Sirenis Playa Turquesa

3 readers found this review helpful

The best holiday ever, lots of things to do including swimming with dolpjins, etc hotel and surrounding area is beautiful. Great if you like water sports and activities and also great if you just like to relax and not do anything. Beach is amazing especially at sunset. Nice people and wildlife, didnt notice hardly any insects. just a full on great holiday not to be missed!!! :0) Have fun!!! :0) THANKYOU

5 readers found this review helpful

Great resort, wonderful staff- Good food including 5 theme restaurants.Good beach. Rooms are beautiful and where I stayed it was totally quiet at night.Recommend you dine at the Italien restaurant near the beach,and they also do lunch there, with a great bar, two of the bartenders Orlan(bad boy) and Eduardo and two of the wait staff,
Di(Lady Di) and Orlean were my favourites, if you tell them that "Father Terry" said hello I am sure you will get treated special(at least not thrown out). My wife and I were 100% satisified with everyone from the gardeners to the room attendants to the front office staff. We will return. Well done Cuba

7 readers found this review helpful

We had never been on such a long flight before, but wanted somewhere neither of us had ever been. This for us was a one off as we took the weddding package so we could get married whilst we were there.
I can't believe people are complaining and all I can say is they must have been staying somewhere else because we found the staff extremely friendly and helpful - if you took the time to speak to the waiters/waitresses and bar staff and asked them about their families, they were wonderful. I can not speak highly enough of the wedding co-ordinator, Jaimie and her assistant Yelani. They couldn't do enough for us to make sure our wedding was where and when we wanted it. In fact, we were married on Christmas Eve in the courtyard, which was beautiful. The best day of our lives.
Four of us went to Cuba and we all had a brilliant time. There was always plenty to eat and we were very happy with what was on offer. We met some lovely Canadians whilst we were there as for them it's just a short hop to Cuba. There were people who were basically complaining that there wasn't a local MacDonalds but they were all from England. Our rooms were always spotless and we had clean towels on a very regular basis.
What I would say to those people who dragged extremely young children on a ten hour flight is you really shouldn't have done it. It's a developing country - their staple diet is pork, rice and beans although we always had a massive choice of fish and meat. If you want burger and chips with your sun go to Spain! We would go back like a shot we had such a great time - but then, we did our homework before we went and didn't expect it to be a European 4 star. We left all our toiletries (shampoos etc) and t shirts for the staff when we came home, as they have trouble getting the kind of items we take for granted.

1 reader found this review helpful

We stayed in this hotel over NYE of 2008/09. In general I really think it was a good holiday, long flight but worth it. Great for toddlers as they have 5 pools and the bottom one is up to the waist on toddlers so great for confidence building. Beach was lovely too. Food was a little dull and there were instances of the food (meat) not being cooked properly (they were carving a chicken that was raw in the middle!!) so dont go for the food!! The one down side was the mosquitos and sand flies. We wore spray constantly and only have a few bites (used a spray called Incognito) but others were literally covered in bites e.g. 50 on each leg and they all became pussy and looked horrible so you must take lots of spray and USE IT. What is odd is that a work colleage went to the other end of cuba (by the beach) a day after us and had no bites whatsoever and didnt even wear spray - so Im not sure why it was so bad in our resort. On the whole we enjoyed it though but the bites were a bit ofputting!!

brilliant holiday, loads of pools, and yummy food :) the only bad thing was the weather! made some friends, as well as going with each other. great for all the family. make sure you go out at some point to the market :) see crazy women begging of you! rather funny. a must for holiday makers. swimming with dolphins ansd going on catamaran was amaze! BRILLIANT!
hannah & olivia x

