We spent the first week in February 2012 at Gran Club and it was beyond my expectations!! After reading some of the previous reviews before we left I was afraid of what we were getting into but WOW what a pleasant surprise! I’m not sure if the negative reviews came from inexperienced travellers or people that forgot they were travelling to a third world country. If you want Paris….go to Paris.

Checking in was a tad long at a half an hour, BUT, it was 3 am and there were 40 people to be assigned rooms! Grab a drink at the lobby bar and mingle with the guests and staff! Part of the entertainment group was there when we arrived which was a very nice welcoming touch!

Our Junior Suite was wonderful. It was clean, clean, clean. That was the most important part for my family. We had a futon and a cot where my 10 and 13 year old slept, and 2 double beds for my husband and myself. Slide the beds together and you get a massive King!! After a couple of days we figured out the ‘hot’ water situation…the tank is located on the roof of the buildings…natural hot water from the sun!! If you showered in the morning, you got cold water…if you showered late at night, same thing….but, if you showered between 2-7 you got all the hot water you needed! We did NOT have ants or critters in our room and I never heard any complaints from other guests regarding them. A small hint for the Air Conditioning and lights…leave another card in the slot. We just used our Bootlegger points card and we always had a cool room to come back to! No need to ask for extra room cards.

The food is fine. You will learn within a few meals what you like and what your don't. You won't starve!! They are cooking fresh fish and serving fresh pasta at every meal. I do not believe the reviews that state it was days old and reheated. It all tasted fresh. The seasonings are what the Cubans are used to using so we adjusted our taste buds and took only what we could handle. We had a roasted turkey one night, a roast beef on another…two nights of fresh prawns, two nights of fresh Calamari. An abundance of fish…some tasty and some not so much, but again…its preference. If you get a chance to taste the rabbit, go for it!! Yum!! The only real negative I can say about the food, is the dairy…the butter, cheese and ice cream all tasted somewhat sour. I guess it is because they use goats milk for a large part of their dairy supplies. I don’t like goat in Canada, so that’s why I stayed away from pizza(cheese) and butter. No big deal. What I would take WHEN I go back as far as food goes….a bottle of soya sauce, mayonnaise (for cucumber or tomato sandwiches), salad dressing and butter. I took peanut butter, Ketchup and mustard and those were handy items. We took bread sticks and bananas back to our room all time for snacks.

The staff was amazing. Julio, Bon Bon, Junior, Ariel, Paul, Pluto, George….all excellent. Words can’t describe how friendly the staff was. They work soooo hard to please you. Most of the nightly shows were very good and a few were a little on the cheesy side, but they all made you smile. Watching the kids shows was always a treat as they are so wonderful with the children. Bye bye Mickey Mouse!!

The grounds are very well kept. Gardeners are in abundance and they are always cleaning up something. If you don’t think so…take a walk to Caracol and compare….

The beach is also very clean. You can’t control every bit of sea weed in the ocean. Do take water shoes as there are sea creatures and broken shells near shore. Chairs were plentiful. We took our own beach towels and left them for locals at the end of our trip.

The excursions are plentiful for a one week stay. We did Iguana Island…Very nice Catamaran ride to the reef to snorkel then to the island with an amazing lunch served. We hiked to the top of the island. We got to see a few iguanas, flamingos, and star fish at the island. On the way back Chi Chi jumped into the ocean and brought us 2 large star fish to take photos with. The Bucaneros were plentiful on that trip! Wink wink!

Coral Tour: My youngest enjoyed snorkeling so much at the Iguana tour we did the snorkeling tour again. A good little time filler for the afternoon as it is a short excursion.

Horse Back rides: Great way to see the village and take a ride on the beach. My kids went twice and would have gone again and again!

Coco Beach: I wasn’t all that impressed with the beach itself as we did the evening supper tour. The beach was littered with beer cans and garbage. I think if you go during the day it is clean….we just happened to do the evening tour and it hadn’t been cleaned yet. The food there was a nice change as they served grilled lobster. We had a bon fire, drank rum from coconuts and you can join in dancing if that’s your thing! Better than standing in 30 below weather!

