Cuba - Sol Sirenas Coral
This is my first trip to an all-inclusive resort. Stayed
The resort at the time I would say was maybe half full. There was still enough people though to meet friends and have a good time. Having said that we never had any trouble finding seats together near the pool, beach or for food. The night before we left a lot of S-trip students started to show up and you could notice everywhere filling up. The day we left there was another 4 flights full coming to the resort, so I would imagine it was fully packed.
Sirenas or Coral Side:
In case you don't know, this resort is really two resorts in one and are connected together making it a large size property that you can easily walk from the one end to the other with. For what side you want to say on comes down to what type of vacation you want and who you are. I found that many older people stayed on the Sirenas side and the younger people on the Coral Side. The Coral side has the 24/7 snack bar, but only serves booze until 2am. The two lounge bars close at midnight. The food and the building did seem nicer and newer on the Sirens side. Coral side did seem more run down and older. Nothing really to complain about unless you are super picky, in which case you should spend more money and go elsewhere.
Room:
I stayed on the Coral side, Room 1320 and it had a beautiful view of the pool. The TV is an old tube TV, which I expected, and it did have a few English channels, one of them being a movie one. Had no problem with hot water or the toilet. There is a safe there in the room, air conditioning and a balcony. My only complaint about the room is that there was no clock in there. I would recommend getting an even number room, that way you will be looking towards the resort, instead of the street.
Food:
If you have done any research on Cuba resort food, you may have read that it is not very good. For the most, part there right. If your vacation has to have the best food then you may not want to go to a Cuban resort. However, I am not that fussy of an eater and I had no problem finding something to eat, and some of the food did taste good.
Buffet - The buffet had many options to eat from, as you would normally imagine a buffet being. I normally ending up getting pasta, which they will cook up in front of you inside and a few smaller things from the buffet. They also had an option for fish, lobster (at an extra charge) that they will cook to order. Another good option is outside they have someone cooking BBQ, which was tasty. The rest of the food just to the ‘hover’ test to see if it is warm, most of the time it was for me. I ate once on the Sirenas side and it did seem slight better.
Snack Bars – The hamburger on the Coral side was not good, looked like mystery meat. Everything else was good, pizza, club sandwich, hot dogs and fries. There are two snack bars, one located on the Coral side, which is open 24/7, and the other on the Sirenas, which closes at 7pm. The Sirenas side snack bar everything was good and the hot dogs actual came with some toppings.
A la carte - They have four of them Oriental, Cuban, Italian and Mexican. To book your restaurant you have to be up by 9am and wait in line to ask for reservation for one of them. You are only able to book one restaurant per day; I ended up making it two of the days and tried the Mexican and the Italian one. I heard good things about the Oriental and didn’t hear anything about the Cuban.
Mexican – The nachos were good. The soup was something like chicken noodle, however not quite the same. You have the option for fish or a fajita (however it was just one hard taco). Everyone got the taco, two of my friends liked there’s, I did not enjoy it. The dessert was good however
Italian - When I went here I was expecting to get some pasta, where they do have pasta in the buffet area, however there was none on the menu. Regardless though the entire meal would be the best meal of the week. It started with soup, pizza and salad. Which were all super tasty. The main course was either chicken/beef with rice.
Service:
I did tip a few dollars here and there and the service was very good. They were all very friendly and helpful. The maid that cleaned my room always did a good job, even folded some of my clothes that I had out and left me water every day.
All the bartenders poured freely on the booze. The last night the bartender at the lounge bar came with a tray full of drinks for us after she closed down at midnight. The servers in the buffet was very friendly and always made sure we had something to drink, one of them even kept getting my friend coffee, which they dont serve at the buffet.
Beach:
Varadero Beach is famous for a reason, it was absolutely amazing. The area was always clean with lifeguards on duty. The few days the flags were yellow or red meaning we could not get kayaks to go out onto the water. We did go out and swim, water was very nice and warm. There is a bar by each side of the resort on the beach. There was numerous beach chairs that you could use and a volleyball net.
Pools:
They are numerous pools located on the resort. The best part of two of them is the swim-up bar where you can chill in the water and get drinks. These are the two main ones located on each side of the resort; both of them also had a section for small kids with the water very low. There is one pool on the Coral side that is little more secluded and deeper.
Entertainment :
It seems like many of the shows are on the Sirenas side. I did watch one, which was entertain. There was one on the Coral side that I watched which was good too. I did see people playing tennis and beach volleyball. There was a mini-football field. I never tried to get any equipment so not sure if they brought their own. There was ping-pong, billiards and connect four. They list carbine shooting and gun shooting, which they were not doing anymore. Very understandable, but still little disappointing.