We have just returned from our stay, Dec 21 – 28, and I have to say what a fantastic time we had at this resort. I think Red456838 said it all in her review so I will just mention some differences that we found during our stay. We weren’t looking for a busy resort area like Havana/Varadero as we are a middle aged couple with no kids. We just wanted to lay around and relax which is why we loved it here. The staff were super friendly and bent over backwards to address any requests we had. We loved it so much we are now planning next years vacation back to this resort.
Check in: Very quick and the little golf carts were waiting to take us to our room, #746, which we also thought was far from everything, but once we got out and about the next day in the daylight we found it perfectly located pretty well central to everything. Very quiet area of the resort. I would suggest a windup flashlight for the evenings as there are a couple of shortcuts you can take through the woods but they aren’t lit.
Resort/Rooms: Very clean and tidy. Our room was spotless when we arrived and the maid kept it that way for our entire stay. The mini bar was stocked every day with beer, pop and bottled water. All the grounds and common areas are also very clean. There are workers around all day tending to the landscaping, cleaning, and doing general maintenance. It would seem that this resort has recovered from the hurricane as all the trees have their leafs back and there were flowers blooming everywhere.
Guests were mostly Canadian and British with a few Germans, Italians and surprisingly, a tour group from China. The resort was half full when we arrived but near the end of our stay there were over 1000 guests which made it difficult to get a chair by the pools if you waited past 9:00am as the weather for the entire week was warm and sunny. Temp was around 27 – 29C except a couple of days it hit 31C. Humidity the week was around 70 – 75%. It only rained a couple of times in the evenings but only lasted 5 minutes each time.
Pools & Beach: As has been said in other reviews, the pools are the most outstanding feature of this resort. They are built into a hillside and are all connected by waterfalls. We found the area by the swim-up bar to be our favorite as they had entertainment there every afternoon. The beach area is very clean with plenty of room to spread out and soak up the rays. It also had music playing and organized volleyball games daily.
Food & Drinks: We found the food to be great. Either at an a la carte or at one of the buffets, there was lots of flavor and variety for everyone. Something we did find out from talking to people from the Playa Pesquero, who complained that their food was bland, was that the OGPT is Spanish owned and therefore they use a lot more seasoning in their cooking whereas the PP is Cuban owned and therefore the reason for the bland food. (we were told the Cubans only use pepper, cumin and garlic on all their meats). Christmas dinner was spectacular with roast whole pig, lots of roast turkey, roast beef and as many trimmings as you can think of. Plus lots of champagne and drinks. Neither one of us had any stomach problems of any kind, except over-full a lot of the times.
Entertainment: Every night there was a children’s show in the theatre that started around 8:00pm. This was followed by a show for the adults at around 9:00pm. These were mainly local musicians and dancers/actors. The Disco opened around 10:00pm and was a hit with the 20 something’s that were there. We went one night just to see it but the music was what I would call “Euro Trash”. You know the kind, same electronic drum beat for every song – BOOM – dada – BOOM – dada – BOOM and all the songs run together. It was fun to see but being Zeppelin/Sabbath/ACDC fans one night was enough.
Overall a great holiday. The resort is up to full speed following the hurricanes and seeing as we were first timers here we didn’t notice anything that would indicate they had experienced any hurricanes. We weren’t bothered by the bugs and I only got my first bite on the day we were leaving. My wife got a couple on her feet during the week but we took Claritin for 5 days before going there so itching was no problem. We took bug spray but never used it. The no-seeums seemed to bother the British people far worse as we saw a lot of them with badly bitten legs. Would I go back again? You bet I would, but next year it will be for 2 weeks.

We were stupid.After reading the reviews about this hotel we thought that things would have improved after all this time.But the food was still cold.We were served cold and stale roast chicken in the snack bar.The service throughout the hotelwas absolutely terrible.All the staff were interested in was being tipped.If you didn't tip any of the waiting staff they kept you waiting.We were kept waiting 45 minutes for a drink and a meal in the 24 hour snack bar.
They ran out of alcohol in our second week.The first to dry up was vodka,followed by the Cuban version of Baileys,then rum (but they brew the stuff there),then they ran out of beer and wine,both red and white.If you liked tea they ran out of that as well.
The hotel needs a lot of repair work.The tiles are still off the bottoms of the pools.The sports ammenaties are none existant.The tennis courts have glass over them and no flood lights,the same for the basketball court.No archery.Football pitch overgrown.Electrical cables lying around openly.
But the worst part of the holiday was getting out of bed in the mornings covered in bites.They were reported to the Rep who informed us that they were gnats (not fleas as Cuba doesn't have fleas)but they were small,black and they jumped.I'll let you decide.We had our room fumigated twice but we were still getting bit.
There was a pool of black stagnant water near a resteraunt which had mosquitoe lavae swimming in it.Manhole covers off or missing,street lights not working on part of the walkway for the 2 weeks we were there.
In the First Choice brochure it said that there were a few steps that may make it awkward for the less mobile.Well these FEW steps totalled 74. We had to climb these two to three times a day.Talk about Rocky training.
Give this hotel a miss if you want a relaxing worry free and stress free holiday in Cuba go to the Cayo's where the treatment of the staff is a lot more friendlier and the service and ammenaties are a lot better;and the food is hot.

