Melia Habana Hotel

, Havana, Cuba
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Melia Habana Hotel

, Havana
Ave 3 c/76 Y80, Miramar - Havana - Cuba Hotel Website | | 7/248500
436 Traveller

Reviews - Melia Habana Hotel

Historical Traveller Reviews of Melia Habana Hotel

Glad it was only one night!

from Govan Jaggie
Never a 5*! Pool looked great due to a storm we could not use it on our over night stay whilst on a Havana trip. Entrance looked grand but once on to the walk way to the rooms it looked like Butlins. The outside was very dated. The buffet only opened so many tables so you were encouraged to get out asap. The food was cold but at least they supplied a micro.
The room was large but very noisy. You could follow entire conversations from the people outside.
I would never use this as a base for Havana.

Quiet location, but not central.

from Bad Hotel r me
I have stayed in this hotel several times during business trips, the last was in late May 2007. In truth, it is a better choice for a business traveller than a holiday maker, especially one only 'doing' La Habana for 2/3 days before proceeding to Varadero as it is some distance by taxi into downtown Havana Vieja - definitely not walkable - and there is nothing else of note close by. That said, the hotel itself is of a good standard - the rooms are huge and all have balconies which overlook the sea or face the city itself and are well equipped and serviced.

The lobby area is large and busy, with 24 hr bar service. Once they know you, the staff are attentive and friendly, but it can be a little difficult to attract their attention at first - I recommend ordering your first drink by going up to the bar, repeat orders are then usually no problem. The hotel seems to rotate two evening bands, the better of them has a great old gentleman lead singer and some energetic young dancers. Importantly, they do not harass the customers to perform individual songs at their tables, as ifs very common in Cuba, although there is the usual collection and offer of a CD made later in the evenings.

The reception can be a bit chaotic, especially if there are large coach parties checking in, as happens regularly, so if there is one ahead of you, go have a mojito and wait till everything calms down.

The self service buffet breakfast is excellent, but what has become something of a standing joke with me is that getting a pot of coffee to accompany it is a challenge virtually every morning. There are plenty of staff, but they all seem to have perfected the art of looking straight through me and my attempts to catch their eye to get the coffee brought to the table!

The pool area is very extensive and clean, although again drinks service to your lounger is intermittent to say the least.

I had my hair cut in the hotel salon on this trip and it was a dream for me - 30 seconds of consultation followed by an excellent cut and colour executed by a very charming girl in under 30 minutes from start to finish.

I would also mention that during one visit, I was bitten very badly by mosquitoes (a hazard throughout La Habana at certain times of the year and they do buzz about the lobby area quite a lot) and ended up having to seek treatment for the very swollen bites. There is a fantastic twenty four hour medical service (doctor during the day and a nurse at night) at this hotel, if a prescription is required, as it was in my case, this is obtained from the next door hotel which has a pharmacy and the very helpful hotel staff fetched this for me. It is not free, but very efficient and reassuring.

All in all, a very good hotel doing their best in Cuba - where the embargo and general economic situation means that certain things taken for granted in the west don't always happen according to plan, e.g. maintenance on demand, the availability of certain foodstuffs and the occasional power cut (the hotel has its own emergency generator which usually kicks in within a minute of an outage) - but La Habana is like nowhere else in the world and well worth any minor inconveniences associated with staying there!

Nice place, a long way out

from CanadianFelix
Apart from being a long way from the action, this is a reasonably nice hotel, with a beautiful pool and fantastic food although it comes at a price. I also found the service in the lobby bar great, and met many nice people there, most were in cuba on business. If I were to travel to Havana again, I would definately try and find a hotel a lot closer to old Havana. a 10 dollar cab ride, 4 times a day adds up really quickly.

Daily toilet repair

from OceanBoulevard
This hotel wants to maintain its 4 star standards but it has problems. Every day our toilet broke, so it could not be flushed , every day we called maintenance for a repair, every day it was "repaired" and the next day it broke again. The problem was the pull mechanism. I have read that Cuba has difficulty with repairs because parts could not be obtained and while I am sympathetic, this hotel was priced as a 4 star.

Also, we were made uncomfortable by 2 staff members who clearly wanted us to help them emigrate to Canada. One staff member was the manager of the bistro in the hotel. Because the hotel was not close to any restaurants, we ate there. The food and price was fine but I dreaded going there, knowing he was going to start working on us every time we went to dinner. While we felt uncomfortable with this situation, we also felt uncomfortable making a complaint to the hotel manager because we did not know what the consequences would be.

On the positive side, the hotel is very attractive and most of the staff were very helpful and friendly. I had an ocean view room that would have been completely delightful if the toilet had worked properly.

overnight stay in havana

from stellapaul2003
Stayed at the hotel on a saturday night when in Havana on a tour for two days and found the place really clean, staff vey helpfull, rooms are great and the food was very good and varried.

