Occidental Grand Playa Turquesa Reviews

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!

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!

Holiday was fantastic. We went away with a group of different ages and all felt that the holiday was value for money and accomadated the age range of 18 - 65. We had such a fantastic holiday we are going away with a large group again this January. Recommended by Jane & Andy and family, Birmingham, England.

i just recently returned and i had a brilliant holiday,

i only see 2 spiders lots of frogs and cats. the hotel does lack in bars and the bar staff in the main bar was very slow,the disco was much too loud and very cold,the evening shows were tops enjoyed everyone i see. the beach was lovely plenty of shade if you wanted it took a ride on the catermarran what a thrill,ivan the barman on the beach was so friendly always willing to take time out to answer any questions you may have,and the pizzas on the beach was just delish. there was a little puppy on the beach he was so cute then one day he was gone and we couldnt find out what happened to him.

the 24 hour resteraunt was very nice but very limited in choice, in the evening it is a steak house we ended up feeding our lamb (which was actually beef) to the cats coz it was un chewable, i enjoyed my meal in the asian resteraunt, we did book the cuban as well but that got cancelled for technical reasons. i cant complain about the buffet there was always something you could find to eat. i did the dolphin experience and what an experience it was riding on the noses of dolphins that made my holiday.

to anyone going to this hotel watch out for the pesky mossies they try to eat you alive.

Arrived at this hotel on 7th Sep 2006 for 2 weeks.

What a nightmare. Described in First Choice brochure as set is tropical gardens. It is not, this hotel is in the middle of a tropical forest. There are huge black hairy spiders ranging from 5 inches in length to the largest we saw of around 9 inches long and 5 wide crawling all round the place. They were outside our rooms, in the bars, reataurants, the show areas, absolutely everywhere. We were told by the staff that they bite but were not poisonus. Since coming home and showing an expert I have been told these are bird eating spiders and tarantulas!! Please please if you are frightened by spiders do not go. It was horrendous, a complete nightmare. I spent the whole 2 weeks on edge, putting my feet up to keep them off the floor and unable to sleep at night. We saw them every single night of our stay.
There are also numerous frogs, toads, crabs and some snakes as well.

All restaurants, bars etc are open air with no air con or fans. I had 60 very large mozzi bites (larger than a 50p piece)on the first night which turned septic and had to go to the Doctors for injections, pills and creams. Nearly everyone in this hotel ended up with bad stomach and sickness bugs lasting 4-5 days and a lot of people had this more than once during their stay and had to see a doctor.

Having already been to the Dominican Republic last year we quite expected the food to be poor which it was, but here it was covered in flies and mozzi's and mostly cold and not cooked properly.

The whole holiday was a nightmare, very stressful and a complete waste of money.we couldn't wait to get back home.

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.