Hotel Nacional de Cuba Review

After our 10 day stay at Playa Pesquero we flew to Havana and spent 3 days at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba.

If you're looking for a hotel in Havana or if you've already booked your hotel I'd recommend taking a look at Tripadvisor's Reviews of Havana Hotels. You'll find reviews, photos and ratings of all the hotels written by people who have actually stayed there before. This is definitely worth checking out before you book. I always take a look here before I book a hotel to learn the truth!

Overall I enjoyed staying at the Hotel Nacional. It wasn’t the most modern hotel in the world and wasn’t a 5 star on the same scale as you would find in Europe, but the beautiful historical building and ambience of the place more than made up for this.

The hotel was built in 1930 and renovated in 1992. Over the years numerous famous guests have stayed at the Hotel Nacional, including Winston Churchhill, Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Marlon Brando and Ernest Hemingway.

The hotel has 457 rooms and 15 suites. We stayed in a standard room which was very spacious, but could have done with a lick of paint and a bit of modernising. You can see a photo of our room below:





The room had air conditioning, a marble bathroom with shower, bath and nice fluffy white towels, a mini bar, safe and good closet space. We also had a good view from our window of the swimming pool and the surrounding area as you can see from the photo below.





The hotel’s facilities included two good sized swimming pools, 6 bars, a buffet restaurant, fine dining restaurant, American style diner restaurant and a barbeque restaurant, shops, travel agent, money changing facilities.

We had a few cocktails at the Galeria bar overlooking the hotel gardens during our stay. This was a lovely relaxing place to sit – if you go there make sure you have at least one drink here. The Pina Coladas and the Mojitos are excellent and not expensive, although service can be a bit slow at times so don’t go if you’re in a rush!

On our first night we were too tired to go out so ate at the BBQ restaurant in the hotel gardens. The restaurant served barbeque fish and meats and creole style food and was nice enough and not too expensive. We also had lunch at the American diner restaurant while we were there which was good if you are just looking for a decent burger and chips.

The hotel had lovely tranquil grounds with views of the sea, the Malecon and the historical city centre. The location of the hotel isn’t ideal as it’s a few miles from the historical centre and you need to get a taxi there (around 4 cuban convertible pesos) or face a long walk in the sun. If we were to come to Havana in the future we would probably go for a hotel in the centre instead.






My only complaints about the hotel were that the food at the buffet breakfast wasn’t up to much (probably because I was comparing it to the buffet breakfast at Playa Pesquero!). Also, we had a feeling that there were a few dishonest members of staff in the hotel. On the first day I left a tip for the maid. We came back to our room early and the room hadn’t been made up, but the money was gone. We also felt that someone had been rummaging around in our suitcases and each time we returned to the room the door of the cupboard that housed the safe was also open. We locked all our valuables in the safe and didn’t actually have anything stolen, but we definitely noticed something funny going on. 2 other couples that we had met while at Playa Pesquero also had this same feeling. If you are staying here, just make sure you lock up all your valuables.

The rack rates for the hotel start at $170 for a double room, but works out much cheaper if you book it as part of a package deal (for example our 2 week holiday including 10 nights all inclusive in Playa Pesquero, 3 nights in the Hotel Nacional, flights from London and an internal flight between Holguin and Havana came to £880 each





Visit Trip Advisor's Reviews of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba to see what other people think of this hotel.

Holguin Daytrip

If you are spending your whole vacation at the resort without a visit to Havana, then you really should take at least one day out of the resort and see the real Cuban life. Most of the tour companies offer various day trips for around $40-100 including a day trip to Holguin, a catamaran trip, swimming with dolphins, day trip to Santiago de Cuba and a few others.

We decided on a day trip to Holguin, which is the nearest city to Playa Pesquero (Guardelavaca).





