Another Thomas Cook Catastrophe

Another Thomas Cook Catastrophe Board Basis:	All Inclusive
Date of Holiday:	Jul 2006
Tour Operator:	Thomas Cook
Submitted By:	Miss L Meadows
Overall Rating:	4/10
Comments:	My boyfriend and I travelled to Cuba for the first time this year on a late deal which we booked 2 weeks before and I think unfortunately it will be the only time! Although the weather was amazing, Varadero beach was just beautiful and the views from our balcony where fantastic the hotel was just a bit VILE! Go to Cuba it’s beautiful but not to this hotel. Obviously this is only my opinion but read it with an open mind. First of all OUR ROOM, it was I bit smelly like it needed a good scrub with a bucket of bleach. The bedding was not always as clean and fresh as you would expect. The bathroom was clannish but needed some serious updating. The maid was very welcoming and was willing to help with our problems. Our balcony doors where bent so we needed 'The Hulk' to open them and when it rained a couple of nights the water came in all over the floor and through the ceiling! THE FOOD was hit and miss really. Some days it made you sick and some days it didn’t. 24hour it was not, between 9:30pm and 7:30am there was nothing except drinks. Boiled cabbage and meatballs for breakfast. Now come on...any normal person knows that’s just wrong! Lunch and dinner deep fried everything and lots of black beans with rice. One guy we spoke to during our time there said he’d found a cockroach in the dinning room and was taking it home with him to send to Thomas Cook...nice! Flies everywhere too! Through Thomas Cook we where told that we had use of the hotel next doors facilities, this was a lie. They separated 6 months previous. The lifts where a joke. Out of the 3 1 was out of order all 2 weeks and the other 2 worked sporadically, waiting up to 15 minutes a quite a few times. The only other way was metal fire exit stairs on the outside of the building, which I thought was a tad unsafe. The communal toilets where dirty, I had to ask reception one night if they could get someone to clean them as there were other people’s leftovers in all three of the cubicles. Revolting! Needless to say we used our own bathroom most of the time. The pool was a good size and the area around it was kept clean. The Club Puntarena, I feel was the most badly run and badly maintained hotel I’ve been to, it’s like Fawlty Towers but way less funny! Even my self catering 18/30`s apartments when I was young where better and I only paid a few hundred pounds for those! I really think it needs to be totally refurbished and employ all new, well trained and polite staff. It sounds like I’m just moan, moan, and moan but when you pay over a thousand pounds for your Caribbean holiday you expect something special.