Mercure Playa De Oro, Varadero, Cuba

#Mercure Playa De Oro, Varadero, Cuba

This place is also called #Coralia Club Playa de Oro, Varadero, Cuba.

We just came back from a two-week holiday at Mercure Playa de Oro in Varadero. We stayed there from March 4 to 18, 2014. Room 2119. This was our fifth time in Cuba. Every time we come back from Cuba we say: Never again! But Cuba is still the most economical place to go to, so we keep on going back.

Overall our stay was good. The beach, of course, is one of the best. They have lots of palapas and lounge chairs, but they did run out of lounge chairs a few times and we saw guests sitting in the sand. To get a good spot it is wise to get up early. The beach attendants were helpful and they work very hard to accommodate everyone. A tip goes a long way and they deserve it. The resort is planning to add a row of palapas, which will make it better. The lounges are hard and it helps to have a cushion. A blow-up mattress is also wonderful to have to make it more comfortable.

Here is a list of the positive things we found:

The beach restaurant is great to have near the beach. They serve barbequed food, mainly chicken and ribs. We did have shrimp four times in the two weeks we were there and they keep filling the pans. Dinner is taken in the main dining room and the selection of food items is good. Mainly pork and beef. We did get lettuce quite a few times in both restaurants, but only oil and vinegar for dressing. The pasta station is very good. Soup was good.

When you arrive there are eight large bottles of water in the room. Once they are used up, they can be refilled at the bars.

There are three elevators in the building we were in and they work.

Woollen blankets are supplied in the rooms to use at night for sleeping.

Mattresses were not bad. We always slept well.

The entertainment was fine, especially the water ballet.

They do come and fix problems quickly. (Our safe didn’t work at first. It was fixed within the hour).

Negative points:

The music in the lobby is too loud. You can’t spend an evening sitting in the lobby or near the bar relaxing, unless one enjoys ear-busting noise.

No ironing board in room.

Air conditioning in room cannot be controlled. Our room was always freezing cold. Not comfortable. We shut off the breaker and then the humidity was so high everything was covered with a film of dew. When we opened the patio door to bring in warmth, mosquitoes came into the room. One night we killed a dozen mosquitoes, and we still woke up with mosquito bites.

My wife and I both got a bad cold from the continued cold air blowing across the room. We did hear other guests coughing also.

No king or queen size bed. The two beds we had were too narrow for two people to sleep on. The mattresses were covered with a plastic sleeve, which made them noisy and cold to sleep on. We put towels under the sheet.

The shower leaked water all over the bathroom floor.

One day the maid forgot to put a pillow case over one of the pillows. Another time we didn’t get any towels. (Even we did leave a tip every day!)

No bathroom by the beach restaurant.

Main restaurant has bad acoustics and it is noisy. No air conditioning. It is hot and stifling inside.

Long line-ups at the pasta station and if a person wants to have fish or meat fried on the grill. Also long line-ups by the pool bar to get a drink and a hamburger, same goes for the beach restaurant. The last Sunday evening we had to wait ½ hour to get a table in the buffet restaurant, and that was at 8 o’clock. Supper starts at 6:45.
They also ran out of plates and cutlery most of the time.

It is a family oriented resort and there were many children. Some were well behaved and a few weren’t. We had a small group of kids running and chasing each other in the lobby in the evening, which we found annoying. One boy was swinging a tennis racket around, nearly hitting someone when the racket flew out of his hand. Some people may not be bothered by this, some will be. The resort cannot be blamed for that. It is the parents of these children who don’t seem to care about other guests.

We went to the International à la carte restaurant twice. We ate the shrimp dish, which was very good. The first evening a woman played beautiful music on the piano, but after an hour she quit and a guy sang on the stage. It was a bit loud and not as relaxing as listening to classical songs played on the piano.

We never went to the other two à la carte restaurants. One served only pizza and the other one was the beach restaurant, which was not closed in and they served meat grilled on a stick. We talked to other guests and they said it wasn’t good.

I got sick from the food I ate the last evening with a bad case of diarrhea. I believe it was one of the fish dishes. I thought those white pieces were scallops, because they looked kind of shiny, but it seems they were just pieces of slimy fish. That was the only time I got sick. A sleepless night and four Imodium pills fixed it. The next day, our day of departure, I ate only dry bread and drank water. What a bummer!

The weather was great the whole time we were there, but on our return flight it rained. We are very disappointed with the way our luggage was treated at the Varadero airport. They did not use tarps to cover the luggage, and when we got home, our clothing in both suitcases was soaking wet, ruining some of our things. Also, one of our suitcases was damaged. The handle can’t be pulled out anymore because of the bent rail it runs in. Now we have to buy a new piece of luggage. We contacted Sunwing and complained. Hopefully, they will reimburse some of the money it will cost for a new suitcase.

It was not a bad holiday for us, because the food was okay, the weather was warm with lots of sunshine, the water was warm. The room was not luxurious, but had it not been for the cold, it would have been fine, because we don’t spend much time in the room anyway. We don’t even know if the TV worked. We never turned it on. Besides, we didn’t find a remote anywhere, but that didn’t bother us. The beach was great, the people working at the resort were friendly and working hard to make us feel comfortable. Would we go back to this resort? Probably not, unless we’d get a super price. Maybe next time we'll try Cayo Coco again. A bit more expensive but possibly a bit nicer.

We booked and flew with Sunwing. We flew over Thunderbay, but we won’t do that again. Coming home, we sat for over one hour in the plane for it to be de-iced. The flight is too long that way. We didn’t care much for the sandwich we got on the airplane, either. I had to wait probably twenty minutes for my drink after I got my sandwich, because the pilot was demanding his supper. By then I was parched