There were 7 of us altogether. And thank goodness for that, because if it was just my boyfriend and I we would have ripped eachother’s heads off for sure. We stayed at the Tryp Cayo Coco from January 8th – 15th, 2010 (for my 25th B-day!!). There were a lot of fun times to say the least, but there was too many annoying and frustrating times as well. I do not want to be negative in any way, but I do want to be completely honest and feel that by sharing my vacation with you readers, you will know what to anticipate when and if you decide to visit this particular hotel. I will start from the beginning;
Flight on Air Canada
I had never been on an Air Canada flight before so I was pretty excited!! It was very nice and spacious and every seat has its own mini TV (touch screen) with several movies, shows and music etc. It was very enjoyable. I just wish someone had me that Air Canada does not offer you a free meal on your flight and a snack (carrots w/ ranch dip) is like $3.00. Note: bring own snacks and food on plane. Fortunately for us it was a very early morning flight (5am) so we slept the whole trip.
Cuban Airport
Very quick and easy but a little uncomfortable. As soon as we landed on got of the plane in the middle of the runway, it was a bit awkward to see ALL the crew and staff and security wearing face masks (swine flu fear). You have to sign a form on the plane prior to arrival and give it through immigration confirming that you are not sick and have not come into contact with anyone that was sick… So hold your coughs and look awake when you get there…lol…
The greatest part is that the hotel is 15 minutes away from the airport! So before we knew it, we were there.
Check-In
I have been to Cuba now 5 times and I have never in my life had to wait in line to check in. I was under the impression that since Tryp is somewhat affiliated with the Melia chain, we would be given our key on the bus and our bags would be sent to our rooms by a bellboy. I was dead wrong. I still wasn’t too worried waiting in the crowd at the front lobby, because I had emailed the hotel weeks before with special requests and they confirmed that they will accommodate. Sure enough as I finally inched my way to the front counter, I was informed that “we have a bit of a situation ma’am”. Apparently they had overbooked the hotel and the rooms were not ready (we were suppose to get 2 rooms). I was not given any options but they did suggest for us to stay for 2 nights in the Junior Suite (which normally goes for 80 CUC a night) with VIP accommodation, which included having our fridge restocked with beer, pop, water every single day, a bottle of rum per group (therefore 2) and 6 a la carte restaurant reservations (normally without VIP, I think you can only reserve 2 or 3) and a free shrimp dinner (15 CUC) and lobster dinner (20 CUC) at the International . I was assured that once our rooms were ready Sunday, we would still have all the VIP amenities throughout the rest of our stay. Well, we had no other choose so we accepted. Apparently many of the previous guests had to wait until 3pm or 4pm by the time their rooms were cleaned and ready (we got there at 11:30am).
Jr. Suite
The room was very nice!! The down side was that it was located at the far right of the resort in the very last building #14, by the adult pool. It was very quite and secluded as if you were on another resort. The room consisted of a huge sitting area with coaches and a table and balcony with an oceanview!! The master bedroom was on the left side with sliding doors separating the two rooms (kinda rusty and broken, difficult to close, but we managed) There was a huge king size bed, TV, another coach and table and another balcony outside!!! Finally the bathroom was absolutely beautiful. You could tell it was brand new. The tiles were sparkling, no mildew, no rust and a beautiful Jacuzzi tub. It was massive!! Since there were 5 of us sharing the room they had placed 2 small single beds in the sitting room. We requested one more and it was brought to our room shortly after. The fridge wasn’t restocked and the key that was given to me for the safe was not the right one.
For the next two days, until we switched rooms, there was always a minor issue. Since we had now 4 beds, we had requested to have 3 more of those thick brown covers (it got pretty cold at night). When we returned in the evening, they hadn’t arrived and we called the front desk again and requested them again as well as restocking our fridge (cause we didn’t even have water to begin with) she said she could do nothing until the next day. With all these small annoying interruptions, so far so good.
