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I found Cuban food lacked in freshness; very little or no fresh fruit or vegetables. I stayed at Club Puntarena, but I had others say the same about the food in their resorts. The pasta made to order was okay.
Club Puntarenas
Hotel Class: 
3.5 Stars - 2 Reviews and 333 Opinions
Ave. Kawama Varadero, Varadero, Caribbean
of people enjoy staying here
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socheid
- Reviews: 244
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Clueless re buffets
The issue here was like a photocopy of what I said re the Melia Santiago de Cuba - they just don't have a clue about buffet management to protect against foodstuff cross contamination. If you are on any kind of a speciality diet then eat in this place at your own risk. I even asked one of the waiters could help me by pointing out what is and what isn't suitable for my diet. He said he couldn't as he wasn't the chef. I asked hotel reception to get me the duty manager to help and that turned out to be the head chef who genuinely tried to help. That though is brushing the fundamentals that they don't know how to manage a buffet for specialist diet requirements.
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Sharon
- Reviews: 767
User Rating
Some nice place to get lazy...
This Hotel is an all inclusive one. Not too big which is quite an advantage for me.
Quite nice and comfortable. lots of young people to meet. great private caribbean beach. What else do you need ?
- Opinion of Price: about average
Club Puntarenas Photo: The pool from the 6th floor
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superclub puntarena
superclub puntarena is a pretty good priced hotel with private beach,24 hour resterant,few resterants,etc....
BRAVO! Puntarena - best vacation ever
I just came back from 7 days in Puntarena and all i can say is i wish i had booked for 2 weeks!!!!!!
The staff was absolutely wonderful, friendly and always had a smile. Once you got used to the "Cuba time"(adding about 20 minutes to set schedules) you get to really learn how to mellow out. The bartenders were so amazing and wonderful and really know how to make women feel special! The drinks were fabulous aswell...my favorite - pina colada banana rum. Bring a Tim Horton's thermal large cup...they'll fill it up for you with pleasure and you will not have to get up every five minutes to get a drink as they have small plastic cups for the beach. I found what made the difference in having good service and amazing service was tipping about a peso a day..not a big deal and so worth the extra couple of bucks.
The Food: once i got the guts to try the food which didn't always look as good as it tasted, i was pleasantly surprised. The chicken and porc was fabulous..as was the fish. The pasta was never good unfortunately and the lobster was over cooked. Other than that it was great...we loved the bread. Fresh fruit was always plentiful. No worries with the water - it's purified, same goes for the ice cubes. The bar on the beach was fabulous..great fish and chicken. The grill on the patio was also very tasty.
The staff: what more can i say.. totally welcoming and friendly and i just wanted to hug them all. They were always willing to bend over backwards to help.
The rooms: nice, clean, bright. It's not a suite but hey - who's going to spend the whole vacation in your room!?!
Beach: the water is absolutely breath taking. The beach was superb white sands, some shells but nothing major. I must agree with Vince though that the drop off after about 4 feet in the water is a little scary - especially if you went in the water on yellow flag - it's so hard to keep your footing and when the bottom drops off so fast it's really hard to get out. That i found out by first hand experience.
The pool: very nice and clean. great activities - great entertainment staff.
Overall we arrived with a positive attitude and Puntarena and its staff did not disappoint! BRAVO!
Had a great time!
We vacationed at the Puntarena from Feb. 28- Mar. 8, 2006. We had a great time. It was my 4th time in Cuba and third time at the Puntarena. This time my daughter and her boyfriend accompanied me and my wife.
It took us a couple of days to adjust to the times of the buffets and the beach grill. That is one complaint I have. You can't eat when you want. I stayed at the Puntarena in 2000 when it was still a superclub and the food was a lot better. There was a 24 hour grill open at that time for hamburgers, hotdogs, fries, sandwiches. Now, I would suggest writing all the times down on paper or you could miss a meal.
Highly recommend dining at the beach grill. Chicken, pork, hamburgers, hash browns and a small buffet. It opened at 12 noon and closed at 3 p.m.(I think). You could get hotdogs and a grilled sandwich behind the hotel at a stand but most of the time there were birds picking off the sandwiches. THe buffet lunch and dinner was okay. We didn't starve. Would highly recommend the Italian a la carte restaurant. Would not recommend the Asian a la carte restaurant.(raw lobster, beef and chicken)
The staff were very friendly and helpful except for the front desk where we found them rude and not helpful at all. We found the hotel to be clean but could use a lot of updating, like with the elevators and other things. We liked our room, although we could have done without the ants. I hope none crawled in our suitcase.
The beach was nice, always lawn chairs available. There is quite a drop off so be careful walking out in the water. It drops off after walking out 2-3 feet. We had one red flag day and 3 yellow flags, other than that it was great. On one day it was really calm and we went snorkeling on the reefs just off the beach. Lots of fish to see.
The nightly entertainment was not that great so we usually spent the evening in the piano bar. There is a great atmosphere there. Lots of fun and mostly friendly people.
We went on one tour. We did the river safari on a jetski. We drove on a river, out to open ocean then visited a zoo and drove back. We enjoyed that very much.(Jetski's have standard steering. They were a little hard to steer.)
