Meliá Varadero

Travelled in March 2020, no one told me a small hurricane ripped out the beach exposing the coral...not one single person in the water for a whole week :( I think a travel agent should have known this and alerted! Who goes on a beach vacation, without a beach?! We ended up paying more and taking the bus into town, and enjoying the beaches there. $5cuc per person, for the day. Food was pretty good. Not great. Good variety. Loved the sparkling wine at all occasions. Nice touch! Room was just meh. Just tons of wear and tear on it, didn't bother me too much, but just felt "dirty". Pool was ok, no swim up bar so you have to get out walk all the way around to get a drink. Entertainment, sad. Overall, it was ok since we only paid around $590 per person, last minute, one week out of Toronto. I've seen the prices triple. I would never pay more than $700 for this resort. The vibe overall was weird. The lobby area was lit up in blue led lighting with white everywhere, the buffet old colonial style with cream marble, just didn't have a good feel to it, if that makes sense. Oh and dirty cups, try drinking wine when it smells like wet dirty cloth and rum. No bueno.

When we first arrived and saw our room it wasn’t up to our standards so we quickly upgraded to The Level and it was worth it! The Level has nicer more modern rooms with more comfortable beds. The level also has their own front desk which was always helpful from converting your cash, giving directions to booking restaurants. The Levels private dining room and free in room breakfast were very good and they would go above and beyond! Lunch at the Tex mex restaurant is exclusively for The Level and offers a great lobster lunch which is included! We found the food was very good in the buffet, international, Tex mex and The Level restaurants. The only draw back of being on the top floor is the elevators don’t work great so unless you are willing to take the stairs then you could be waiting a long time. We enjoyed spending our evenings at the main lobby bar listening to the entertainment and enjoying the air as it has a beautiful outdoor seating area. Service is not always good at this bar and we found the only exceptional server that didn’t keep us waiting 30+mins for a drink was Miguel. The location of this hotel is great! It is next door to the mall and it’s a short bus ride to Varadero. The bus is cheap and a round trip pass so we used it quite often but as a word of warning ONLY pay the bus driver, people will sit at the bus stop and say they work for the bus and to pay them instead but they will give you a fake ticket! We highly recommend doing a trip to Havana. We did the night tour and Tropicana show which was amazing! If you want amazing, fresh mojitos definitely visit the ial pirata bar which both tourists and locals enjoy! But don’t forget to bring toilet paper and small change as there are bathroom attendants everywhere and they expect a tip. Overall it is a great hotel with good food, a good location and good staff. We have recommended it to family and friends and we will definitely be back!

What to write about this place? Huge pool and the beach is within 3 minutes. Great food (breakfast/dinner). Big Mall for shopping next to the property. Amazing and refreshing drinks. Variety on breakfast. Fast check in. Loved it..

This was our 2nd visit to Melia Varadero, we enjoyed our first trip so thought we’d bring my mother-in-law along this time to show her how great it was. We were beyond disappointed- from the moment we got there it felt like they had our money so there was absolutely no reason to try and provide any service. They’ve gotten rid of pool-side servers that were there previously so you need to go to the bar to get your drinks and the 2-3 bartenders MIGHT get to you in about ten minutes or so....the ONE bar inside was much worse- it took at least 1/2 hour to get a drink and (even after generously tipping) they would not return for at least another half hour. We’re well aware that the entertainment is not the greatest in Cuba but this was absolutely horrible- amateur lounge singers that came around asking for money after the performance and as a horrible bonus our family got to witness the Melia Varadero music supervisor treating them so poorly that they were in tears during their breaks. This place is definitely not worth the money and I would never recommend this place to anyone.

My wife and I spent a week at the Melia in early February. We upgraded to the "Level" and felt that it was definitely worth it. Rather than write a long description, here are my specific thoughts. The staff were friendly and very helpful. The Buffet was well stocked and had enough variety to satisfy. The ala carte restaurants were quite good by Cuban standards (recommend the Japanese option) Beach was very nice. With Level upgrade, there is a reserved area with an attendant to assist. (Humberto is a very friendly, hard working and earns his tips) Pool area was large and we never had issues finding chairs. The room was clean, though we would have preferred the view from the pool side of the building. Overall, we would recommend the Melia and hopefully we can return sooner rather than later.