Standard Room
We were told that our rooms would be available on Sunday. The weather that day was awful It was really, really cold and windy and cloudy. It was a good day to move and repack, so we didn’t mind the bad weather. I called the front desk at noon (since they said the rooms would be ready by than), but of coarse to no one’s surprise, the rooms were not ready and would not be ready till 4pm. That was fine… I took that opportunity to take a bath in the Jacuzzi tub… or so I thought…. After taking about 30 minutes to fill, with bubbles and all, the jets did not work The buttons on the machine turned on and immediately turned off. Finally 4pm came and I called the front desk again, they must have loved me by now. Apparently one room was ready and the other was not, because the people in that room paid to check out later, and the other room would be ready by 6pm. I didn’t blame the guests since it was a horrible day. So we all packed up, called a bellboy and relocated to the one room that was ready in building #6 (662). Standard room, two double beds, big bathroom, separate shower and toilet from the sink, their fridge was stocked and we got one bottle of rum so far. Now it was 6pm. Once again, I called the front desk, “we have a bit of a situation ma’am”. Now the second had to be cleaned still and was not ready. However, the room directly next door was ready (661). I asked specifically, is our fridge restocked? Yes. Do we have our bottle of rum? Yes. The correct safe key? Yes. Well, sure enough, all those answers above actually translated in English was “No”. The best part of our room was the view and locale. The balcony view was directly across from the stage and since the building itself was kind of on angle and not facing the ocean, we had absolutely NO wind whatsoever at all and could watch the entire show in the evening from our balcony and we were super close to lobby and disco (no long drunken walks back to our rooms and getting lost, lol) After my needy boyfriend caused a fit, he wanted to finally take a nice long hot shower. The water seemed to be running fine and super hot when I was using the sink to wash my face. However, as soon as my boyfriend turned the tab on the shower, the walls started shaking, a horrible tapping sound ensued and of coarse the water stopped running completely. While my boyfriend called the front desk (finally not me), I took a shower next door. The plumber did come, quickly and said he had to replace the entire tab and change the valve and it would not be ready till tomorrow morning. No choice but to accept it. It was eventually fixed the next morning while we were lying out by the pool. And he did an absolutely wonderful job. New tap, new faucet, brand new shower. It was Monday and our fridge still did not get restocked and we still did not get our rum. I was told that apparently they ran out and it would be delivered tomorrow.
Ok, that was my rant about complaints and what not… Now the good stuff, well kind of…
A la Cartes
If you do get an opportunity to eat dinner at their 6 a la carte restaurants rather than their buffet, please do. Like any buffet, the food is exactly the same every single night. Certainly the cook at the two available meat and pastas stations will defiantly cook or fry anything you give them, just be prepared to wait an awfully long time in line. That was another ting that struck me as somewhat alarming. I am not certain if it was because of the week that we there, but the resort was over packed and you had to wait in line to get into the buffet restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Anyways, since we were suppose to be getting the so called VIP treatment, we were allowed to book all 6 a la cartes.
Italian
This is located left of the main lobby, behind the stage area. The décor and locale of this restaurant is beautiful and it is next door to the Oriental Restaurant. This was my least favourite. The restaurant was absolutely adorable; the service was quick and very nice. However, the pasta was either overcooked or undercooked and on a personal note, do not order the Chicken Parm. The Catalonia was ok, a little dry and chicken kind of chewy. But believe me I have had worse, it was not all that bad. The desert was too die for!!! Tiramisu was amazing!!!
Oriental
This is right next door to the Italian Restaurant. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the food was. As with all the a la cartes, the appetizers are given at once to share among the table. The menu gives you a selection to choose from for your entre; meat- chicken, pork or seafood-fish, shrimp, your choice of either fried or grilled. Than you choose a sauce- hot and spicy, mild, vinaigrette. Than you choose a garnish – noodles, rice, vegetables etc. I do not remember exactly what I ordered, but the result was basically a vinaigrette, shrimp stir fry and it was amazing!! Also note that there is a bar right in-between the Italian and Oriental restaurant and they make awesome drinks and it is always empty, therefore super fast service.
International
This one is located right at the main lobby on the top floor, right across the main bar. If you get a table right along the window, you can watch the nightly show, you just can’t hear it very well though. This restaurant offers the lobster or shrimp dinner at an extra charge. Since we were “VIPs”, ours was free. If you do want to splurge, the shrimp was very delicious and the lobster was not bad either, a little chewy (but I am not much of a fan of lobster anyways), we figured since it was free we would order it anyways. All in all it was very, very good.
Cuban
I was initially hearing mixed reviews about this restaurant, but we decided to give it a try anyways. This one is almost off the resort it seems. You have to leave past the front lobby and entrance, walk to your right and go down the dirt path on your right, across from the little shops. I had thought that we most have gotten lost or something when we came to it. The restaurant is actually a tiny little Cuban house, literally. It was adorable. You walk onto the front porch, it only has two rooms, with maybe 5 tables at the most. I loved it!! And the food was also very good. I had a salad to start, with some sort of sliced cheese with it, it was soooo good. And for my entre I had salmon, also very yummy. I have no complaints about this one. You got to try it, especially for its surroundings.
BBQ
This one was one of my favourites. Located right beside the Cuban restaurant, it is an outdoor restaurant. Once again, the food was delicious. You can choose from various meats and fish, grilled on the bbq, with various sauces and sides. Definitely loved this one by far. The grilled fish was superb, with grilled vegetables and potatoes. The veg was good (I couldn’t help but ask for seconds).