Local Dinner: We went to a locals house for dinner and it was so good! It was a refreshing change to the buffet as we were served lobster, rice, salad and a great little dessert along with a bottle of red wine! Go to the edge of the resort between Gran Club and Brisas and talk to the man in the white cowboy hat. He’ll lead you in the ‘right’ direction!

Last Day Cameguey: The bus ride was very good. It was great to see how “Real” Cubans live. We didn’t like the shopping in the city as you are left alone, and most of the stores carried TV’s, fridges, clothing and toys. I assumed we were going to a little market…that would have been cool. Anyway…the beggars are everywhere and really hound you for your clothing, shoes, everything. Not great. I would not do the last day trip again…spend your last day on the beach and take a buggy or taxi ride through the villages around the resort if you want to see how the Cubans live. The best part of the Cameguey trip was going to a school in Santa Lucia…yes…it is sad to see by our standards, but the kids are clean, happy and content.

The little store at the resort sells all that you need from shampoo to toilet paper to Rum and Cigars. There is a little market at the resort to buy souvenirs. The ‘mall’ between Gran Club and Caracol has Pringles and snorkels and really cool jeans.

The airport washrooms are disgusting. Do your business on the plane and you will be good until you get to the resort. I didn’t visit the public washrooms at the resort but did notice that on all the excursions you needed your own toilet paper or tissue.

My advice if you decide to visit Gran Club Santa Lucia is to go with an open mind. You are not staying at the Ritz Carlton, but they sure do make you feel like you are! Take a travel mug, your own towels for the beach, condiments of your choice, and no…there is no coffee maker or kettle in the junior suites…I took a chance on that and would take a kettle next time. The coffee bar was great, but I would have preferred to have my coffee before venturing into the public! Bottled water was plentiful. Buy a few of the 5ltr jugs and keep refilling your smaller bottles.

A shout out goes to a few people we met there too! Hola Super mom and family! Hola sisters! Hola C & T and Hola C & A! It was great to meet you and we wish you the very best! Maybe we’ll see you on another vacation in the future!!

We flew Sunwing out of Toronto. Our flight departed on time. We received a bon voyage glass of champagne. Choice of omelet or French toast served with wine (if you wanted). We were also given a snack, chocolate and complimentary drinks (juice, pop, coffee, tea) during the flight. No problems arriving in Cuba. Quick through customs, baggage and onto bus. There are Cubans selling bags of cold beer – 5 for $10 Canadian – to drink on the 90 minute bus ride to the resort.

Check-in was very slow, with a huge unorganized line up. Most rooms were ready but ours was not ready until 4 pm (check in was 3 pm). They kept telling us half an hour and we went back every half an hour but it was never ready. When it was finally ready, the sofa bed was not made up. It took until 9 pm and four trips to the front desk to get the sofa bed made up for my son. The last time I stood there until they found a maid and I escorted her to our room – the last two times I had went to the desk, they told me the maid was on her way to our room right then. We had a junior suite and it was very nice. King bed in one room, three-quarter bed and a pull-out sofa. We were on the second floor with a balcony. The balcony is on the opposite side of the room from the door so actually there was a balcony on each side. I heard many complaints about the hotel rooms and several people moved over to the Brisas next door.

The electronic key mechanism on many of the room doors do not work and those rooms have only one key – pretty difficult when there are four people coming and going from the room at different times. They do not offer a safe key at registration – ask for it when you check-in or you will have to go back up to the desk to get it. We had no problems with water.

We had awesome maids. When they made up the sofa bed they only put on sheets and a pillow about an inch thick. The next day the pillow was replaced with a nice big fluffy one and there was also a blanket. She put towel art on each bed every day. The last two days was a different maid, no towel art, but the room was still cleaned perfectly.

