Cuba - Varadero - anyone been?

[pinkjoolz]

Just curious as whether anyone has been? I think we have decided to go for 14 nights in May 2009 and if anyone has been are there any hotels that are recommended. I have looked on trip advisor and the 2 hotels that I am looking are both highly rated. But as you all are such a friendly and informative bunch you may have some more info.

[Simon Veness]

I can't offer any insight into it myself, but I have a feeling there are a couple of people here on the forums who have been (martin - has Lisa been there??). From what I know, it is a wonderful place to visit but still with some patchy infrastructure and quite serious poverty in places. They seem to need tourist cash quite badly, so it's probably a cheap place to visit for a while. Poeple keep waiting for Cuba to open back up to the US market once more, but that doesn't look like happening anytime soon, so it shouldn't be too crowded.

[martin1]

no sorry we didnt go there we went to cayo coco which is one of a group of islands just off the mainland of cuba sorry

[pinkjoolz]

Update
Just to say we have booked our holiday to Cuba for May next year!! We threw caution to the wind and are pushing the boat out so we are going to be staying in a hotel with pure luxury and have opted for premium seats on the flight. Booked it through Thomas Cook who gave us the best deal:happy-thumb

[martin1]

we went to cayo coco pink joolz which is a group of islands off the mainland and only accessible via a causeway. we went premium with thomas cook well worth it nice comfy seats and better entertainment and it has supposedly imprived since then