You’ll immediately notice the stark contrast between the luxury of your resort and the “outside world”. It’s like stepping back 40 years in time. The roads are very quiet, as having a car in Cuba is a luxury. Most of the cars on the road are 1950s American Classic cars, or Ladas. There are also plenty of horses and carts, bicycles and motorcycles with side cabs! There is a serious lack of public transport in Cuba and the most common way of getting about is by hitchhiking. Our tour guide told us that she would hitchhike home each day after the tour was finished. Both she and the driver lived in Holguin, but after dropping everyone off at the end of each day, they weren’t allowed to take the tour bus back to Holguin, they had to hitchhike. If that day’s trip had been to Santiago to Cuba, this meant that she would be hitchhiking home at 10pm. She assured us that it was very safe to hitchhike in Cuba, but it just doesn’t seem right to me.

Our first stop on the trip was to a Cigar factory. We had to leave our cameras in the bus as no photos were allowed inside the factory. We were given a tour of the factory, which was very interesting, but I felt very conspicuous walking around while all these people were working so hard rolling cigars for the average wage of $10 per month. We met one guy in his 60s or 70s who had worked at the factory for 40 years! I just couldn’t imagine going to this place day in, day out for this length of time. This guy was the only person allowed to roll the most expensive cigars. Each cigar he made was sold for around $300 – more than his yearly salary. The workers are allowed to listen to music, smoke cigars, eat and drink while they work as long as they meet there quota of 100 cigars per day. At this point I felt that I would never complain about my own job again.

Our next stop was in the city of Holguin. Having only seen photos of Havana, I imagined that Holguin would be like a smaller version of Havana, with its Colonial style buildings. It was actually nothing like this. It seemed more like a small town than a city and was full of crumbling old buildings. Our bus took us up to the top of a hill (which I now can’t remember the name of) and we had some amazing views of the city – see the photo below:





After 15 minutes or so of wandering round the top of the hill and taking lots of photos we drove down into the city itself. We wandered around and took a few photos of the main square then went to see some African Cuban people dancing. At the end of the show I was dragged up on to the “stage” area to dance with the most fearsome looking African guy. Stuart and a couple of the other people on the tour were also dragged up by some of the others. I just decided “what the hell” and let the dancer swing me around and tried to copy what he was doing. Unfortunely my cut off jeans weren’t up to the strain of this energetic dancing and I was mortified when my jeans ripped right along the seam on the crotch area! Aaaaahhh!!!! Luckily I don’t think that many people noticed this, but I felt pretty self conscious for the rest of the tour.





After the African dancing we went up into the nearby hills and had a creole lunch at a farm restaurant with an amazing view over the countryside below. The meal consisted of a chicken/pork meaty thing which was nice enough, but a bit fatty and some really nice rice and black beans. We enjoyed our lunch over a beer and had a really interesting chat with the tour guide and learned a lot from her about Socialism and Cuban life. She went to university in Holguin and speaks fluent English and German

After lunch we went back to Holguin for an hour and wandered round a bit taking a few photos, then had a beer in a nearby bar before our 1 hour journey back to the resort.





Overall it was an interesting tour and the tourguide was fantastic and had lots of interesting stories about Cuba and Cuban people to tell us.

Our Stay at Playa Pesquero

There’s not a whole lot to say about our stay here. We spent most of the time just chilling out and did more or less the same each day.

We were there in May which is the start of the rainy season, so we were a little worried about how much rain there would be. I expected that we would get rain each day for a couple hours, but it wasn’t like that at all. On our first full day it rained almost all day and it didn’t just rain, it poured down and bounced of the ground. See the photo below, taken from our balcony on day 1:





Unfortunately there ‘aint much to do in an all inclusive resort when it’s raining apart from play pool, play table tennis, eat and go to the bar. Each time it rained the lobby bar suddenly filled up. On our second day I started to get worried when we woke up to even more rain. Luckily it cleared up in the afternoon and we were blessed with 6 whole days of glorious sunshine with barely a cloud in the sky.

