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Sol Cayo Largo 05/19/2005
Reviewers Rating:  Fair
Review of Sol Cayo Largo Resort (Cayo Largo, CUBA)
Airport:
I flew into Cayo Largo directly from Montreal (2nd week of May 2005) and I was flagged to have my luggage opened and searched, apparently because I was a Canadian citizen, but was not born in Canada. They instructed me to empty the contents of my luggage. I responded by saying that if I do that, it would take me an hour to put it back in. So I suggested he search my belongings without removing them. He did so and discovered the little blue box which I was trying to smuggle into the country…my Q-Tips box. I tried to explain what it was, but he did not understand what it was, so I showed him the picture of the q-tip on the back of the box and made a squeaking sound as I tried to clean my ear with my finger. At the time, it wasn’t funny, but we had a laugh over it later.
Bus Ride to the Resort:
The bus was very small with no air conditioning. They had attached a small trailer at the back so they could put our luggage. The driver was named Pedro and he made silly cat and rooster noises while he drove. He even picked up his guitar and serenaded us while he drove.
The ride took approximately 10 minutes and we were dropped off in the front of the hotel and lined up to check in.
Check-in:
After waiting in line, when we reached the counter, we were advised that our room was not ready yet, so we had to wait in the lobby. We were permitted to roam around the resort but it was very hot and we had our luggage as well, so it wasn’t too much fun. We ended up at the Lobby Bar where we had a few drinks. I kept on asking approximately once every hour, if our room was ready and even requested to be given a room that did not have to be cleaned (one that was not occupied last night), but that didn’t happen. Eventually after 3 hours, when I went up to ask again, they told me it was ready and I hauled my luggage off on a long walk to my room. I think our room should have been ready when we arrived or soon there after, since the resort was only approx half full and our luggage taken on one of their electric carts to the room, in order to make up for the inconvenience.
Lobby Bar:
The lobby bar was pleasant and it was surrounded by a man-made lake filled with goldfish and one turtle. Drinks were good and they even had mini croissants.
Insects:
Flies and mosquitoes are VERY plentiful here, so bring truckloads of bug spray and don’t wear perfume. They do fog every night, but they do it too early (around 6:30) for it to have any impact on the bugs. Sol Pelicano fogged later (around 8pm) and their bug problem was not as bad.
Food/Drinks:
The Buffet Restaurant is always closed for lunch, so the only food available can be had in the Snack-Bar or The Ranchon on the beach.
The Ranchon (lunch): The food there was buffet style and wasn’t too bad, but it was light food, fish and didn’t include many meats. There was also constant wind which made things very interesting as we could see our rice flying off our plates. :)
At night for dinner, The Ranchon becomes the Caribbean Grill A La Carte Restaurant.
Snack-Bar: The food here I would call very spartan. The pizza was the thinnest I had ever seen anywhere in my life and the toppings were very thinly spread out. We jokingly called it matzo pizza because it was so thin.
The hamburger was good, but on the menu it stated that it comes with mayo, tomatoes, onions and lettuce, but there was always something missing from it every time I ordered it. When I asked for the missing toppings, I was advised that they had run out of that item. They never had mayo, because they were always out of it. One day they were out of tomatoes, the other, no lettuce, etc. And the toppings were also minimal, such as one small thinly sliced tomato, or one very small piece of lettuce, or one thin ringlet of onion.
I also had french fries, which were so thin that they were quite literally potato chips. The beef pepito was also very sparse, with extremely thin pieces of beef, strategically placed and barely covering the bun. Their ice cream was very good, but as with everything else, was very little in quantity (two little teaspoon scoops).
The waitresses kept on giving us the evil eye because we weren’t tipping them. Well, I’m not going to carry coins on me if I’m wearing my bathing suit, sorry.
Basically all of the food here (and the resort in general), kept on hammering the same message to me…..cost cutting.
Pool Bar (the other side of the Snack-Bar):
The barmen were almost never there, so most times I had to wait 5 to 10 minutes before I was served. They also ran out of plastic cups and started handing out glass cups. There were a few occasions where guests had dropped their glass and it shattered, leaving small bits of glass that were very dangerous for other barefooted guests. Luckily these were quickly cleaned up by the staff.
Otherwise service was average.
Buffet Restaurant:
Breakfast: This was the resort's best meal of the day. They had eggs, omelets, pancakes, fruits, a very decent selection of pretty much everything, but it was the same every day. This is an open-air restaurant (which was a mistake in my opinion as there are always many flies sitting on the exposed food). This may not be a problem for the locals, but for tourists this is very disgusting as we are not accustomed to this.
Lunch: They were always closed for lunch. This was very surprising and disappointing to me.
