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Barcelo Solymar 09/14/02
Reviewers Rating:  Excellent
Finally... the long awaited review. I went to the Barcelo Solymar from August 19 - August 26. I am happy to say that I had a good experience despite all the scary reviews I read before my departure. Air Transat REALLY impressed me - they were early departing (although we seemed to lose a lot of that gained time in the air) and they were an hour early arriving back in Calgary. Enough said about the airline. Customs looked a little intimidating at first... it seemed like we stood in line forever! Unfortunately, this held up the buses as we had to wait for everybody else. Luckily, they had refreshments available (for a price of course) as soon as we got on the bus! Check in went smoothly... I was a little put out when I inquired about an extra room key and was told to come back when everybody else was finished checking in. On the flip side, the people behind me were probably very grateful for it. I had emailed the hotel ahead of time and used all my travel agent savvy to request an ocean view room. I was not disappointed - we were on the 4th floor with a direct view of the beach and ocean. (Of course, we brought some jewelery and perfume for the reservations agent to thank her for her consideration!). There was also a bottle of wine, a fruit plate and a personal letter from the reservations agent. She called up to the room on our second evening to make sure everything was satisfactory. It most certainly was! The room was very modern with it's bright colors and black furniture. The bathroom had an awesome shower and tub. The tiles were all very clean and were in good condition. The beds were super comfy! Huge body pillows on each bed with a sheet and bedspread. In the closet we found super comfy blankets and an extra pillow each. We needed the blankets because the of the AC (I like cold with lots of blankets!). After the second night, the maid started putting the blankets on the bed under the bedspread when she made them up. Never a problem getting clean towels. Fridge was always restocked - usually later in the day as they seemed to do that last. The maid caught us one day and asked if we would like extra water and cola as she had noticed we didn't really drink anything else. Soon after that, we were finding extras in our fridge. OF COURSE... we left little gifts each day for our maid. I peeked at a bungalow - don't stay in the bungalows unless you are looking for the extra space. They are a little run down and the hotel rooms are so much nicer! The pool was gorgeous but very shallow. It is waist deep through out the majority of it, however, one section next to the snack bar does go up to chest level - watch your children! The younger ones don't realize and sometimes get in over their head (bad pun). I witnessed one save by a lovely family from Montreal. The father was on the other side of the pool oblivious to everything. Yes... some of the pool tiles are coming loose... I don't think this problem would be quite as bad if the children weren't constantly diving under to pick them off. I have addressed this issue direct with Barcelo. Another thing this hotel desperately needs is a map for people checking in. It is bigger than it first appears and sometimes you feel like you are on a scavenger hunt. This leads to towels.... where can we get towel? READ THIS BEFORE GOING TO GET TOWELS! First, you have to stop by the lobby and pay a $10 USD CASH deposit (would not take credit card). After paying the deposit, you recieve a slip of paper stating you paid. Then you have to hunt for the towel exchange. It is not by the pool or the little pool, it is not in the grass huts on the beach.... it is in the pink stucco building on the beach. Go to the beach and turn left and walk all the way down. When you see the pink building that doesn't look like it belongs to the Solymar - that is it! There is a sign outside. Now one more thing... do not go between 12 noon and 1:30 in the afternoon. As you can probably detect from this narrative, our towel experience was a little frustrating. Some good came out of it though... we did meet the boys on the beach that handle the water sports and we did discover the small acitivities pool that we had no idea existed! The beach was incredible. We never had any problems finding a lounge chair. Palapas were a little hard to come by which worked out fine for us as we preferred to put our chairs right in the water. The water was delightfully warm and clear - there were little white fish that kept tickling the backs of my legs. There were no jellyfish the first couple of days there. They seemed to appear after a long hard rain one evening. I did not get stung and was not bothered by them - the locals told me they were harmless. I hope this was true. They were as big as a silver dollar and clear. You would feel them before you saw them. Before I talk about the restaurants, I would like to mention that this hotel had over 1000 people upon our arrival. On