The resort was pretty worn and tired looking but the landscaping was beautiful and well kept. The lagoon where the fish and flamingos were contained green stagnant water. It would have been beautiful had the pump been working – there were waterfalls and water spouts throughout. The beach bar was downright dangerous! Loose and missing boards on the wooden walkway – several spots where people (I assume) had fallen through were never fixed and broken or missing stairs. The pool and lobby bars were nice. In the resort listing it says there are 5 bars but I never saw the other 2 – don’t think they exist. There was a coffee bar at the pool but you could not get drinks other than coffee there. One thing we found was that there were not enough places to sit and relax in the evening. There were 5 or 6 four-person tables at the pool bar, maybe 10 at the lobby bar and the typical sofa groupings in the lobby (3 or 4), but that was it. We sat mainly on our balcony in the evening because usually all other places were full.

We were pretty disappointed in the food – but, hey, it is Cuba. We had been to Brisas previously and the food there was awesome so I was expecting kind of the same from the resort next door. I was wrong. We never left hungry though. At breakfast you could get omelets or eggs at the grill. The bacon looked absolutely gross. A couple of days they had hash browns or French fries and always fruit and bread. There was cereal but what they called “milk” was as thick as yogurt and smelled sour. I have no idea what it was – could’ve been yogurt (there was white and pink) but they called it “cold milk”. They had a pasta bar at lunch and dinner and that’s pretty much what we lived off of. I’ve seen other reviews that say they had ham and roast beef but we didn’t see any of that. They did have turkey one night. We ate at the Italian and Cuba al a cartes. The Italian was gross (everyone we talked to felt the same way). The pasta sauce in the buffet was much better. We had pork chops and chicken steak in the Cuban restaurant. The pork chop tasted just like a fried pork chop but the chicken steak was really good. It was just a flattened boneless breast cooked in a sauce. Sunwing customers are allowed to go to the Brisas one night for buffet dinner. We booked that our second day there and went that night – it, as previously, was wonderful. Friends we met tried to book the Brisas but were told only 5 people per night were allowed to go so book that one early!

The pool was nice with a swim-up bar. By the end of our week, the pool water was pretty cloudy and the waterfall had quit working. There were always chairs to be found at the pool and the beach. The beach had quite a lot of washed up seaweed. During the week a tractor came along and cleaned some of it up but not on the weekends. It was very windy most days we were there so we hung out by the pool most days – it is extremely hot up there as there is no wind at all. They have kayaks and pedal boats you can use for free at any time the watersports booth is open. No one in my family got any insect bites other than on one of our excursions that went into the forest (Cangilones).

We did see several men with Cuban ladies– not sure if they were prostitutes or not and I didn’t care as they acted just as any other couple did – no groping or unusual activity in public. Actually I did not see any of them around the resort, only at the buffet. Also saw a couple older men with young Cuban men several days on the beach, these young men had white bands on and were chased away by security guards one day – didn’t see them back after that. I will let you come to your own conclusions on that one!

We were approached by a local at the beach and made arrangements for a lobster dinner at his house for $10 per person. It was fabulous. We had a huge lobster tail, rice, red tomatoes (only had green at the resort), cucumbers and fried banana – delicious.

We went on the Iguana Island catamaran tour. You go out and snorkel by the reef and then down a river for about an hour or so where sometimes they find a dolphin family that “performs”. Unfortunately they couldn’t be found on our tour, but the guys tried really hard to find them. At Iguana Island we went on an uphill trail that was pretty rough. Some of the older people stayed at the restaurant. There were also a couple people who fell and got scraped up. They don’t tell you that it is a somewhat strenuous trail and most of us had flip-flops/sandals on. The iguanas are wild – not the least bit tame but some of them come looking for food – they loved bananas – grab some from the breakfast buffet. The meal consisted of paella with pork and fish, beef for non-seafood eaters, tomatoes and bananas.

We also went on the Congilones tour. It was very interesting and we all enjoyed it. It consisted of a visit to an old sugar mill, the crocodile farm (the crocs are raised to release not to eat or kill for commercial reasons), a trip to an aboriginal descendent and her farm. From there we trekked up the mountain to a cave. Take bug spray – I’m still scratching the welts I got from mosquitoes or some blood sucking insect! We wore hard helmets with headlamps and toured through the cave. We then went to Cangilones Park and had a delicious buffet lunch consisting of a couple of pork dishes, rice, soup, vegetables and fruits. This is actually a camping/picnicking spot for the locals. There is a river (Maximo River) to swim in. Since we went on Sunday there were several local families picnicking and swimming there.

