Royalton Hicacos - Adults Only - All Inclusive +18, Cuba, Varadero, Varadero | Thomas Cook (2023)

Overall, one of the better experiences we've had in Varadero

Mar 2023 | Tom M

The good: BEACH: They have a really great stretch of beach, with lots of loungers and good beachside service. There's a smoking section, but even though we don't smoke we found it was the best part of the Diamond Club lounging area.STAFF: Hotel staff are all very good. The "public facing" ones (reception, restaurants, bars, "butlers") all speak English well and seem to understand and appreciate Canadian manners and expectations. The ones who only speak Spanish are friendly and helpful as well.ROOM: The room we had in the 3000 block was clean, and was kept clean. The bed was decent. The shower was hot and powerful! Reminded me of the '70s. Safe had to be fixed, but worked after being fixed immediately. Lots of fresh towels.FOOD: Buffet had lots of great Cuban food. If you appreciate rice, beans, stews, pork & chicken, fresh fruit, and good dairy and bakery items, you can eat very well without hitting the à la cartes. Eggs are fantastic, and they have good charcuterie & cheese at all meals. Lobby bar is well-stocked.ENTERTAINMENT: Lobby bar bands and show bands were great.Needs improvement:BEACH: The beer at the beach bar is flat. They don't seem to have a tap, so they haul in draft from the lobby bar in big plastic containers. The plastic cups are really small & flimsy. We just gave up on beach beers.STAFF: No issues. Great folks, and well-trained.ROOM: We had a junior suite, and it was clean but worn,.Tub had rust stains, furniture &c were a little shabby. But that's not unusual in Varadero, even at other resorts of this level.FOOD: We avoid shellfish at resort buffets just out of caution. If you want fin fish, get it fresh-fried. (It overcooks in buffets). The buffet pizza was not something I would try again. But eat Cuban, and you will eat very well. We cautiously ate raw salads and fruits without an issue (they must sterilize the rinse water). In March, the pineapple is underripe and the watermelon is watery. But the papaya is great. I don't know why they do not serve tree-ripened bananas, which grow everywhere. The coffee, sadly, was weak. Even the cappuccino.What I would never do again is the à la carte Caribbean restaurant. It was mostly the same Cuban food you can get at the buffet (ropa vieja, beans & rice, cooked veg, desserts) but served in a pretentious manner in a cavernous and cold ambience. Honestly, we prefer to choose our meals by sight and aroma, so we didn't go to any à la cartes after that. Give me the flexibility and friendliness of a good buffet!Conclusion/RecommendationWe have stayed at the Blau and the Iberostar on the same part of the peninsula. They were both good, but Royalton had friendlier service, with nice grounds, and better honest-to-goodness Cuban food.This was our first trip without our (now-adult) son, and we did miss the joy of young kids playing on the beach. From what I saw in March, this resort attracts mostly Gen-X and Boomer Canadians and Germans, and younger Latin Americans. It's aways nice to have a bit of diversity, but at 52 it did make me feel a bit over-the-hill. It's definitely not a big party resort, even if people are getting legless and silly at the bar.Our biggest advice is to get Diamond Club. The rooms aren't really luxurious, but the "butler" service — for us, from Yanara and Pedro — was really helpful when we wanted to go beyond the package tours and hire a taxi for a Havana day trip. They also helped us with late checkout. These two really earn their gratuities! (We will request their section next time as well.) The Diamond Club exclusive beach also has much nicer loungers and service, and we were never left without a spot on the beach no matter when we arrived. We didn't use the Diamond Club lounge by the pool, so I have n comment there.We'll be back.

Hasta l’ano que viene!!

Mar 2023 | Trip64842106989

The resort is well laid out and beautiful as well as well maintained. Great food, buffet was excellent! Staff works hard to ensure all aspects of your stay is enjoyable. Beach activity coordinators were dynamic and friendly to all beach goers! The private tour to Havanna arranged by the butler was a fantastic day! Lastly, the beach itself is stunning… blue calm ocean and very clean and safe.

Exhausting ordeal never to be repeated.

