Meliá Cayo Coco *****

Anónimo, CA, 2007-06-20
I loved the Melia Cayo Coco in Cuba, and I will go back for three weeks. I found the staff very respectful and everything was perfect.
Since I learned Spanish, French and English I found it very interresting to learn what Cubans think about tourists from England! And also what they think about me....
I have nothing to complain about...

Anónimo, CA, 2007-06-20
We going there in august and we found a realy nice place with the best staff have ever seen. The food is not so bad. Everything is clean and quiet. Go to the Jungle tour if one day it's rainning it's fun and take only 3 hours. I recommanded the Melia Cayo Coco to be sure to be satisfied at Cuba.

Anónimo, CA, 2005-04-20
I was harassed the whole time because people thought I was Cuban it
Just returned from our two week honeymoon at the Melia Cayo Coco & had a fab time. The staff couldn't have made us feel more welcome. Two rum punch? The maids brought a smile to our faces with their towel sculptures & flower arranging! The beach was gorgeous & the sea warm. I would very much recommend the Dolphin Deluxe trip, the Jungle Tour & overnight in Havana. And (other reviewers) please stop complaining about petty little things!

Anónimo, GB, 2005-04-14
Just arrived back from my hols with my husband this week and what a truly fab time we both had.

This is our second visit to Melia Cayo Coco and we found that it had improved greatly since our last visit 2 years ago.

The food was heaps better, tastier, more variety and lots to suit everyone, I personally loved the 'Red Snapper' fish which was fresh and tastey.

The staff were great and the tipping seemed less frantic as we were no longer dealing in dollars but concertible pesos, which incidentally is around the same exchange rate as the dollar - clever move.

The trips out were fascinating, though be sure you have a stomach for old buses, full to the brim with tourists (like us) and going 90 MPH! We only travelled this way once, we found taxis, if shared very reasonable.

A few things you should do:

Take a taxi to Pilar Beach by Cayo Guillermo at around 7.30am to watch the flamingos fly off in the morning - an amazing site! This beach also has fantastic snorkling, lots of different fish and dolphins too if you are lucky.

Do the 'Glass bottom boat' trip, its nothing like you would imagine, you get 45 minutes snorkling on the small ref about 1 mile out from the beach - amazing and for all the family too - very safe.

A few things to take:

Mossie repellant - we used the plug ins in the room and that really helped, dont panic, they are not that bad, but if you are anything like me - one bite is enough!

Immodium - our tummies were fine this year but you need to be safe, Cuba does have great medical facilitied but they dont have alot of medication so its best to take your own.

Guitar Strings - For the wonderful house band, they cant get any out there, not the sort we use anyway!

Sunscreen - You cant get much there! there was factor 2 and 50 in our shop!

The rooms on the lagoon are well worth fighting for!

If you chose to go, you wont be disappointed, its an amazing cultural experience and a great holiday.

We loved the small bar on the lagoon, if you go, say hi to Orlando and Joseph - possible two of the best barmen around.

We visited all of the hotels in our area and none came up to the standards of ours!

Have fun!

Anónimo, CA, 2004-04-22
My husband and I stayed at the Melia Cayo Coco from April 10th to April 17th 2005. This was our first vacation of this kind and we didn't really know what to expect. We picked Cuba because of the short flight from Toronto. We were only 4 1/2 hrs from the time our flight left until we were in our room. We chose the Melia because of the 'adults only' listing . That was the best part. The resort was very quiet and relaxing.
We had five green flag days in a row at the beach and two yellow.
The beach was fantastic. We didn't spend much time at the pool but it was quiet and most times no more than a couple of people in at any time (again the no kids rule was great)
The room (standard) was large and clean-spent very little time there anyway
The food - we certainly didn't see any merit to the complaints we've read. As my husband says-have we had better-yes, have we had worse-yes
was it fair value for the money-yes.
We certainly didn't go hungry-The buffet was great-beef, pork chops, chicken, turkey, sausages, lamb chops, lots of salads, rice etc
The breakfast was super-our favourite meal of the day-We really miss that Cuban coffee
The International and Italian restaurants were OK - our favourite was the Cuban restaurant-didn't go to Cuba to eat Italian!
Our reservations were made for us before we arrived at the resort by the tour company (Sunwing) so that was one thing we didn't have to deal with.
As for the extra activities-we decided not to take part in any of them and really enjoyed our days relaxing. We had planned to horseback ride, snorkel and go on the jungle tour but one visit to the beach and we knew how we wanted to spend our week.
The staff was terrific-we were treated great. As for tipping-we handled it like we do at home-after service is provided-not before
One tip-toss a handful of band-aids in your lugguage-we needed one for a blister (take comfortable walking shoes ) You can't buy
anything like that in the shops but a quick visit to the clinic and one peso later we had our bandaid.
We would definitely return to the Melia. We did not have one disappointment. We looked at our photos when we got home and as the week went on it seemed that the smiles got bigger!!!!!