Sol Hicacos Varadero

The food was absolutely excellent. I was shocked by this...being Cuba and their limitations in procuring food. The head chef would regularily step out of the cooking area to watch the guests eating and gauge their happiness with the food. I was quite impressed with this man. The other staff I interacted with with were rude and offensive, from the front desk to the buffet servers. My toilet wouldn't flush. I approached the front desk and was greeted with a snicker. It was not repaired. Two week vacation without a working toilet. Room key didn't work, I had to leave my door unlocked at all times because they were unable to fix it. Great chef, buffet egg lady was awesome, otherwise a bad experience. Never again.

The best part of this all-inclusive resort is the beach, with beautiful turquoise water and soft sand, perfect for my toddler to play under the sun! The water was warm and beach was clean. Another highlight of this resort is the nightly entertainment with a different performance every night during our 6 nights stay. The entertainment staff is very fun and enthusiastic to encourage guests to participate in different activities by the pool in the day. The resort itself is dated and it shows in our ground floor room that has one old queen bed and an old single bed (for my toddler). The bathroom is old and I wouldn't even call it a 3 stars in Canadian standard (this resort is equivalent to Mexico's 3 stars resort I would say). They didn't change our bath towels (and other towels) everyday so ended up we use the same bath towels the entire 6 night stay (which is ok as we support eco friendly way of traveling but it was a problem for my mom as she prefers to have a fresh clean bath towel every day). There were a few small cockroaches in our room. The housekeeping staff is very friendly and tried to help us with getting more bottles of water for us as we have a toddler who drinks quite a lot of water (we also tipped very well for her help). The pool is not too clean and water was a bit cold in the late afternoon when the sun set. Luckily Cuba was not that hot in January so it was nice to travel at that time. We booked our two day tours with the Air Canada tour desk (as we bought the Air Canada Vacation package for this trip). The check in in the evening took a while but luckily they have golf cart to drive us and the luggages to our room that is quite far away from the reception/ lobby area. The food in this resort (especially the buffet) is only average (really can't compared with resorts in Cancun), and I would strongly suggest to dine at the Italian restaurant for a-la-carte (but you can't get a reservation for every night of your entire trip). The reservation time was in the middle of the afternoon with a long line up so be sure to set your alarm and get there early to wait for the reservation desk to open. Another annoying thing is the towel booth that only opens at a certain time in the day and often they ran out of clean towels so you really have to be strategic to keep your beach towel and exchange for a fresh one as soon as the booth is open/ restocked. Such a bummer when you go without a fresh beach towel for 2 days in a row. Again I would emphasize that this resort is a dated 3-star all-inclusive resort so don't expect too much from it.