Mar 2023 | Peter S

I spent 2 very expensive weeks at this hotel. By the 11th day of 14, I couldn't wait to leave.Four major issues, any one of which is a deal-breaker.1) Noisy beyond belief.From the rumble of huge laundry carts past your door at 6:30 AM, you'd think there's either an earthquake happening or a huge thunderstorm setting in. The tiled floors and pebbled concrete echo the noise all along the structure. The housekeeping staff, gardeners and repair staff yell to one another from one end of the bungalows to the other. There is no decorum or consideration for guests still sleeping. (It's like living in a barrio bajos (slums)) The doors on the bungalows do not close quietly. They must be SLAMMED to get them to close and lock. Planning a siesta for the afternoon? Forget it! The noise goes on all day to well after midnight when drunken, noisy guests return to their rooms or new guests are being brought to their rooms. At best, you might get 5 hours sleep. Walls are paper thin, you can hear your neighbors scrape their chairs across the floor or open and shut the dresser drawers, drapes. The sliding doors rumble like thunder. When I think of high-end hotels, I think of blissful quiet excapes. This hotel doesn't even come close. It's a cacophony non-stop. This is not a hotel to go to for a rest.The only way to get some rest is to bring sleeping pills, a set of earplugs and/or drink yourself into a stupor so you can pass out.2) Unsanitary conditions. I brought a hand-held UV light with me, like the type housekeeping services uses in my country to check on cleanliness. I wish I hadn't. Bright glowing stains from bodily fluids were everywhere, Walls of the bathroom, on the toilets, waste buckets and worst of all, on the pillows and beds. Though the pillow cases are changed daily, the bed sheets and mattress protectors are not. Lift the mattress protector and shine your UV light on the bed and prepare to vomit. Human stains, old and new, are what you're going to sleep on. The down pillows themselves are covered with fresh pillow cases but the stench of the mold and mustiness seeps through easily. So do the bedrolls/bolsters. Again, you're sharing your pillow with hundreds of guests who were there before you.Serious advice, use a towel over your pillow to avoid waking up smelling rancid and foul. Wear pyjamas and socks.Check the fresh towels every day that get delivered to your room. On at least 2 occasions, I got manchas de mierde (check google translate for that one) on my towels, sometimes lipstick and often rust. Not sure you'd want to wipe your face on some of those stains. I had to call to reception to get mine replaced. Took them over an hour to get that done.I never once heard or saw a vacuum cleaner anywhere at this resort. Do not walk barefoot in your room or anywhere else at this resort other than the beach.Further unsanitary observations: birds fly freely inside the buffet area, crapping into the light fixtures, alighting onto the buffet areas and pecking at some of the food. Flies are settling onto food everywhere. The cushions in the reception area are never cleaned. Chairs around the bars are seldom wiped down.3) An abominable lack of fresh fruit.During the two weeks I was there, I never saw: lemons, oranges, grapefruit, bananas (this is the only Caribbean island I've ever been to with no bananas), no coconut, no plantain, no limes, no nuts. What is available is raw, unripened pineapple, so tough you can barely cut it with the dull knives they give you, unripened tomatoes, unripened watermelon, unripened starfruit, fruit juices so watery that they're more akin to ther runoff from slicing them open. They have no flavor. Other foods fare no better. Baked beans are done in catsup, not tomato sauce. The tilapia fish taste like mud, the pork is so tough that when you chew it, it chews back. There is no bacon anywhere.Having complained to Jose Martin, the hotel manager, his reply was "I haven't seen an orange in 7 years. I'm from Spain". That was the extent of help I received from him. Excuses he has, solutions he has none.4) One last caveat about travelling to this hotel.Check your flight times and compare it to the check-in/check-out times for the hotel. I got delivered here by SUNWING at 10:00AM but wasn't allowed to check-in until 4:00 PM. If you're not ready for it, that's 6 hours without air-con, suntan lotion or lighter clothing. You are walked around the sweltering complex and then left to your own devices until your room is ready, if you can find it. Front lobby staff are surly and command you to sit down and wait. After 6 hours of profuse sweating, I felt like I was born in my shirt.It's the same on exit. Check-out is at Noon and if your bus arrives at 7:00 PM, be prepared to sit around while front desk staff do nothing for you. For all the attention you got when arriving, you can expect to be disdainfully ignored when you leave. Whatever her name, whether Luzia, Luzora or Lucifer, the older woman at the front desk was particularly rude and dismissive.If Hicacos is the best that Varadero Cuba can offer, then you can be assured it was the last trip I will ever take, not only to Hicacos but to Cuba. I heartily recommend avoiding this island altogether.p.s. I never heard a single cricket ot tree-frog in the evening. Again, the only Caribbean island where I've never experienced this. Something really wrong with that.

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