If you're looking for a cheap vacation to Cuba then by going to Club Amigo Mayanabo you have sure found one. I had the displeasure of going to this resort in August of 2011 with my husband, sister and niece. Like you, the person reading my review, I too came to Trip Advisor in hopes of learning more about this location before committing to the trip. I found some negative reviews but mostly positive ones therefore making the determination that this would be the location of our vacation to Cuba. For the price we wouldn't go with 5 star expectations of course but go with an open mind and hope for the best.
When we got there boy were we disappointed. Firstly it was a hellish one hour drive from the airport to reach the resort on a bus that was being driven by a speed demon so we wondered if we were going to arrive alive to even enjoy some type of a vacation. We finally got to the resort and were excited to get to our room to get our stuff put away so we could enjoy some drinks. There was one person at the front desk that spoke english and a whole busload of people trying to check in. When we arrived at the resort they told us to leave our luggage at the front desk and to hurry to the restaurant because they kept it open just for us so we needed to hurry so we could eat and they could get the dining room cleaned up. It was 9:30 we later discovered they closed at 9 which we thought was pretty early. We got in to the restaurant and it smelled terrible which we quickly discovered that it smelled like this the entire week we were there. Makes it quite appetizing to eat there. We approached the buffet and just about vomited. Options like tongue and some funky hot dog looking things in water didn't really appeal to us. Long story short, we lost about 10 pounds each during this vacation. The snack bar was only open until 4 pm every day so their advertising about 24 hour food and drink was a pile of baloney and a hugely false advertisement. The only good thing that came out of the snack bar that wasn't questionable was the french fries. We had a lot of those that week.
After being so disgusted and disappointed with the food quality and selection and coming to the realization that this is what we were faced with for an entire week we went back to the front desk to check in. So we got checked in and the porter took us to our room which seemed like 3 city blocks away. We walked into our room and my sister and niece had the room a couple doors down from us and we took a look around and immediately both my husband and I walked out of the room disgusted and found my sister and niece in the hall as well gagging from the smell in their room. Our room smelled like urine big time and in the shower were a million little bugs crawling around. There was no balcony or ability to open a window in the room. We said forget it and went to the front desk and demanded to be put in another room. We refused to be stuck in that room for a week. We requested an upgrade to ocean front but were informed that all that block was under renovation and no rooms available. Funny because the following weekend when the Cubans came and over ran the resort that's where they were all staying. So we said we wanted to upgrade to a better room and were told that it was very expensive to do that. We informed him that we didn't care that we would not stay in the rooms we were put in and would pay for the upgrade. It cost an extra $70 USD for the week and we got a suite (still without a balcony and outdated) that was far better than the initial room we had been put in although on the last day we found a cockroach in our bathtub and my sister and niece had about 4 or 5 cockroaches in their room through the week. I sometimes wonder if they do this on purpose to get the people to come and pay for an upgrade.
After putting our stuff away we went down to have a couple of drinks and unwind from our travels. The main bar closed at 11. We then needed to go down to some cheesy little piano bar they called it which was dark and smelled nasty and didn't have a piano by the way to have some drinks. The drinks were the nastiest things I have ever had in my entire life. There was no menu of what could be made, you ask the bartender both in the piano bar and the main bar what can they make and they don't speak english so they have no clue what you're talking about. There are no frozen pina coladas or anything like that, no mojitoes because they told us they can't grow the mint (yet everywhere else there seems to be able to because that's what we drank on all the excursions we went on) so we drank rum and pineapple juice which got disgusting after a while. The beer was pretty nasty too but good enough for a change once in a while. Virtually none of the staff that worked there spoke english which made it very challenging to communicate. Food was horrible all the time, even the a la carte and the snack bar. We went to the a la carte one night and 2 of us ordered the same thing and they said that they couldn't do that they could only give us one because that's all the chef had. Are you kidding me?? There was probably 20 to 30 cats that were skin and bones hanging out around the restaurant looking for people to feed them. It was sad and disgusting at the same time. They were even inside the a la carte restaurant while we were eating.
On the weekends the resorts are opened up for Cubans to come and spend the weekends there also along with the tourists. Well, let me tell you, once they come and are on the resort they take over everything and it's like you don't exist anymore. They are rude and obnoxious for the most part and the tourists no longer matter anymore. You can stand in line waiting for a drink for an hour and if the Cubans come to get a drink they are served first not to mention they butt in line all the time also. There was only one bartender out of all the ones that were there that made sure that people were served in the order that they came to the bar. I'm not racist in the least little bit, I believe everyone is equal and should be treated equally but let me tell you these Cuban people have got to be some of the rudest people I have ever seen or met in my entire life and this truly makes it a shame as they are the representatives of their country.
I don't even know what else to say about this place. Every aspect of our time there was terrible and I don't know why anyone would willingly pay money to stay there. We were able to go to the sister resort next door one night to eat there and check out the entertainment which is all the same at all the resorts and repetitive every night. Not good shows for children to watch as they are quite sexual. That resort seemed a bit better aside from the mass amounts of mosquitos but they had better food, drinks, it was a nicer resort. We couldn't switch to stay there though which was silly because we would have rather stayed there instead. We hated Mayanabo so much that we spent over $400 USD on excursions for the entire week leaving us only 1 day on the resort without anything to do just so that we could get the heck away from there and that was the best thing that we could have ever done. We had a fabulous time on all the excursions that we went on and the food was amazing. The people were amazing and we had a fabulous time off the resort. If you do go to Santa Lucia be sure to go to King Ranch. Vincent is amazing and it was truly an eye opening experience. The experience you get there is the real Cuba, not the Cuba that you see through the eyes of the resorts.
Although cheap we will not be returning to this place and will not recommend anyone else to be going there either. I would recommend the Dominican Republic instead. I would like to try other parts of Cuba in hopes that it is more beautiful and fun than what we were exposed to at this pitiful resort but I'm very leery on doing so. I think this place spoiled the Cuba experience for me. Stay away from this place and stay somewhere else!!!
- Hotel Amigo Mayanabo
- Amigo Mayanabo Hotel