We spent most of our days in the resort relaxing. We’d get up just after 9, go for breakfast, lie and read at the pool or at the beach, go swimming, have lunch in the Beer Garden or the Trattoria, perhaps have a little siesta, have a drink at the bar then do some more relaxing and swimming at the pool, with perhaps a little walk on the beach or round the resort. Ah - this is the life! In the early evening we’d play some tennis or just laze about in our room, then make a visit to the lobby bar for a cocktail or a glass of fizz, have dinner, have some more drinks in the lobby bar, then collapse in bed after our long hard day.





This was the pattern for most of the holiday, which suited me fine as I could recharge my batteries, read lots of good books and forget all about work.

Playa Pesquero Review - the Food and drink

This was my first experience of an all inclusive resort. I had no idea how I was going to restrain myself with the constant food and alcohol. Anyway, I was pleased to say that I came back only 3 pounds heavier, so it wasn’t as bad as I feared!

At the time we were there the Playa Pesquero resort had 5 a la carte restaurants. An Asian restaurant called the Asiatic, an Italian restaurant called the Gondola, a vegetarian restaurant, a seafood restaurant and a romantic restaurant called the Romantico. For each week that you stay in the resort you get 4 a la carte bookings, which you book at the beginning of your stay. We were pretty pissed off as although we were staying for 10 days, we were still allowed only 4 a la carte bookings. To me this didn’t seem very fair – for a weeks stay you get 4 bookings, for a 2 week stay you get 8 bookings, so it would make sense that you get 6 bookings for a 10 day stay. Despite politely complaining to the person doing the restaurant bookings, the manager and our tour rep, we didn’t have any success in getting 6 bookings. Unfortunately this meant that we had to eat at the buffet restaurant for 6 nights out of 10!





Although the food wasn’t as good as what I’ve experienced when I eat out in restaurants at home, or when I’m going out on a non all inclusive holiday, in general I was pretty happy with the food. I didn’t think that the Asiatic or the Gondola restaurant were up to much, but the others we pretty good. If you enjoy seafood you will be in heaven here as there is always a good choice of fresh seafood on all the menus. I had a whole lobster for the first time, which was fantastic.

In all the restaurants and buffets there was generally a choice of two different white wines – Spanish or Cuban and two different red wines. The Gondola and the Romantico restaurant had a full wine list with a great choice of wines from all over the world. I’m a white wine drinker and found the Cuban wine preferable to the Spanish wine in the restaurants, but not as nice as the wine I normally drink. I was glad to get my hands on a Chilean Chardonnay at the Gondola and Romantico restaurants.

In each of the restaurants you could have a starter, main course and dessert and the menu had around 3 choices for each course.

There were also two buffet restaurants which were open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, although at the time we were there only one of the buffet restaurants was open. For breakfast there was a huge choice of food – bread, cheese, different kinds of cheese and cold meat, eggs, bacon, sausages, lots of fresh fruit including pineapple, papaya, mango, melon, bananas, fresh orange juice, milkshakes, cereals, cakes, toast, smoked salmon and much more. It would be easy to eat enough here to fill you up till dinner time.

I never went to the buffet restaurant at lunchtime. Instead we preferred to go to the Trattoria – an Italian restaurant serving excellent thin pizzas, pasta and salad, or to the Beer garden which served the most amazing thick home made burgers with chips (fries). The seafood restaurant was also open at lunchtime, so you could have some fish and rice or salad by the beach.

The buffet also had a great selection of food at dinner time, but I did get tired of it after having to eat there 6 times! The food included different types of fish and meat, paella, vegetables, cold meat, cheese, bread, pasta and pizza, a salad bar, fresh fruit, chips (fries), cakes, ice cream. Some of the food was nice and some not so good. Again if you liked seafood you would be happy.

If you are a vegetarian then you’ll probably find it quite difficult here. I didn’t spot any vegetarian choices on the a la carte menus. So unless you are eating in the vegetarian restaurant each night you may find limited choices at dinner time. Breakfast and lunch should be easy enough.

