The Melia Varadero Hotel

Reviews and Ratings

Reviews

On the home page of their website Oyster.ca says:

The review below is from their website.

PRO
• Beautiful, beachfront location in Varadero
• Two pools, kiddy pool, and plenty of loungers
• Rooms include flat-screen TVs, minibars, and kettles
• Some rooms have excellent ocean views
• Five restaurants serving a range of cuisine and five bars
• Executive floor with private dining and chic rooms
• Basketball and tennis courts plus diving lessons
• Kids' club, babysitting, and cribs available
• Fitness center and beauty salon
• Wi-Fi in public spaces and rooms (rare in Cuba)- 3 pesos/hr
• Meeting rooms plus wedding services
• Art gallery on-site selling local artwork

CONS
• Standard rooms are dated compared to executive ones
• Some bathrooms are small and dated
• Little in walking distance

"The upscale Melia Varadero has a lovely beachfront location half way up the peninsula of Varadero. The 490 rooms are split between two categories: The standard rooms have an old-fashioned look with dated bedspreads and bathrooms, while the executive-level rooms look far more chic with dark-wood furniture and stylish artwork. But all rooms have balconies, and some offer truly stellar views. Features are in line with other upscale resorts including two pools with a waterfall feature, five restaurants, and basketball and tennis courts. A kids' club and kiddy pool appeals to families, and business travelers can use the meeting rooms or internet cafe. One thing to note: Wi-Fi is available in both public areas and rooms, a rarity for Cuba."

Oyster.ca

Rating

Ratings are highly personal but are an important tool to look at when choosing a travel destination. I tend to look at TripAdvisor when choosing a travel destination, a resort or even a rerstaurant. Because it has a huge number of users a critical reading of their reviews can give you a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of a destination whether it is Cuba, Europe, the USA ot Peterborough, Ontario.

But how a reviewer a resort depends on what the reviewer feels is most important. When in Cuba we spend little time in the ocean so the pools are more important than the beach. I like to eat so the quality and the variety of the restaurants plays an important role in my ratings.

On Jan 29, 2018 I googled the "Top 10 Varadero resorts". When looking at the results from different sources the rankings varied greatly from site to site. The table below summarizes what I found. In this table I only included resorts that were in the top 10 in at least 3 of the ten lists that I looked at.

Using the data from the table above, I have calculated my best overall ratings. The top resorts are the ones that were in the top 10 for all the sites used. As there was only one resort that was in the top 10 for all sites, Royalton Hicacos Resort & Spa tops my list. Next I considered the resorts that were in the top 10 on 4 of the 5 sites and then used the average of their 4 ratings to rank the these resorts. The same procedure was used to rank the remaining resorts.

Value for Money

TripAdvisor ranks resorts in several ways - traveller ranked, best value and price. On Jan 31, 2018 Melia Varadero was ranked #2 in Best Value. The table below compares the lowest price listed on TripCentral for a 7 day stay in each of the 6 resorts in the table above

Beware - The lowest priced rooms for Starfish Cuatro Palmas are Eco Rooms in the Las Palmas Section. This section is across the road from the Cuatro Palmas section. See the video below.