Seafood
We had reservations for this one and we could not make it, I cannot remember why. So therefore I cannot give you a review of it. I am assuming it is good, since the rest were as well.
I am so thankful that we had all these a la cartes, but I would have been starving and bored of the buffet food.
Lunch/ Snacks
I think we all eat lunch probably 3 times the whole week. The reason for this was not because we were not hungry, but because there was so many people that if you arrived at either the buffet or the restaurant by the pool, or the pizzeria for lunch, as usual, you would have to wait and waste your time waiting a good 30 – 40 mins., just to be seated.
I never ate at the buffet for lunch, so cannot review it.
There is a restaurant by the pool area on the other side that serves, burgers, hotdogs, salads, poutines (my bf liked it) etc. The food was acceptable. They had a bbq grill stationed next to this restaurant that always had a huge line up for burgers and hotdogs. It is faster ordering it once in the restaurant, rather than standing by the grill.
One place you have to go for lunch, no questions asked is the Pizzeria by the beach. Homemade, fresh out of the oven, thinned crust, delicious pizza. It was defiantly worth the one hour wait. They got like 7 or 8 different kinds of pizzas to choose from. Since there was a group of 7 of us, we ordered all of them to try, and than some…. Apparently the pizza served at the Italian Restaurant for dinner tastes even better!!!
There is a 24 snack bar at the lower level at the main lobby, beside the stage area. There snacks are ham and cheese, tuna, hotdogs and burgers. The only time that food tasted good was after drinking and dancing at the disco. I do not like ham, but apparently I ate two of those sandwiches one night! Anyways, pretty basic, nothing fancy.
Bars
There are 5 bars, that’s including at the disco and pool bar. I will warn you, bring a mug of your own. They do use glasses at the lobby bar. I usually order my first drink at the lobby bar in the evening after dinner and use the same glass throughout the evening, unless you want to resort to small plastic ones. They are definitely not stingy on their alcohol. Bahama Mama…yummy… and Cappuccino in a tall glass with their baileys is a most! Don’t be picky and try a variety of drinks. And if they do not know how to make what you requested, they will be glad to anyways, as long as you know what is in it (and than you can name it, and they will remember to make it for you again if you ask…) Once again though, they did begin to run out of essential alcohol mid day or evening, such as vodka. Oh well, Cuban Rum it is!
Excursions/ Activities
Because of the windy weather and rather cooler weather that we had, we couldn’t go snorkeling or paragliding, which I really wanted to do. However, we did go horse back riding for 10 CUC per hour. So worth it!!! We had a blast. The trail you go on, goes past two other resorts and along a cliff over looking the ocean, stunning! Be careful of the brown horse with the white strip down the middle of his nose, he is VERY energetic!! It was a lot of fun.
There are various other excursions provided by your travel carrier that you can do. But that was all we did. I didn’t mind lying by the pool all day.
Entertainment/ Disco
Some nights were better than others when it came to nightly entertainment. They always started the show with song trivia. A song is played and you need to run on stage and guess the title and artist. If correct, collect a ticket, if incorrect, they collect a piece of your clothing! The one with most tickets at the end, gets a bottle of rum. The best show was of Mr. Cayo Coco, which is always fun to see other guests makes fools of themselves (my bf included..lol). One night was an Honour to Classic films. That was very entertaining. All in all it was ok. After the show, they open the disco, located on the lower level of the lobby, “La Vida Loca!” A variety of music! However an overload of salsa music. It becomes very repetitive after a while. It is pretty obvious that the young entertainment staff pretty much run what they want to hear, unless you fork a peso or two and request a song. But we had fun nonetheless. Their hotel theme song and dance is a lot of fun, especially when the entire dance floor is filled and we all into a line and do the dance. I know cheesy, but it was fun!!
There was a night offered to visit a popular club off the resort called “The Cave” for an additional 20 or 25 CUC (don’t remember). The bus takes you there and back, with drinks included. However, I heard that drinks were almost impossible to get without a tip and extremely slow. We skipped that altogether.
All in all it was ok.
Minus the cooler weather (still sunny all week, just windy), minus the overcrowded resort full of Quebecors (no offense, some are very annoying) and minus the tsunami warning that Tuesday (yes it lasted for 2 hours after the Haitian earthquake) it was alright. In all honesty I would not recommend this hotel. For what it is worth, if you want a place to just party, be prepared to compensate by overcrowding and lack of organization and service at the main desk. I do not regret going to Tryp, but I would not go again. It was only fun because there was a group of us. If you are planning to go just go you and your significant other, please reconsider. I hope I did not come across as being very cynical and annoying. I just wanted to be honest and helpful. If you have any questions please feel free to message me.
Ciao