Dinner: Their selection of food was the same every night with the exception of one table that had a different meat per night (eg. pork chops, beef, fish, etc) which the cook carved for you and placed it on your plate. At night however, the mosquitoes ruled the buffet. I was attacked by them nightly and felt that I was their buffet. I also must have appeared very awkward to everyone as I tried to move my limbs in a failed attempt to keep from getting bitten. I always had to scarf-down my food as fast as I could and get out of there before I was eaten alive by the mosquitoes. This restaurant should really be in an enclosed space in order to avoid this mosquito/fly problem. After a few days of this, I could not stand it any longer and decided to visit the neighbouring resort called Sol Pelicano (also owned by Sol Melia), that is rated as a 3.5 star resort, and have dinner there. We were permitted (as all guests are) to dine there in their enclosed buffet restaurant. This was a Godsend, as there were no mosquitoes and almost no flies. Their selection was very good and plentiful and I actually had the time to eat my dinner slowly and converse with my girlfriend without having to rush out. One night they had roasted a whole pig on their outdoor spit and it looked and tasted very delicious. The cooks even took a picture of us with the pig, which was very funny. I always left the Sol Pelicano Buffet satisfied and with a full stomach and it was only a 10 minute walk from my resort. I also noticed that the Sol Pelicano was host to many Sol officials and a group of 10 or 15 travel agents of some kind that were critiquing the resort, so maybe that’s why this resorts food and services appeared much better than mine.
A La Carte Restaurants:
We were only permitted to visit one of the two a la carte restaurants. In all other resorts I have been, we were able to visit each a la carte restaurant once. Also in other reviews I have seen for Sol Cayo Largo, people had mentioned that they were allowed to go to both a la carte restaurants, so I am puzzled why we were not allowed to sample both. Maybe another cost cutting measure.
We chose the Ranchon Caribbean Grill and made reservations. We thought it over later and decided to switch our reservation to the Las Trinas restaurant because it was indoors and we’d have fewer problems with the mosquitoes. However we were told (on Tuesday) that reservations to both a la carte restaurants were full for the entire week and we could not switch. I found this very odd because the resort was not even close to full capacity. This was confirmed when I went to the Ranchon Caribbean Grill and saw that it was only one quarter full. I believed this to be yet another cost cutting measure by the resort.
Our meal was excellent though and the waiter was very kind and even snapped a picture of us. The mosquito problem was minimal at this location due to the wind.
Beach/Pool
Beach:
The beach was always windy with many waves. They had a flag warning system but there were never any green flag days. There was one red flag day and the rest were yellow flag days.
I tried to swim on two separate days (yellow flag) and was always beaten by the waves. Both times I was up-ended by the waves and exited the water dizzy and with sand in my swimming trunks. Needless to say, there were no beach activities at all due to the constant wind.
The beach bar is non-existent. All that is there is the roof. I was very disappointed at this as I had to walk up to the Ranchon in order to get a drink and walk back to my umbrella down the beach.
Yet another cost cutting measure?
The beach is not lit at all, so we could not go for a moonlight stroll on the beach. Everything was pitch black, so evening strolls were limited to inside the resort, battling the mosquitoes as we walked. I also could not enjoy the nightly entertainment due to the mosquitoes.
Pool:
This is a saltwater pool which I really enjoyed because I don’t really like chlorine, but it appeared that the pool is almost never cleaned as it got progressively worse during my stay. By the 5th day there was much debris in the pool and all the guests were staying out of the pool. A staff member with a Sol Pelicano t-shirt came over and skimmed out all the surface debris in the late afternoon after the guests complained. I assume the pool boy works multiple resorts in order to cut costs?
The debris from the bottom of the pool was never cleaned however and there was noticeable algae buildup growing in the corners of the pool and on the intakes of the filter. Usually at other resorts I have been to, they vacuum the pool every morning in order to maintain it clean, but it appears that this was not done at this resort.
I was sort of looking forward to going in the Jacuzzi as I had seen it in the promotional material for this resort. However, the Jacuzzi was not functioning and looked like it had not been used in many years as it was unpainted and rusted.
On the last day I saw a crab in the pool along with a lot of debris and thousands of dead mosquitoes. This was after the big rain storm, so I guess that was to be expected.
Shopping/ Souvenirs:
There was only one souvenir shop that I found on the resort, and they did not include most of the local handicrafts. We went to Sol Pelicano next door, and they had local artists selling their crafts every night. I wanted to buy a souvenir t-shirt but could not find one that I liked. I was looking for a simple shirt with maybe the Cuban flag that said Cuba, but could not find one. Most of the shirts were of revolutionaries, etc. Not really a souvenir for tourists I thought.
Currency Exchange:
We found some local handicrafts, at the Sol Pelicano resort, that we wanted to purchase and we went to the Sol Pelicano lobby in order to exchange money into CUC (CUban Convertible pesos). We wanted to get 25 CUC’s, the counter person told us that 25 CUC’s would cost us $35.18 CDN and he does not give or accept Canadian coins (although if you give CDN coins as a tip, they will gladly accept it). I could not believe that after making a killing on the exchange rate as they are, they are quibbling over 18 cents.
