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Playa Pesquero 01/14/2004
Reviewers Rating:  Fair
We are regular travellers abroad in our mid forties with no children and have stayed in 5* all inclusive resorts in Mexico and the Maldives. This was our first trip to Cuba.
HOTEL PLAYA PESQUERO:
We read mixed reviews about this hotel prior to booking and sadly we have had a very disappointing holiday. The resort is indeed vast and quite grand, the lobby is very impressive but appearances can be deceiving and we certainly found this to be the case.The biggest hotel in Cuba is certainly not the best. It would appear that they have not got the infrastructure in place to support a complex this big. The resort may look 5 * but the service and food does not warrant the 5* rating.
We arrived on Wednesday 24th December at 2000,we had no welcome drinks on arrival and no gala dinner reservations had been made. On being taken to our room which was ok but not 5* standard we had no towels. After a long flight and desperate for a shower we contacted reception and waited for ages before two small hand towels showed up! Be warned the towels in your room are rock hard, use the ones you get on the beach instead.
Maid service was very hit and miss and on occasions our room had not been made up or cleaned when we returned back in the evening and often our room fridge was not replenished with water. One evening we contacted reception to request a blanket, after 5 times of asking over a period of 2 days my husband was eventually told they had run out.
RESTAURANTS:
They were trying a new system with the a la carte restaurants when we were there, of pre-booking all your reservations for you, so on arrival we were given a sheet of all the restaurants and times for our sittings. We arrived at the Italian 10 minutes before our reservation, we queued for 30 minutes it was 2100. Whilst queing we spoke to a couple at the table who had been sitting there since 1930 and still had not been served. As we were about to head to the main buffet restaurant they invited us to go through to eat at the Romantica restaurant. The food here was disappointing for their supposedly flagship restaurant I had spinach canelloni and it was cold. Just as we had finished our main course a waitress came across and asked us to leave as they wanted to close the restaurant , it was 2230! We explained we had ordered desserts and she asked that we hurry up and finish our desserts then leave!
On our second night we queued again for approx 45 minutes at the steak restaurant by the pool. When we were served we were told that 4 out of the 5 dishes we ordered would not be available as "they were too busy". We heard such poor reports from the Creole and Mexican restaurants that we gave up on the a la cartes and stuck with the main buffet.
You often queued at this main buffet too and the food was ok but not much variety and often luke warm the main complaint here was that the food was not covered hence it didn't retain it's heat when cooked, also the prawns and lobsters were never kept on ice. We did speak to many people who had been quite sick, fortunately we were not.
EXCURSIONS:
We did the dolphin swim, day trip to Havana and the catermeran trip, we booked the sport fishing trip but this was cancelled. We highly recommend the dolphin trip, we had done this in Florida Keys but the one here was much better. You had about 30 minutes in the water with the dolphins in small groups and if you take your video cameras and ask someone to video it for you you will save yourself $25.We paid $89 each for this trip through Thomas Cook but you can get a taxi there for $10 and pay $36 each at the nature reserve so it works out cheaper.
The caterman sailing trip is well worth the money we paid $138 per couple and the staff who organised this made the trip great fun. We ate at a nice restaurant at the end of this 5 hour trip as the previous day they went sailing after lunch and many were sea sick, it can get rough out there. We wanted to do the overnight Havana trip to see the Club Tropicana show but these were well booked up they hadn't taken into account the bank holidays. So we ventured on the day trip, we felt this was a big disappointment it cost $378 per couple. You leave early for a 1hr 30 min flight to Havana. We visited a rum factory and a flea market so by the time we got to old Havana we only had 45 minutes to spend here before making tracks back to Holguin. Our advice would be to do the overnight trip so you see the show and get more time to wander through Cathedral Square and absorb the atmosphere of old Havana.
DIVING:
My husband is a Rescue diver and found the diving disorganised out there (on the first morning he arranged to be collected off the beach at 0900 at 1000 the dive boat did not show)and the diving is not brilliant round the resort. There is no dive school at the hotel but if you take a 30 minute walk there is a dive hut at the end of the bay. The instructors were very pleasant but his advice to would be divers is to contact an outfit like Eagle Ray divers prior to your holiday and arrange to dive through them. The boat cannot come up to the pier so they had to kit up then swim out to the boat to go diving. Also we met up with some people who wanted to try the test scuba dive, these are supposed to take place at the pool at 0900 every day, this was not the case they seemed more interested in the "paying" qualified divers. Diving here was quite expensive too $30 per dive. Take plenty of spare O- rings.
BEACH:
This appears to be a man-made beach and is not the best beach weve seen but Jorge the bar man on the beach is a wonderful character as were many of the other staff we met on our holiday.
TIPS:
The sand-flies and mosquitoes here are indeed vicious, take plenty of repellant and a good antihistamin cream with you. We took vitamin B1 tablets for a month prior to travelling and only had a couple of bites. Use the beach towels rather that the omes you get in your room. Take a lilo with you, the sun loungers have no matress on them and can be very uncomfortable, although you dod get used to them after a while. Take plenty of dollars with you, you get better service when you tip well.
GOOD POINTS:
You can have branded drinks here if you ask for them.
The New Years Eve party was superb, they had organised this very well the live band were brilliant and it was good to see the staff enjoying themselves too.
Go and find Jorge (Barman on beach, they moved him to the vegetarian restaurant as we left) he is a terrific personality and makes the best pina coladas at the resort.
Eat the prawn and bacon at the Beer Garden order two doubles they are lovely!
OTHER HOTEL REPORTS:
We did meet up with some Canadians who were staying at the Paradisis Rio De Ore and they said that this hotel was fabulous.We heard poor reports from those staying at LTI Costa Verde and Supeclub Breezes. Sadly we heard a lot of complaints from others also staying at Playa Pesquero and we would definately not return here .
If you want further information please do not hesitate to contact me at menaisimeon@hotmail.com.
Menai Simeon
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