the last 2 days, capacity was only 400. We did notice changes - both good and bad - as a result of this. NEED A MAP TO FIND HALF OF THESE PLACES! Or maybe I am just dumb. The main buffet is located in the lobby of the hotel. It is the most obvious. The Italian Restaurant is right beside that restaurant. The Italian restaurant turns into a cafeteria at night (midnite - sometimes not until 1:30 am for reasons not explained to me). The seafood restaurant is the one by the pool. This is the snack bar during the day. The Cuban Creole Restaurant is the grass roofed building (love my technical terms) on the beach - this is also a breakfast (I think - we never got up in time!) and lunch buffet. This is an open air restaurant with views of the beach and was my overall favourite! The international restaurant is on the beach beside the elusive towel exchange. Indoor - get a seat by the windows. In addition to this, there is a snack bar by the small activities pool. The Cuban Creole restaurant was my favourite! It was a very simple meal - bbq chicken (with bbq sauce) rice and black beans (love those beans), fried bananas and some kind of beef dish and fried pork. Very good. Again all open air - service was great! This same restaurant was a buffet for lunch as well. They did not seem to have a problem with us coming up in our bathing suits. We always had Tshirts on over our suits - didn't try to come up without one. Didn't bother with shorts half the time. This did not seem to be a problem. They had made to order pasta, burgers and hot dogs in here at lunch. Lots of salads and freshly grilled meats as well. Service always seemed best here. The International restaurant was good. I had a pork chop with some kind of sauce - it was awesome! The caeser salad had no lettuce in it whatsoever. It consisted of peas and mayo and a few other things... The music got annoying in this restaurant - it was a little too loud to be background music. Watched a gorgeous sunset from here - had to keep excusing my self to take photos (rude tourist I am). The Seafood restaurant was interesting.... ordered a seafood salad. It came with an octopus in the middle of the plate and I wasn't sure what to do with that... give me a break! I am from Saskatchewan! The meal was ok but not memorable. During the day, this was a snack bar/grill. You could get bbq chicken (without bbq sauce for some reason) salads (a variety of cut up veggies with oil and vinegar - no lettuce) french fries and burgers. The adults seemed to prefer the burgers at this snack bar over the other one. Somebody tried to explain this to me but the language barrier or the rum got in the way and I never really found out why.... The snack bar by the small pool seemed to cater more to the children. Lots of burgers, pizza, hotdogs and french fries. Oh.. and ummm salads (veggies again no lettuce). They sometimes had ice cream here as well. Yummy. No problems with bathing suits at either snack bar. We did not eat at the Italian restaurant - don't know why... just didn't bother. Now for the main buffet restaurant. No real complaints here... was a little confused the last 2 days. The info sheet you recieve upon check in states that this restaurant is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. On the last 2 days, it was closed at lunch. The signs on the window indicate that this is not a lunch buffet - however I guess they open it when the hotel is full. Breakfast in the main buffet consisted of the same thing every day. People complained that it was the same every day. I don't understand this... the only reason it was the same every day was because there was every imaginable breakfast item out there already. What else could they possibly put out? There were made to order eggs and omelettes (only ham and cheese - go get some veggies if you want veggies in there before you go to egg station), pancakes, sausage, bacon, ham, stuff I have no idea what it was - casserole like, cereal, yogurt and muslix that the Europeans love to eat together, lots of breads, cheeses, cold cuts, fruits, toast bar and fruit smoothies. Lunch - only ate lunch here once. Lots of salads again. Don't really recall eating anything else. Supper - always found beef, chicken, and fish. Found pork on a couple of nights. Potatoes, french fries, some kind of veggie, and a couple of casserole like dishes. They grilled steaks and fish to order one night, had a huge beef roast (carved in front of you) another night, and lobster tails on Wednesday night ( I think this is regular according to the 2 weekers). Again lots of salads and fruit and bread and cheese and cold cuts. Ice Cream every night - a little on the soft side depending what time you ate at. Pastries were excellent to blah. Choose carefully. If you ever see the mini eclairs with powdered sugar grab lots! Once you realize how good they are they will be all gone! Bread was not the freshest all the time - I think there was always fresh bread - it was just a matter of figuring out what type was just baked. Yes all