1 reader found this review helpful

I would recommend this hotel to anyone. 8 of us went all together, my parents as it was their honeymoon, me, my brothers and sisters and their partners. Everyone of us enjoyed every moment we were there! We paid for a champagne and lobster dinner for our parents and it was worth every penny, I have attached a picture of the table that was set for them. The staff were very helpful and very nice! We grew quite attached to them all! Food was great, something for everyone! The beach is beautiful and the water sports are great, the hobie cats are alot of fun! Their is also volleyball competitions and salsa lessons on the beach! Mosquito's were bad however the repellent sold in the shop is excellent! I spent most of my time on the beach rather than the pools but I met alot of people that preferred the pools - they play alot of games which are fun to watch even if you do not participate!!! I love it so much there that I am going back in Feb 09 to take my boyfriend, and hopefully my parents (it will be their 3rd visit) we are very excited! If you want the holiday of a life time - go to Grand Playa Turquesa, you will not be dissappointed!!!

Having just returned from Cuba I have to say this is one of the worst holiday let downs ever.4 star I don't think so more like 1 star maybe plus.From what I have read on other reviews regarding this hotel it seems to have gone down hill fast in the last two years,to the point of tiles missing from every swimming pool ,every bit of grass is dead,the food is horrendous you just know that the food of the day is just yesterdays warmed up(Ihad a bad stomach for a week and a half as did nearly everyone you spoke to!)Food in the snack bar (when they have some)is cold and of very poor quality.My wife had chips one day with ketchup already on them(second hand I fear)The hotel has no attention to detail ,the rooms are scruffy,torn curtains,broken lampshades,broken fridge and water coming through my bathroom ceiling every time someone up stairs had a shower.As for the staff ,the entertainment staff(thats a laugh in it's self)are so lazy daytime entertainment was virtually non existant.As for sports we were told "Yes we have some snorkeling equipment but it's all broken"Archery which I was particually looking forward to was nowhere to be found and the football pitch a baron wasteland.Give this hotel a very wide berth and if you have already booked then all I can say is sorry.

Having returned from Cuba this week, we did something for the first time of going on holidays for thirty years and moved from the Occidental Grand Playa Turquesa Hotel after four days. Clearly not a four star, extremely disappointing. Please ignore any earlier reviews that are good for this hotel I suspect that there has been some change of Management, its seems to be going down hill from the reviews I read when I booked to go here. We moved to the Playa Pesquera which was a lot better. The adults pool was empty of water, the water in the other pools did not look clean, tiles were missing even in the childrens pool. Plenty of sun beds but in the afternoons nobody was round the pool, because you could not get any shade. One pool has 90 beds and 5 Umbrellas the next 110 beds and 15 umbrellas it was made clear on our first full day that if we wanted one of the few umbrellas that the pool attendant wanted a tip. He knew that these were scarce. We got pool towels on the first day and could not get clean ones for the following three days
Ours rooms were not too bad but we seem to have been one of the lucky ones, again we couldn't get new towels everyday and bed covers were missing, but some other people complained of having dirty rooms and no air conditioning.
Animation was poor, service for drinks and food was totally inadequate, they didn't have enough staff. The staff they did have didn't seem to understand the word service and everything seemed to be too much trouble.
Snack bar was supposed to be open 24 hours but at times you could not get any food.
The main buffet and al carte restaurant food was cold, bland, not presented correctly and congealed, ok if you only wanted frozen chips because they had no potatoes. Went to the Asian asked for noodles this was spaghetti. Fruit was chopped in front of you in any old chunks and thrown on to plates by people with bare hands. The plates didn't look clean. I am finding it hard to explain just how unappetising and bad the food was.
I really could write a lot more but my overall view is don't book to go to this hotel and if you have already booked then do yourselves a huge favour and contact your tour operator to change your holiday before you go. We paid for five adults all taking time off work. The first four days of our holidays was totally ruined by bad food and service from the minute we arrived when you could straight away see that the hotel and grounds were scruffy. Then the following days feeling stressed just trying to obtain basic things like towels and drinks. Then having to review other hotels and spending time transferring.
Like I said at the beginning of this review this is the first time of feeling the need to move hotels in thirty years of holidays. My overall concern was the health and hygiene safety of my family.