Departure was a bit hectic this time. For the first time ever at a Cuba airport when I have departed, there was more than one flight going out – three this time. One to Toronto, one to Montreal and one to Miami. They had 2 lanes plus VIP lane open for the Toronto flight, 2 open for the Montreal flight and 2 for the Miami flight. The Toronto lanes were out the doors, Montreal were about a third as long and there may have been 3 people in each lane for the Miami flight – what do they do? They open another lane for the Miami flight! Nobody in line could believe it. So after standing in line for a good 30 – 40 minutes to check-in, we then had to stand in line again to pay our departure tax and then again to go through customs. The Cuban-American’s going on the Miami flight would just walk right up to the front of whatever line they wanted to get into and stand in front of everyone else who had already been standing there for 20 minutes. Unbelievable! When anyone would say anything to them or tap on their shoulders they would not acknowledge it. So rude.

A couple comments on Sunwing: On the hotel information page it states for junior suites:
-coffee maker in every room – there are no coffee makers
-welcome drink upon arrival – not unless you go to the bar and order one
-private dinner or beach party – not
-private dance lessons in the evening – not
-happy hour 4-6 at the beach bar – not sure what that would be but there was nothing special at the beach bar between 4-6
-turn down service – not
-bottle of rum in room upon arrival – we got it a few days later
-beach bar crawl with the other three resorts – this was not mentioned during orientation so I asked about it and was told we could drink at all the resorts beach bars. We met people who tried to order drinks from other bars at other resorts but were not served. No problem at the beach bars though – we went to them all.

All in all it was a good week. What I really did not like was that it was so windy both times we were there and I wonder if it is a seasonal thing. There really isn’t much to do in the area other than the excursions, which are quite pricey in my opinion. The food was adequate –if you aren’t picky or if you like pasta, you will get by. I liked that the resort was not overcrowded and I loved our junior suite.

We had beautiful weather, sunshine and no problems. The beach was great and because of the reef approximately 2 km. of shore the water was always safe enough to go swimming everyday!! We also love snorkelling and straight out from the little green building just left of our resort was a small reef. We went snorkeling out there quite a bit and seen many kinds of tropical fish and took bananas and bread crumbs to feed them. It was beautiful and it was free!! The water was hot everytime for showers , there was always a choice of food at the buffet and the staff were all amazing. We met a lot of people and I am sure we made some lifelong friends. I think sometimes people should look at the positive things and remember what they paid for their holiday.Yes the resort is older, but they work very hard to keep it clean and they are constantly working on the grounds to keep them up. We loved it and loved the cuban people, they are so friendly and will do anything they can to help you. So many of them are so amazing, they hear your name once when you get there and remember it for your whole holiday!! We had a junior suite and it was really spacious and clean with mini fridge, which was nice to have.Heard the standard rooms were very basic but cannot comment any further as did not see them.

We arrived Jan 24th, 2012, expecting a 2 or 3 star hotel. We did experience culture shock at first. The hotel is old, not fancy, the single rooms are small and plain and the hotel grounds are brown from lack of rain. We reminded ourselves that this vacation was very inexpensive and you truly get what you pay for. However, after a nights sleep, the beautiful sun shone, the tourquoise water, the white sand beach and the ever smiling faces of all the cuban people on the resort, we realized we were in paradise. Not to mention, the pool is great. We suggest, the money you save on this trip you should use for excursions. The catamaran/luncheon on the beach trip was soooo much fun, also, the lobster dinner at club bucannero with the cha, cha, cha lessons. My husband and I had a great time, we laughed and had fun.
The food in the buffet was okay, you certainly had choice and didn't starve. The coffee is the best. No bed bugs or mosquitoes, however, lots of kitties. They are adorable, I wish we could have brought them home with us.

If you want fancy, get a 5 star vacation.