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Barcelo Solymar 07/25/02
Reviewers Rating:  Fair
>Wow!! > >I stayed at barcelo solymar for my honeymoon and what a mistake. A full review below but in a nutshell: Service 1 to 3.5* depending on location Beach 4 * Food 1.5* (much worse than the average cuban resort)We walked out of the Italian a la carte!! Rooms - 3* Facilities 2* nothing is advertised you have to ask(fight) for everything. >We booked our trip through World of Vacations in Toronto Canada. We >indicated during booking this was our honeymoon. We chose this resort on >the basis of information both from the travel agency and from the Barcelo >website. > >First the nice items about the resort. The beach is beautiful and SOME staff were very helpful and courteous. The main building is quite nice and >well decorated. > We arrived on Sunday June 2nd and presented our marriage certificate to the front desk. We then found ourselves on the bottom floor of a 2 level bungalow with 2 beds (room 2707), and none of the courtesy items indicated by the travel agency. We were supposed to be upgraded to a suite (based on availability) so we went to see the public relations person. We explained our situation and they indicated no suites or rooms with king size beds were available, but to check back the next day and they recorded our request for transfer. > That night (Sunday) the people in the next room had a massive fight which ended up breaking the glass in the door of their room. The next morning we went with our travel representative, (Julie) and again requested a transfer out as my wife was very scared and unable to sleep Sunday night. They indicated the best was to try for a transfer on Tuesday. > >On Tuesday evening we finally did got transferred to the main building only into a standard room with 2 beds. Dejected and understanding that the public relations people do not care about service, we gave up and stayed in this room. We were wondering about the other courtesy items (Fruit basket, bottle of rum, lobster dinner) and in talking with other people from the same flight found out they had received a bottle of rum, without it being their honeymoon. > >We were on an offsite tour on Wednesday and Thursday was our travel representativesí day off. On Friday we again approached the public relations desk with our travel representative indicating our honeymooner status, and asked about the courtesy items. They indicated that the lobster dinner was unavailable (spawning season) although we ate lobster on Wednesday on the offsite tour. I could let this go though. They said the rum and fruit basket would be delivered to the room. A bottle of rum and a fruit PLATE was received. We later witnessed a fruit basket being delivered to another room. > >The service at this facility varied greatly. The lobby bar had exceptional service while extremely poor service was found at the pool snack bar. Aside from rude (yes, I mean RUDE) service, two waiters would serve one table (of affluent individuals) with everything while five other tables would have no service at all. The only way to be served was to approach the bar and ask for food and drinks. On one occasion when we were eating they actually had us move our chairs although there were only three occupied tables and other tables needed cleaned. >We have been to Varadero Cuba before and travel to the Caribbean about once every nine months. We have been to Cuba, Bahamas, and the Dominican staying at various chain resorts (RIU, Super-clubs etc.) We particularly like Cuba. This visit has placed a serious cloud over the management and facilities of all Barcelo resorts. The food in the restaurants is quite frankly crap. There are a few offerings that are acceptable but unless you enjoy everything soaked in oil, you will not enjoy this. The pasta is very starchy as they do not strain it well (main building only) Note: I finally recieved a reply from Barcelo who offered 20% off there existing rate. (this is more expensive than the rate charged by travel agents. I will never visit a barcelo resort ever again.
tim
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