TL;DR
In the weeks before we arrived, I read several negative reviews that worried me. Fortunately, cleanliness and food weren't as big of an issue as I thought they'd be, and overall, we had a great stay. That being said, my number one reason for staying at a resort isn't the food or the installations: it's being able to relax at the beach all day, every day, and feeling full, if not thrilled with the quality of the food. Unfortunately, the high occupancy rate at this resort meant that there weren't enough beach chairs, pool chairs or food for everyone. So unless we woke up extra early and rushed to reserve chairs (while risking getting our things stolen), the stress of which defeats the purpose of taking a vacation, we had to lay our towels down on the sand or by the pool. (#firstworldproblems) And unless we arrived at the buffet the second it opened, main food items, like bread, would run out before we got there. Given the exorbitant post-pandemic price we paid, this is unacceptable. For this reason, among others, I wouldn't recommend Meliá Las Dunas unless you're an early riser or willing to compromise on comfort and spend 45 minutes in line for food 3 times a day. Hotel management should consider accepting only as many reservations as they have resources to provide for. I'd say they're overbooked based on their actual service capacity.
LOBBY
Meliá Las Dunas has one of the biggest open lobbies in Cuba. I love its colonial-style design. It has plenty of cute seating areas and water bassins.
CHECKIN
Our flight arrived late, so we checked in near midnight. I've never seen so many busloads of tourists get off at a hotel all at once. Despite that, we hardly waited more than 5 minutes, and the receptionists managed to get us checked in quickly and efficiently. We were even given a map of the resort, which hotels had completely stopped doing during the pandemic, up until this year.
We didn't want to wait 10 minutes for a porter to come with a cart, so we walked to our room.
CHECKOUT
Checkout took a long time because there wasn't enough staff at the reception. The employee was so focused on checking someone in that he didn't even look up to ask me and someone else why we were waiting. He could have answered both of us in less than 30 seconds and continued the long checkin aftetwards. Instead, we waited over 15 minutes just to hand in a paper and ask a quick question.
We were told to leave our luggage at the lobby, but unlike at other hotels, there was no locked luggage storage room and we weren't given luggage tags, so anyone could access our suitcases.
GROUNDS
The grounds are huge, and everything is far apart. There aren't enough golf carts for everyone, so we had to walk 10 minutes to get to our room, 10 to get to the beach, 10 to the buffet, 10 to the gym... I wouldn't recommend this hotel for anyone with mobility issues.
The paths are a maze and the signage is faded, so it's easy to get lost. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the paths were well lit at night, which isn't the case at most Cuban resorts.
Hats off to the gardeners: the shrubbery is very well kept.
If you're using a wheelchair or stroller, keep in mind that several paths are made of uneven stones, not pavement. There are also no elevators in the bungalow buildings.
A fumigation truck passes in the evening to kill mosquitoes, but I still got bitten at night by jejenes (little black sand fleas).
I didn't see a single cockroach. There were lots of cute lizards and a couple of friendly cats.
ROOM
The room was as pictured: quaint and old, yet functional.
In Cuba, unless you're visiting a brand new hotel, it's nearly impossible to find everything in working order. Yet in our room, the air conditioner, fridge and safe worked just fine, all the doors locked, and the bed was comfortable. Most of the lights worked.
The shower had warm water sometimes and lukewarm water at peak times (which is plenty hot when you're sunburned). The sides of the tub were dangerously high. Kids and people with mobility issues might have trouble getting in. #accessibilityissues
There were signs of wear, like stains and rust, as well as a few tiny bugs crawling along the floor, but it was nowhere near as bad as I expected for an old hotel. The Meliá brand is usually a sign of quality.
The cleaning staff did a great job keeping our room mopped and our linens and towels fresh.
The drink service left us sealed water bottles every day, which was great. It would have been nice if they had left us canned drinks, too.
BUFFET
During the week, the hotel received two shipments of eggs for breakfast that lasted 3 days each. There were were 2 egg frying stations with lots of toppings. Saili at the egg station was very nice. There were plenty of breakfast items to choose from, including fresh seasonal fruit, salads, cold cuts, cheeses, sausages, veggies, cereals, pancakes, sliced bread, sweet buns, juices, smoothies and yogourts. One one day, they ran out of bread.
