Club Amigo Carisol Los Corales All Inclusive

“TRUTHFUL AND HONEST”

Stayed at this location for one week. Knew full well that the resort is only a three star and had seen many pictures and videos beforehand as well as read some reviews and therefore knew what to expect. We were meeting friends and therefore the vacation was about spending time together more than an… more

Stayed at this location for one week. Knew full well that the resort is only a three star and had seen many pictures and videos beforehand as well as read some reviews and therefore knew what to expect. We were meeting friends and therefore the vacation was about spending time together more than anything else. The staff was very friendly and accommodating. No complaints there. The resort itself is mediocre, in need of repairs and updating, but for the most part clean. For those who are interested in the utmost luxury, this is not THAT resort by any means. I personally did not eat any of the food because it wasn’t appealing to me (brought my own) and it’s very different from what I’m accustomed to. That being said, I noticed many guests who appeared to have no issues and I never felt that there was a shortage. However, I did notice a shortage of beverages. They don’t have a huge variety of alcohol. Pretty sure they only had rum and beer. At times when I would ask, they had bottled water and other times they did not. Sometimes they had orange pop, sometimes they did not. They did serve piña colada’s, although they were more milky rather than slushy. They served cappuccinos and espressos daily, and I enjoyed those. Bring toilet paper/wipes if you can because there is a shortage. We left the resort several times to visit the nearby villages. It was heartbreaking. The living conditions are something else. Made me feel guilty about staying at the resort, which for me wasn’t anything extra special, but for them is a luxury that so many could not afford. The weather was fantastic and the staff go above and beyond to accommodate. I had read many reviews saying that they had no water. Perhaps we lucked out because we had hot water the entire week, except for the very last day when we had no water at all. The power went out several times, but always came back within minutes/seconds. They have free Wi-Fi which they allot to you hours at a time. Our room consisted of two double beds, a TV, a fridge. I would tend to say that it was mostly seniors that stayed at the resort and was pretty barren until the end of the week, at which point many of the local Cubans arrived to relax and unwind. I find Cubans to be very bubbly people and know how to party, so it does tend to get loud. I did note that when they arrived, the restaurant was packed and seating was an issue. The nightly entertainment consisted of bingo and performances that include lip syncing, dancing and a fire eater. The beach is not what you expect when you hear about Cuba. The water is not turquoise and consists of rocks, seaweed and sea urchins, so beware. That being said, many guests found a small area free of these obstacles and were able to enjoy a good swim. There is a small bar on the beach and they offer massages. It is a 4 hour bus ride from Holguín to the resort and the roads are very bumpy at times. Our driver and his assistant Orlando were wonderful. Overall I enjoyed my stay because I knew what I was walking into. However, I was shocked to see how many of the older male guests are paying to spend time with young Cuban women. It was quite disgusting. These men should be ashamed to do so, particularly because I’m sure they may have had young daughters at one point in time and would not appreciate old men doing the same with their loved ones. I watched a pair of 70 year old men spend day and night with 20 and 22 year old sisters during my entire stay. While at the beach I watched them playfully bury one of the men in the sand and it felt so wrong. I felt overwhelming sorry for these girls as I know they feel they have no other option, but these men!!!! Ewwwww!!! On another occasion I listened to three dirty old men discuss their experiences at the bar in the lobby as I ordered my cappuccino. There were other women including myself present during their VERY LOUD conversation. Talking as though they were adolescent boys. No respect for others as they openly discussed about their body parts (shriveled nonetheless and most likely not working as well as they were making out) and what not. So if you are traveling with your teenage daughters, this may not be ideal. These men should be ashamed of their pedo behavior but instead walk around like they’re something special. I met a man whose wife only just passed recently who vacationed with her to this resort and returned to “fraternize” with a young girl so soon afterward. I also met a man whose marriage did not survive due to the extra-ciricular activities he was engaging in while vacationing here years ago with his entire family present. The other thing that is heartbreaking are the poor animals. So many stray dogs and cats. The cats didn’t look particularly unhealthy, but the dogs… the dogs were another story. This saddened me. And I fed them food from the resort, not gonna lie. I figured if I wasn’t eating it, they could have my portion. Poor sweet things. Skinny, infested with mites and mange and God knows what else. Afraid to be approached. None of them neutered/spayed and popping out litters after litters of puppies. In fact, a litter of puppies had been born under one of the neighboring cottages, and although I could not see them, I could hear them. Born to the same fate as their parents. It broke my heart. I recall feeding a couple of dogs one evening, placing food for them on the concrete walkway and one of the three disgusting men from the lobby earlier in the week disappointedly remarking that people would now have to walk on it. I replied that there would be nothing left once the dogs were through and wanted to add that it couldn’t be any worse than what he came to Cuba for and that his topic of discussion amongst the other guests was far worse than anything I had done. I am rating this resort as a 3/5 because I am happy with the staff’s efforts to try to make our vacation a success considering what little they have and the conditions of Cuba at the moment. I would not return to this resort nor any other resort in Cuba. It’s just too sad.