We also enjoyed having a few drinkies while at Playa Pesquero resort. The selection of drinks at the resort is pretty vast and includes the very tasty Cuban Crystal Beer, 3 different kinds of Havana Club (rum), wine (red, white & sparkling), vodka, gin and all the spirits you can imagine, an extensive cocktail list, whiskey, liquers and lots more. The nicest place to have drinks was in the lobby bar (see photo below):





The Beer Garden was also a nice place to have a beer and cool down in the afternoon.

Playa Pesquero Review - sporting facilities and entertainment

As well as the swimming pools and the water sports facilities there were also 3 tennis courts, a five aside football pitch, a basketball court, a badminton court, archery, 3 pool tables, 4 table tennis tables. There was also a small gym with modern looking cardio equipment and weights. Despite all our good intentions we never made it to the gym. Our excuse was that there was no air conditioning in the gym 

We found that it was far too hot during the day for tennis but had a few games in the early evening and we always managed to get a free court with no problems. As we were there at the beginning of the rainy season we found that the table tennis and pool came in handy on a rainy day – at least it stopped us from hanging around at the bar constantly!

There was a program of entertainment throughout the day, which looked pretty varied. We never took part in any of it but I’m sure it would be great for kids. We heard the entertainment at night, but never went to watch any of it

Playa Pesquero Review - pool and beach

The grounds were beautiful – lots of grass, trees and flowers with paths leading to the rooms, beach, pools and restaurants. There always seemed to be lots of staff working hard in the garden and they were very friendly – always smiling and stopping to say hello.

The main swimming pool was amazing – see the photos below. The water was always a nice temperature (although sometimes too warm when the sun was blazing down). There was a bridge breaking it up into two halves. One half had the swim up bar and always seemed pretty busy. We preferred the other half, as it was a bit more peaceful.





There were always plenty sun loungers available and we never had any problem finding a space to lie. There were also lots of shaded places to sit, but these seemed to be more popular and we never seemed to manage to get one of these. Annoyingly a lot of people put their towels down there and never seemed to actually be there.

You were never far away from getting a cold drink as there was always a member of staff wandering around with a portable bar where you could get soft drinks, water, beer, vodka, gin or Bacardi.





There was also another smaller swimming pool for water sports and a Jacuzzi, filled with cold water rather than hot.

The beach at Playa Pesquero was amazing. Fine white sand, clear blue water and plenty sun loungers to lie on. There were Hobi Cats, Pedal boats and sea kayaks at the beach that you could use for no charge. We walked along to each end of the beach a few times during our stay and it takes at least 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other. Most of the beach was part of the Playa Pesquero resort but there were also another two hotels towards the other end of the beach.

Playa Pesquero Review - The Rooms

Our room (as you can see in the photo below) was very spacious and had a good sized king bed, nice clean bathroom with bath and shower, a balcony (or veranda if you’re on the lower floor), air conditioning, TV, fridge, CD player, hairdryer, iron, ironing board – basically everything you need for your stay.



The rooms are cleaned every day and the fridges, which contain a large bottle of water, two cans of Cuban Coke and 2 of the smallest cans of beer in the world are restocked daily. We left tips and little gifts for the maid each day and we were rewarded with lovely towel sculptures on our bed, which seemed to get more elaborate as the week went on. The finale was two swan-like creatures with their necks pointing towards one another in a love heart shape, in a basket, with flowers and my sarong flowing out from behind them over the bed!

My only complaint about the room would be that the towels were a bit rough and often in their towel sculpturing frenzy the maids would forget to leave the right number of towels! The cushions and top bed cover could also have done with a clean, but the pillow cases and sheets were perfectly clean so I guess that was the main thing.

The accommodation was in two-storey building, scattered throughout the resort. Ours was around a 10-minute walk from the beach and 5 minutes from the pool and the main lobby and buffet restaurants. Many of the other buildings were closer than ours and a few were further away. There are golf carts going round the resort all the time, so if you don’t feel like walking you can always get a lift.

If you want to look at more reviews of Playa Pesquero and other hotels in Holguin take a look at TripAdvisor's Holguin Resort Reviews