For lunch and supper, there was always a meat grill or a fish grill. Sometimes there was a fried rice or pasta station.
Considering that Cubans are taking to the street to protest food shortages, we can't complain about the mountains of food they're peparing for us.
Don't bother getting coffee at the buffet: it's just brown water. (Go to the bar.)
We've tried a lot of resorts, and according to my husband, this one has a decent quality meat. (I wouldn't know: I don't eat meat.)
The temperature in the buffet was just right near the entrance, but understandably hot near the grills. The floors were sometimes greasy and slippery.
We always sat near the entrance, and the waiters and waitresses, like Tony and Alejandro, were very nice and always made sure we had what we needed. Closer to the buffet, the staff is too busy.
I tried spaghetti once: never again. It was full of gorgojos (food bugs). I picked out at least 15 before giving up. Two days later, I passed by the pasta station and spotted a food bug in the spaghetti tray, confirming that the first time wasn't a fluke. I understand that Cuba is a tropical country and that it must be difficult to prepare food in bulk fot hundreds of people without the occasional bug making an appearance, but surely there must be a way to store grain in hermetically sealed containers or in a freezer to kill eggs. They could at the very least rinse off the food to get rid of pests.
On our last day, the guava was riddled with worm holes. Who knows how many bugs we unknowingly ate...
SNACK BAR
Open late. Some days they had rice, other days sandwiches, and on some days, nothing at all. #BYOS (bring your own snacks)
BAR
I live for authetic cuban espresso, and every day the lobby bar had freshly ground coffee with sugarcane stalks. What a great way to start the day.
TOWELS
No beach towels were provided in our room on the first day, and the toallero (towel shack) doesn't open until 10:00 a.m., so we had to go to the beach the first morning without towels. The hotel could do better on this front.
There were clean towels all week.
BEACH
The sand is soft and doesn't have coral, although there are some broken shells and a bit of seaweed. The water is crystal clear.
The tumbona/reposera (beach chair) and palapa (sun shelter) situation is RIDICULOUS and absolutely unacceptable. There aren't enough for everyone. For some reason, the hotel allows people to reserve chairs with towels early in the morning and come back only 4 hours later. In reality, very few people are actually at the beach in the morning, but people who are there in person don't have priority over absentees. If you ask me, it's quite unfair.
A lot of the chairs are broken, and most of them are sunken in and uncomfortable.
A lot of people end up laying their towels out on the sand or going to another resort. (The neighbouring resorts have many extra chairs.) We had to lay on the ground on one occasion. I didn't pay a small fortune just to get sunburnt from lack of shade and then literally have sand rubbed in the wound.
There's no drink service at the chairs, which is not what we expected from a 5-star resort.
Some guests are inconsiderate and smoke right next to everyone, but that's not the hotel's fault. Having a separate smoking section or non-smoking signs would be great.
WASHROOMS
None near the beach. Broken seats, no seats, wet floors, overflowing waste baskets and smelly by the lobby and pool. Hotter than a sauna.
ENTERTAINMENT
The hotel had a salsa festival. The entertainment team and dancers did choreographies and the crowd followed along. A lot of the music was catered to the many Argentinians staying at the hotel. There was also a foam party at the pool. Overall good entertainment. I just wish there was a discoteca at the hotel where we could dance the way we want instead of always line dancing, which can get boring after awhile.
WI-FI
We each got a login email and password at checkin with unlimited hours. There was spotty Wi-Fi in our room and in common areas, only a wisp of a signal near the beach boardwalk and none at all along the paths. The signal was so bad that it was nearly impossible to send or receive messages, let alone view media or web pages. Assume that you won't have reliable internet access and plan accordingly.
The Meliá login page is different from the usual nauta login page.
WEATHER
We came in late March. There was a huge rainstorm on our first night.
All week, the water was agitated. The weather was windy and chilly while somehow also being very sunny and hot.