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“Best January weather ever, a very enjoyable vacation”

It was our 15th trip to Cuba since 2009 and third to the Hotel Carisol los Corales, so we knew what to expect. We paid $1,295 CAN per person for 2 weeks (from Toronto) for a junior suite in the Carisol Section. We departed Toronto on January 8, 2020 from Toronto’s Pearson Airport (Sunwing Airlines… more

It was our 15th trip to Cuba since 2009 and third to the Hotel Carisol los Corales, so we knew what to expect. We paid $1,295 CAN per person for 2 weeks (from Toronto) for a junior suite in the Carisol Section. We departed Toronto on January 8, 2020 from Toronto’s Pearson Airport (Sunwing Airlines). The take-off was late due to deicing. The flight lasted 3 hours and 41 minutes and we landed in Santiago de Cuba. Because of TripAdvisor’s Cuban forums, I knew that unexpectedly the US dollar had become a hot commodity in Cuba—and we happened to have plenty of US dollars anyway. Within minutes of getting on the bus we exchanged $200 US and got 200 CUC—more than enough for our whole stay. I also ran to the nearby kiosk and got 2 cans of Cuban beer (Cristal). It turned out that I bought the last 2 cans—and that was the only Cuban beer (in cans or bottles) I had during my whole trip. Some tourists also discovered that their luggage was not on the plane and it was supposed to be delivered the next day(s). It took us over 1 hour to get to the hotel. Our very nice and personable rep on the bus, Sahidy, told us a lot of interesting things on Cuba. HOTEL We got the Junior Suite C-3 (upper level). We were not very thrilled with the room (or rather the location of the building), but decided to stay—we liked better the Junior Suite H-4, where we had stayed previously. We had the same maid as 2 years ago, Martha. The staff were overall nice and helpful, although I saw a lot of new, young people working at the reception and most of them barely spoke English—and I had a feeling they were not too eager to practice their meager linguistic skills with tourists. The two-level room was nice, but there was cold & hot water, although the pressure was bad in peak hours. Otherwise everything else worked (A/C, TV, fridge, hairdryer). There was no phone in the room. We had to ask for the safe a few times—eventually it was brought (!) to our room and bolted to the wall (2 CUC per day). Both the safe and the room use traditional keys, so bring a lanyard. IMPORTANT!!! Some electrical outlets in the room were 110 V, others 220 V and they were NOT clearly marked, so ASK the maid before using them or you might damage your electronics! We brought a small coffee maker (and coffee) along with a surge protector bar—2 year ago, due to a spike after a power outage, we had lost our coffee maker. There was no Canadian channel on TV, only the CNN, which I never liked watching. We tried to watch the 6 pm news, but sometimes such ‘momentous’ news like the story about the royal couples announcing their intention to step back as senior members of the royal family took up the first 20 minutes, relegating other ‘inconsequential’ news items as the Ukrainian plane disaster, Iranian Crisis or the coronavirus outbreak in the background! That was why we spent just minutes watching TV. From our balcony we could see the ocean and, mostly covered by vegetation, the ruins of old hotel buildings (disco), destroyed years ago by a hurricane. There were always various animals grazing the grass around, mostly horses and donkeys (with cattle egrets hanging around them), which gave this place a very rustic look. Cats and dogs were not as numerous as in the past. The beach was nice and the beach guys quickly brought us loungers. The coco bar served cold beer and other drinks—Frank the bartender did a great job and I especially loved the piña colada. There was a massage place on the beach and Catherine had a massage every day. I hoped to do snorkeling, but every day was quite windy and there were relatively high waves near the reef, making snorkeling there too risky. But closer to the shore I did see a lot of colorful fish and even a moray eel, luring from an opening in a rock. We had the best January weather ever in Cuba: every day was sunny, about +30 C and it rained a few times, but by the time we reached our room, the sky was blue again. Because of the wind there were no mosquitos or other bugs. The Carisol section (where we stayed) was much quieter than the los Corales section, where all the entertainment took place—and it was one of the main reasons we decided to stay in the Carisol part of the resort. On the bus to the resort we ran into a couple from Streetsville that we had met at the hotel two years ago and during our stay we frequently enjoyed dinners together. We also (finally!) met in person two well-known TripAdvisor members, Cubacarol and CubanQueen, whose posts I had read for many years and often relied on their valuable advice. In fact, it was CubanQueen who had recommended our casa particular in Santiago de Cuba in 2010! We met Karen from Quebec, with whom we had gone biking two years ago to the Jardin de Cactus and