Best Hotel in Varadero
by Mark in CubaAs I was digging through vacation offers on websites of countless travel agencies, it became apparent that Varadero is Cuba’s hottest tourist spot. All Canadian travel providers who specialize in sun vacations have Varadero as one of their top offers. Flights to Varadero from anywhere in Canada are frequent and inexpensive. It definitely seemed like the right spot for a price conscious person like me.
It would seem like an easy pick, but it’s not just about “going to Varadero”. If you compare various all inclusive offers, you will see that they are all in Varadero, but each of them is in a different hotel. And hotel can make or break your vacation. So I started my search for the best hotel in Varadero to help me understand better what I’d be getting for my money.
As I was doing my research for the best hotel in Varadero, I landed on a www.TripAdvisor.com website which offers reviews of hotels and more written by travellers. I found Trip Advisor to be a pretty valuable resource of information, even though some reviews need to be taken lightly. Large scoop of reviews however suggests that the site is unbiased and those reviews are rather trustworthy. You should never believe everything it says entirely, but it is still a great tool to determine what you would be getting if you chose this hotel over that one.
So from now on, my search for the best deal to Cuba was always accompanied by the check of the hotel against reviews on Trip Advisor. After a few days I had a pretty good idea on which hotels are decent and which are not. Sadly, vacations with stay in a hotel that seemed like a solid choice according to Trip Advisor were priced a bit too high up. That was not making decisions any easier. There were either fairly inexpensive vacations that were made sound fabulous by travel agencies, but reviews of hotels by travellers on Trip Advisor were discouraging (such as Club Karey Hotel, Islazul Hotel Dos Mares or Gran Caribe Hotel Varadero Internacional), or there were overpriced trips to solid hotels that had no bad reviews, just a bunch of happy campers who would not hesitate to recommend it (such as Iberostar Varadero Hotel, Blau Varadero Hotel, Paradisus Princesa del Mar Resort & Spa or Sandals Royal Hicacos Hotel).
Time was passing by and I was still undecided. I started looking for vacations in Havana, but there was no such thing as “all inclusive”. The idea of an all inclusive vacation sounded a bit better to me, based on my previous experience from Mexico. I took an all inclusive vacation in Cabo San Lucas and while I barely ate throughout my seven days of stay, I drank a lot of alcohol. So if I was to pay for my own food, I would have saved, cause I only had a bite here and there. But considering how much booze I drank – if I was to pay for all that, I would bankrupt myself. So extra payment for an all inclusive treatment turned out to be a wise investment and I kept the same in mind when I was choosing a vacation in Cuba. Havana didn’t have any such thing – all hotels are on European Plan or Breakfast Only Plan. Plus each trip there was significantly more expensive than Varadero to begin with.
I need to mention that Havana quickly became a must-visit spot. I have heard from many people who paid for an all inclusive vacation in a Varadero hotel, took a day trip to Havana and ended up staying there, paying for the hotel from their own pockets even though they had rooms in Varadero, because Havana was so awesome. Havana was simply unavoidable, it’s the real Cuba. As real as Cuba gets so it was a must. And being told so many times how much everybody who only took a day trip there loved it – I knew I could not possibly avoid it. Staying directly in Havana would seem like the best option, but non existence of all inclusive hotels was discouraging and even prices for European Plans (no food whatsoever) were sky high to begin with. Much more than an all inclusive in Varadero.
It was mid summer 2008 and I still didn’t know where in Cuba I was going to. I was really hoping to make the best of it – that’s why all the fuss instead of just picking up whatever was available and cheap. And then I found out about Breezes Jibacoa Hotel which is right between Varadero and Havana and it was all inclusive. Did I find the best of both worlds? Read on!
Agreed, it’s the best one in Varadero for sure.
http://www.vancouvertravelwatch.com/varadero/blau-varadero