He said that he can exchange $40 CDN which would give us 28.15 CUC’s, so we accepted, but when we handed him the money, he scrutinized every bill and concluded that he could not accept a $5 bill because there was a one eighth of an inch tear on it. We got so annoyed that we asked for our Canadian money back and did not return to buy any souvenir handicrafts at all.
The exchange rate when I was there was approximately 71 cents CDN per CUC. In addition to this, they charge an 8% exchange fee on all non-American currency. So basically you are paying $1.40 CDN or more in some instances, for every CUC exchanged along with the added hassle when you go to exchange it.
Tourists are forced to exchange 25 CUC’s that is needed at the airport for the departure tax. We exchanged it at the Sol Cayo Largo lobby and the counter person waived the 18 cents and even accepted the $5 with the tiny tear. So we paid $35 CDN for 25 CUC’s.
Maid Service:
We tipped our maid daily (approx $2 CDN per day). For three days she made swans, alligators and elephants with our towels, then she stopped. With the exception of one day when she cleaned our room at 10am, our room was usually cleaned around 5pm, which I thought was very late. One day we came back from the pool at 7pm and had no towels at all. Apparently they had run out of clean towels. I tracked down the maid and requested towels. 45 minutes later, the maid returned with two beach towels as a temporary measure. On another day, they had run out of bottled water (they’re supposed to leave one 1.5 liter bottle in the fridge every day). I had to track her down again later in the day to ask for a bottle. The towels consistently had stains on them also, I assumed they were clean, but it didn’t leave me with a good feeling based on the other things I had experienced at this resort.
Telephone Services:
Calling from the hotel room to Canada will cost you 2 CUC’s per minute. I called and had given the phone number printed on the hotel room phone, to my family in Canada so that they could call me. It’s only 10 cents per minute to Cuba. But the phone number printed on my hotel phone was not correct. I had also called the hotel from Canada before I left, but the phone number on the Sol Melia site is wrong as well.
It seems that the hotel would rather have the visitor pay. Therefore making the tourist leave more of their money in Cuba. Or at least that’s what I think anyway.
Accommodations:
The room was very nice overall. The large sliding door at the back of the room had a broken handle however, but everything else was in good working order and pleasant.
The bathroom faucet was not working and we called Guest Services. They dispatched a maintenance person and the problem was fixed promptly.
I kept on finding ants and other bugs in our room, even though we were on the second floor. I can’t really complain about that though, as this is a tropical location, and seeing a few bugs isn’t too much of a problem.
The night before we left was a complete disaster though. In the middle of the night (at 2am) we woke up due to noise. Apparently there was a heavy rain storm in the area. My partner woke up to go see out the window, when she slipped and almost fell. I turned on the light to find streams of water trickling from the wall and flooding our room. I used all the towels we had (2 bath towels, 2 regular towels and a foot towel) and put them on the floor, but it wasn’t enough. There was approximately a quarter of an inch of water in our room and I was also concerned about the light fixtures on the wall, as the water was trickling right over them and could get into the wiring and cause us to get electrocuted. I quickly called Guest Services and advised them of the problem and was told that I would be given another room tomorrow. I told her that I was leaving tomorrow and requested that someone come to my room and try to contain/correct the problem. Fortunately, the rain stopped approx 10 minutes from my phone call and in 1 hour there was a maid and a security guard at my room. The maid picked up all the wet towels, mopped the room and gave us new towels.
Check-out:
Since we could not sleep due to our watery adventure last night, we were 3rd in line to check out. The line was very long and there was only one counter person (even though there were other staff available), so checking out was unnecessarily long. We went to eat breakfast after we checked out and after we finished, the line was shorter, but still there.
We were the first in line for the bus. Taxis and taxi buses were shuttling fed-up people to the airport. Then one of the Scuba excursion buses pulled up in front of the hotel with his diesel tailpipe 5 feet from our noses. He let the bus idle for 15 minutes picking up people that were going on this excursion. Afterwards the driver gets out of the bus and walks over to a few buddies of his and starts chatting. At this point I had my fill of breathing in diesel fuel, so I walked over and told him to turn off his engine, which he thankfully did.
Conclusion
I researched this resort thoroughly and even had it recommended by a friend that went 3 years ago, but it seems that the resort has been left without renovations since that time and things have decayed. We didn’t go through one day without a disappointing incident. I understand that Sol is trying to cut costs and I even agree with it, as they have to make a decent profit as well. But if the customer (in this case the tourist) notices your cost cutting to this extreme, then they are definitely doing something wrong.
Although I consider this the worst vacation I’ve ever had, in all fairness, it was still not 100% bad. At least I relaxed and did enjoy the sun a bit.
I would expect a lot more from a 4 star resort, which this is definitely NOT. This was a good place to relax, but it’s certainly not worth the money I paid. I could’ve received the same/better value from a 3 star resort and paid less as well.
Cuba needs to have their tourists return to their country, if they keep disrespecting and gouging their tourists, they will never return.
All these problems made me conclude that I will not be vacationing in Cuba any time soon or maybe never.
Your average Canadian Tourist
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