Blau Varadero

We have just returned after a lovely two week holiday and here are our opinions about the hotel. This hotel came highly recommend from the facebook page and the comments on trip advisor. Staff, a small few could do with a bit more training on their customer service as once or twice we asked where something was and they just pointed but on a whole we found the staff to be lovely and are an asset to the hotel. Rooms, good size and clean, big comfy bed, cute towel art every day, great shower and bath with hot water. The option to change towels every day and even bedding if you wished. Mini bar stocked with 2 cans of pop, 2 beers and a bottle of water daily. Our cleaner noticed we were using one in the bathroom for our teeth so then left another one in the bathroom also. Toilets in the public areas were not very clean and at times there was no toilet roll. Pool, a few broken tiles and could be cleaner but we mainly went to the beach. The beach, stunning BUT in the mornings there were some plastic cups and straws still from the day before and a man sells fresh pineapples with Pina Colada in daily and the following morning you could see these still under beds on the floor. I know everyone is responsible for their own rubbish but as we all know there are some pigs out there so the stuff unfortunately do have to tidy up after them. We made friends with a couple who were on the 5 visit to the Blau who told us that the beach would normally be spotless and be fully cleaned every morning and it was the first time they had ever seen any seaweed as the tractor would go up and down but this only happed twice in the two weeks we were there. This we feel is the saddest part as it was the beach that had the wow factor to our holiday. Food, We would normally never book a hotel that did not have a few Al Cart restaurants to choose from each evening throughout our holiday as we like to dress for dinner and feel we have gone out for a meal but the comment made us believe we would be happy at the Blau without this option, unfortunately we were not. Breakfast and lunch great, normal like every other all inclusive you get. Evening meal, the Palma international, food was excellent but small in portion, they have gone too far with the Al Cart on this and trying to be something it is not. You get to eat here once per week as with the Italian. The Italian is the outside restaurant you eat your lunch at and on a Saturday becomes a BBQ restaurant so we gave this a try the first Saturday we were there. Food was ok but you literally sit outside and have people still in their bikinis walking through the tables and people still in the pool so this was a bit off putting and the Mozzies were around. We also tried this as the Italian in the second week, this time we were sat inside but the blinds were up so again, people still wandering round in their bikinis and in the pool is not something you wish to see while you have a meal. The starters is a help yourself affair and the flies were all over the food. The mains arrived and they were bland and boring and by this time we were being attacked by mozzies so we chose to leave. It is a shame as this could be so much better. Put the blinds down, serve the starts from the kitchen and they can produce tasty food as they did a few pasta in the buffet that were lovely. The evening buffet restaurant or the canteen as we came to call it, confused! You won’t starve but you certainly don’t feel you have gone out for meal and on some nights we struggled to find anything we fancied as the choice was so mixed. We asked about an upgrade so we could eat at the Al Cart each night but that cost was approximately £52 per couple and we did not feel this was acceptable after what you have already paid for the holiday and the only restaurant that would interest us would be the international. Again the hotel could be so much better on the food front as even with the restrictions that Cuba have at the moment there was the food available to create some great meals and there is a bar that was once the Kids club that could be turned into another restaurant offering another kind of cuisine, Chinese/Asian would be good and then they could give the choice of booking Al Cart each night. The hotel, not for us, we like a quiet relaxing holiday and it was too noisy for us, lots of entertainment gong on all the time everywhere you went, we managed to find the quiet we wanted by sitting as far down the beach as possible and this was perfect apart from it then being a bit of a trek to get a drink but there are worse problems in the world. In general it is like any other international hotel. Twice we moved from the beach due to it being rather windy so we sat in the pool area, we could have been anywhere, it had a Spanish, Tenerife or Benidorm vibe to it with the entertainment carrying on around you. Even when they were having a rest you had the music blasting away and at one point a couple were in the pool grinding against each other! There has reportedly been a change of management and this is concerning after speaking to people about how this hotel has slipped from its previous standards as they seem to have full occupancy and therefore the only conclusion you can come to is that the new management are there to reduce the hotels spend and this does explain the slip. Varadero and its beach is beautiful and stunning, you can also to Havana easily from here with the Cubans being beautiful people so please do go but maybe try to stretch you budget and go 5 star if you can.

Myself and my husband spent 7 nights at this hotel in early September 2019, all inclusive. Its a very large hotel, a little run down but very comfortable and clean. The bars are really great and have a good range of spirits/cocktails. The staff are very friendly. The buffet has a huge choice of food, enough to try something different every day. The al la carte is very nice and would meet the standards of any foodie. You pay extra for a bottle of wine but its worth it. The pool area is fabulous, plenty of beds at the pool and in the surrounding garden area. No umbrellas so there is a bit of a grab on the beds in the shaded areas. The beach is outstanding, really magnificent with warm water. Again plenty of beds. The beach bar has cocktails and beer which they bring to your bed throughout the day! There is also a beach restaurant. I would definitely recommend this hotel.