whose excellent Spanish greatly enhanced our outing! Besides, we often intermingled with other tourist from Canada and exchanged a lot of interesting stories on travelling in Cuba and in other countries. FOOD/DINING The food was average, but tasty and I had no complains. For breakfast I always had fried eggs, coffee and yogurts. Most of the time we skipped lunch, but a few times we went to the Ranchon Restaurant for excellent ribs and fish. Dinners offered a lot of various dishes. I loved grilled pork at the cooking station, it was delicious—unfortunately, twice I tried beef and it was tough & stringy—well, at least the local dogs enjoyed it… We brought several salad dressings which greatly enhanced the taste of salads. Yet after a week I did experience some mild stomach problems—there was nothing wrong with the food, but I guess the greens did not agree with my gut flora. Although we never noticed any beer or wine shortages in the resort, the wine was ‘rationed’—the servers poured only half a glass of wine and never left a bottle of wine on the table. Every evening a Cuban band would provide musical entertainment while we were dining. I had really mixed feelings about them: on one hand it was nice to listen to one or two songs and admire their artistic talents, but after a while they kind of overstayed their welcome, making it literally impossible for us to conduct any meaningful conversation at the table. The performers were standing very close to our tables and were very deafening! Even if Frank Sinatra were singing like that, I’d say, “Get lost, Frankie, and pop up somewhere else!” We were often relieved when they finally went elsewhere in search of other victims... I mean, tourists! HOTEL STORES (TIENDAS) For the first time in 11 years it was impossible to buy any Cuban beer in the hotel stores! What’s more, on the second day after our arrival I purchased one bottle of mineral water and 2 bottles of Cuban liquors—it turned out that from then on there were no liquors and no mineral water available at the store! I brought tabasco sauce, hoping to make a Bloody Mary—but there was no vodka and no tomato juice in the store either. Well, I’m glad that there was draft beer at the bars. RENTAL BIKES, WALKS AROUND THE HOTEL AND BUS TRIP TO SANTIAGO We had been looking forward to renting bikes at the hotel and exploring nearby attractions. This year there were only 4 bikes available for rent. We rode to the blow holes (past the aquarium) and then Catherine’s bike got a flat tire—it was literally peeling off the wheel, so it was impossible to even walk the bike. She rode my bike to the hotel and sent a horse carriage to pick up me and the broken bike. We got another one and the next day in the morning rode to the village of Baconao—just in time to see the start of the elementary school at 8:00 in the morning, where students were reciting some revolutionary stanzas and singing. Later we toured the small school and spoke to the teachers, giving them several bilingual periodicals. Since we were supposed to return the bikes at 10 am, I was already at the rental place at 9:45 am, but it was still closed. I waited for over one hour (in the meantime, two people wanted to rent scooters and another tourist was impatiently waiting to return one), but the rental place remained closed, its sole employee nowhere to be seen. Just before 11 am I dragged the bikes to the reception and in spite of the protestations of the reception clerk, I placed them in the storage room. I suspect that the hotel is going to be very pleased when the remaining bikes finally break down—one less issue to deal with! In the morning we walked around the hotel and twice explored the nearby caves along the coastal cliffs with indigenous cave art from Central and South America (Exposición Mesoamericana). On a couple of occasions we spoke to the gardener working there—he showed us bats (“murciélagos”) attached to the caves’ walls. We also noticed that the restaurants that we had seen two years ago were gone. The hotel offered a free trip to Santiago de Cuba, which was leaving at 10 am on Saturday and we took advantage of it twice. The first time the bus was full, the second time there were two buses and there were still some empty seats on the second bus. Each time Julio, a very entertaining man, was our guide on the bus and kept regaling us with a lot of interesting stories. Overall, we experienced less problems than 2 years ago, the weather considerably better and we had a very good time. Of course, we always travel to Cuba with a very open mind and do our best to overlook as many flaws as possible—after all, we come to enjoy our vacation, NOT to complain! Yet it’s obvious that this resort needs a lot of renovations and enhancements—thus, I’m not surprised that some tourists are disappointed. Unfortunately, given the current economic problems in Cuba (furthermore exacerbated by the unexpected coronavirus situation), I’m not very optimistic that any significant improvements will take place any time soon. So if you go, just focus on the positive and have a great time!

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