach resort you may have hoped for.

Fantastic holiday, no complaints at all, would recomend to any-one.Food, accommodation and service first class. Staff couldn't be more helpful or friendly.
Hopefully will be returning, can't wait! What more can one say!