the meats were quite oily compared to what we are accustomed to up here but it didn't inhibit us a whole lot. I really missed sour cream and was a little tired of mayo - seemed to be in all their dressings. I honestly had no problems with the food at the hotel. This is the first trip I have been on where I didn't have to resort to any stomach medications. Bars and stuff. This hotel needs to invest in blenders. If you love Pina coladas then you have to visit Liset in the Piano bar. They never really played the piano in here. It was a little dark and there was a leak in the ceiling (had some plumbing problems on that end of the building - another point addressed in my comments to the Barcelo) but we had the most fun here. This is the only bar that knows how to make a pina colada and the only one that admitted to having both an ice crusher and a blender. If you are going to the Barcelo, say hi to Liset. Liset's mom is a larger woman and has a lot of problems finding larger fitting clothes. Please take some to her if you have any to spare! The lobby bar seemed to be the most popular. It was always busy. We frequented this one often too. The number 1 complaint I heard about the bars was the lack of fresh mint for mojitos. The bar on the beach has a slush machine with orange and lemonade - very refreshing. The 2 pool bars (snack bars) was always busy - you could go up to the counter and they would serve you. Politeness seemed to get better service. We didn't realize there was a sports bar until our last day. It is by the driveway coming into the property. Go past the small pool on towards the side of the hotel. VOILA! Pool tables and ping pong. Wish we noticed this earlier... didn't hang out here at all for obvious reasons. The cafeteria in the evening served hot dogs, burgers, pizza, and ham and cheese sandwiches. Or should I say pizza was on the menu - it was not available once while we were there. I stuck to ham and cheese - some nights it was served on hamburger buns and some nights on bread. Got a hamburger on bread one night as well. They seemed to be having problems with stock. One thing that should be mentioned is the last 2 nights when the hotel was almost empty they closed down the international and the creole restaurants. I spoke with the WOV rep about this and she was enraged. None of the Canadian tour operators were forewarned of this, thus no agents nor future guests were warned of this drastic change either. They will reopen in time for high season. Overall, despite an occasional shortage, the food and drink situation was pretty good. You could get something 24/7. We partook in some of the watersports. Banana boat rides were included in the all inclusive. The paddle boats were popular - they all had ladders on the back so you could go for a dip and get back on the boat somewhat gracefully. We decided on our last day there to try to get on the hobie cats... guy took us out with no reservation for almost an hour after we brought him a burger. Yeah... I know... I shouldn't do that but he did return the favour. Didn't see anyone using kayaks. No toys by the pools for the kids. Bring your own. I want to take a floating matress of some sort for myself next time. Saw the kids playing with the kids club a couple of times. They seemed to be having a good time. They took the kids onto the stage for an hour or so before the entertainment for dancing and singing games. They are all so cute! The entertainment is better than anything I've seen at other hotels (I am not that well travelled yet so don't take this as gold). There are 2 areas - one is indoors in the Sala de Fiesta. The other is by the famed small pool. OK... to explain the famed small pool... everytime we asked somebody where something was it was always described in relation to the small pool. We didn't realize there was a small pool and were shocked on our scavenger hunt for towels to find it. So by the famed small pool there is another stage OUTSIDE. Both had live music and lots of dancing and colorful costumes. The small stage was closed for the last 2 nights - again this had to do with capacity. Our last night there, they had no live music. They had a fashion show. We were quite disappointed and almost left. I am glad we didn't. They had a couples game show afterwards and the MC was hilarious. It was very well done and they interacted with the audience well. We did tip on a regular basis for good service. There were few occassions where I felt it was not warranted and did not. We also had gifts on hand for the staff we felt we got to know a bit during our visit. I enjoyed my Cuban experience and would not hesitate to go back. As a travel agent, I feel this hotel would be appropriate for somebody who is new to the all inclusive experience. I don't think it would be appropriate for somebody accustomed to Breezes or Iberostar though. Good for families. Lots of couples - mind you it was honeymoon season. Do not hesitate to email if any questions. Kim
Kim
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