There was a loud disco very close by, beware if staying for a while!

Would not hesitate to stay here again 5* all the way.

The hotel is located in a good area.

Upmarket, lacking Cuban character

from fish_fingers
Very brief (5 hour) stay because of flight delay.

Staff were slightly helpful.

Pool looked nice from a distance as did the other facilities, i.e. clean and well-maintained.

Food in the Miramar buffet was the best I'd seen in Cuba with plenty of choice and well-prepared.

Hotel location is well away from the Havana centre (Havana Vieja) and right next to the sea although the seafront is awful - sharp-rocked and unclean with what looks like an overflow/outlet cutting through the middle of it.

West-facing, 1st floor room was very spacious with everything in working order.

Get me outta here

from surreyfamily
We were also dumped here by Virgin due to the delayed flight. I agree with the previous review totally. And the powercut before we left was a real pain. No power in the bedrooms - showers in the dark and no hairdryer working. Felt like a refugee by the time we got back to Gatwick.....and on the 7th floor when the lifts were out of order!

Dreadful hotel - stay away!

from StuBray
We were dumped at this hotel by Virgin who had a delayed flight (29 hours late!). No wonder this hotel just happened to have 250 empty rooms at short notice - it is the worst hotel I have ever stayed in. Rude arrogant staff who do not care at all. Disgusting food, no room service (you call and they promise to come but never appear), broken appliances. It looks fine but the service and food are absolutely disgusting. I you have any choice go somewhere else!

Nice pool, shame about the service

from A TripAdvisor Member
We have just returned from spending 10 days at this hotel. The hotel from the outside looks a bit of 1960's monstrosity however the entrance and some of the public areas are really quite pleasant. On the positive side, the room itself was large with 2 double beds and a huge balcony overlooking the sea, which was great. Also the swimming pool was really nice - very large and landscaped with palm trees and tropical plants in the garden.

However, as is the case with many hotels in Cuba, this one certainly didn't live up to the 5 star rating. For example the level of cleanliness in the rooms was pretty poor, room service on one occasion took 2 hours for a sandwich, most of the flower-boxes around the balconies contained dead weeds, the light-bulbs weren't replaced and we had 2 holes in the balcony ceiling where we assume the outside lights should have been!!

The thing that really bothered me though was the poor service and the unfriendly attitude of some of the staff. In the morning it was often impossible to get coffee brought to the breakfast table (or to find a clean table in the first place!) and a few times when the coffee did finally arrive, it was brought from someone else's table and was cold! Also I suggest you check your bill carefully if you have used the mini bar!

Overall this isn't a bad option, although if you want to do some sight-seeing you may be better off staying closer to the centre of Havana.

Melia Habana Rotten Banana

from Nichola75
uThis hotel offered the most appalling service I have ever encountered. On arrival the staff were unfriendly and inefficient. For an international hotel the staff spoke very little English were poorly trained andinformed and completely demotivated. At breakfast there were no tables to be found and we were offered dirty tables to sit at. We protested but the staff resisted setting up a new table and we had to find our own cutlery. The staff were aggressive and did not attend to the clients with fresh coffee etc. The rooms were not cleaned to the standard you would expect from this class of hotel and we received no information on the hotel facilites or details of the four restaurants. Rather than concentrate on offering a good service the hotel was obsessed with penny pinching and even charged for the coffee we used in our room. On checking out we were 13cents short (as we had tp pay for the coffee) and the reception staff insisted we change more sterling to make this up. On speaking to other people on the flight home this kind of service seemed to be the norm in hotels in Havana. Bring on the Revolution!!

Top Local Tips for Havana

Mozzies and sanitary protection Bring mosquito repellant and use it. Also bring tampons if you will need them, they are virtually impossible to find locally

Don't give up easily: Cubacar offices do not share info among them! We weren't able to book a car from home, before flying out to Cuba. And when we got there, it seemed that it was going to be impossible. But have in mind that Cubacar offices do not share information among themselves! So if the staff in one office tells you they've run out of cars, go to the nearest branch (which may be only 100 yards away!) and ask again. Keep doing that. It may be a bit tirying, but in the end is more than worth it:getting a car in Havana is a must if you want to have a great holiday.

Lunch The bar of the Saratoga hotel in the heart of Old Havana, on the corner of Paseo del Prado and Dragones serves a mean burger and fries in a very relaxing setting. 7.5CUC for a feast!! Reasonable bar prices which you might not expect from the image this hotel portrays, but friendly staff, great food and nice surroundings!!

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Other names for Melia Habana Hotel

  • melia hotel havana
  • melia hotel habana
  • melia habana
  • Address: Ave 3 c/76 Y80, Miramar - Havana - Cuba
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