We rented a jeep from someone downtown for a day and rented a car from the the guy in the lobby for 3 days. We drove around the cities of Cardenias and Mantanzas. We drove out to the cave where you can go snorkeling (I think it was called Saturnos Cave). We rented a mopad from the guy just down from the Puntarena. Not a great experience. I would suggest renting from someone downtown instead. We have rented Mopads every other time and loved it. Just make sure the driver wears a helmet. The police were stopping and fining a lot of people.
Overall we enjoyed our stay at the Puntarena and would consider going to that hotel again.
Awesome time!
I was at Club Puntarenas from February 18th to March 7th.
Food: The food wasn't bad but nothing compared to Canada. The al a Cartes were pretty good. The international was better than the Italian. It saids you could only go twice but we were able to go 3 times and if we had enough time we would had gone a 4th time. WORD OF ADVICE, BRING YOUR OWN KETCHUP!!! The ketchup there in Cuba is horrible!
The midnight snack bar was great especially when we went out all night.
There’s a 24-hour bar that is open on the main floor.
Hotel: The hotel was kept very clean. Our room was on the sixth floor, which was good that it was not to close to the disco. We had the ocean view room and it is worth the extra money! The canal view room wasn’t bad but at night you can smell the oil refinery down the road. It smelt very bad! Only two of the three elevators worked at the hotel and sometimes only one worked. The elevator doors are dangerous. One time it closed on me but one of the other guest pushed the button on time to save me from being crushed. One of the other guest wasn’t so lucky, he had a door closed and him and he got a big cut.
The workers: The workers were nice except for the front desk workers. They seemed a bit snobby. They really appreciate what you can give them. The men workers are always trying to pick up the girls. So watch out! Alex the beach hut bartender is the sweetest person and he makes the best pina coladas!
Nightly Entertainment: Sometimes corny, but it passed the time!
Beach: the weather when we were there was great! We never had a red flag so we were always in the water. There is plenty of room and lots of chairs. The beach towel is recommended since it is only 10 peso and you get it back when you return the towel. We never had to wait to do any of the water activities. When we wanted to do it, we could right there. The water was nice and warm. We never saw any jellyfish or anything.
Excursions: The Discover Tour was amazing. You pay very little compare to what you get. We drove a jeep on the back roads, which was good to see how the Cuban people really lived. (The jeeps are standard) Bring candy and clothes to give to the children that you will pass. We drove on the back roads for a while before going onto a speedboat. We drove it down a river for about 20 km. awesome scenery! Then we got back into the jeep and drove it a cave! We were able to swim in the cave! And then we drove back in the jeeps. There were a couple of pit stops to get a drink. I recommend this excursion!
We also went to Havana for 40 pesos with one of the dancers. Very worth it! We had to buy our own food, and we were ripped off! We paid for tax and there is no tax in Cuba! If you ever go to Havana with a dancer, tell them to take you to a cheap place to eat, we had to pay 30 pesos each for lunch!!!
Overall, it was a great trip! We met a lot of good people and it was really relaxing.
Forum Posts
PLEASE HELP QUICKLY!
Hello, i am going to be booking a vacation in varadero at the Gran Caribe Club Puntarena. there does not seen to be alot of info about this resort but i have a very important question for anyone who can answer. What is the address of this resort?!? (which st or "calle"?) or is it close to the Palma Real area? Please help this is all i really need to know. thank you to anyone who can help!
RE: PLEASE HELP QUICKLY!
Gran Caribe Club is, as it name says, in Punta Arena, on the west coast of the narrow strip of land of Varadero...Palma Real is on the east coast, lil bit more north...but Varadero is not that big that you can't reach anywhere in a short time :)
Btw, the address is: Avda (avenida = boulevard) Kawama y Final
Here you can see a map of the area, with the location of major hotels
http://www.cubasun.net/varadero_map.html
Disfruta tu tiempo en Cuba
victoria
RE: PLEASE HELP QUICKLY!
Use your ISP url and go tho this link: http://www.gran-caribe.com/english/cuba_hotel.asp?id_hotel=107
RE: PLEASE HELP QUICKLY!
More specifically the address given is: Ave. Kawama y Final, Varadero, Matanzas, Cuba. Regarding the world wide web, you undoubtedly know that you can copy and paste the url from text into the URL locator bar and then Go to find the web address.
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The issue here was like a photocopy of what I said re the Melia Santiago de Cuba - they just don't have a clue about buffet management to protect against foodstuff cross contamination. If you are on any kind of a speciality diet then eat in this place at your own risk. I even asked one of the waiters could help me by pointing out what is and what isn't suitable for my diet. He said he couldn't as he wasn't the chef. I asked hotel reception to get me the duty manager to help and that turned out to be the head chef who genuinely tried to help. That though is brushing the fundamentals that they don't know how to manage a buffet for specialist diet requirements.
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Club Puntarenas
We've found that other people looking for this hotel also know it by these names:
- Gran Caribe Hotel Puntarena
- Gran Caribe Varadero
Address: Ave. Kawama Varadero, Varadero, Caribbean