Gran Caribe Sunbeach

“Some challenges”

I went to Gran Caribe last week, and I pretty much knew what to expect in Cuba, but this resort had some challenges. The resort is older, which is fine, the grounds were well taken care of. Upon arrival their internet was down, and continued to be down the next day. There was two days of a wine s... more

I went to Gran Caribe last week, and I pretty much knew what to expect in Cuba, but this resort had some challenges. The resort is older, which is fine, the grounds were well taken care of. Upon arrival their internet was down, and continued to be down the next day. There was two days of a wine shortage and two days of plastic take out cup shortage. The last 2 days of my trip there was a water shortage, but speaking to other travellers on different resorts it was an island wide shortage. There’s definitely concerns about how they were able to properly prepare food without running water. Over the week I only had my towels changed once, I even had a visibly dirty towel refolded and hung back up in my bathroom as though it was clean, this was before the water shortage. The food there wasn’t the worst and definitely not the best. Cuban cuisine outside of Cuba is absolutely delicious, I wish that the resorts in Cuba stuck more to their traditional food, rather than trying to Americanize their food for the tourists, as they always fall short. The bugs were absolutely insane. I realize that there is little they can do about this but I was bitten so badly by fleas and mosquitoes, that I wanted to leave a couple of days into the trip. The beach is stunning, no complaints there. The majority of staff were amazing. Although I had no interaction with the manager, I noted that he would be at the hotel before 7am each day and stayed well into the evening. He seems very approachable and took time to speak with people. The entertainment manager was also super friendly, I saw him consistently approach customers trying to get them engaged in activities and just checking in on their stay. My last day there when speaking with one of the staff, one of the dancers overheard me talking and mimicked and made fun of me. This was the worst part of my trip and left a really bad taste in my mouth, I felt humiliated. I had quite a few entertainment staff ask me for favours all week long, and to have one of them be so disrespectful made me so happy to be leaving. There’s a huge tipping culture, and I tend to tip wherever I go, but please note that if you don’t tip consistently, some staff may not receive you well the next time. Overall the stay was just ok. Some things were out of their hands, but for the most part the staff are great.

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