Blau Colonial Hotel – Cayo Coco – Cuba – Caribbean

Just returned from two weeks in Cayo Coco in Cuba & thought it my duty to warn potential holiday makers of this hotel. Ok, first off just a few things about the Blau Colonial hotel in general. It is the last in a series of 5 hotels on the same beach & is just 10 mins from the airport (flights are so infrequent so you won’t be bothered by aircraft noise at all).

At check-in you are given a safe key/lock for the safe in the bathroom wardrobe – there is no charge for this at this hotel so that is a bonus point. For some reason in Cuba, the door handles need to be lifted up in order for the door to open – don’t ask because I have no idea why.

The air conditioning in the rooms is excellent, although it was hard to find the right temperature meaning that we had to ask for extra blankets to keep warm at night – not an issue & a nice change being able to be tucked up in bed in such a warm country (gives you added protection against mosquitoes too).

The rooms are fine, clean & well appointed with a fridge which is restocked daily. The bathrooms are quite smart with marble tiles & decent fittings. Maid service changed beds & towels each day. All in all, the rooms are pretty good. No major complaints there.

The hotel gardens are pretty well kept, trees, bushes & plants neatly trimmed. The outside of the apartments do admittedly look shabby, but this is just a lick of paint to sort out so I don’t know why they don’t do it. While we were there we did see a small amount of painting, but this appeared to be limited to around the lobby bar area.

We were on the ground floor, & after looking at the condition of some of the wooden stairs I was thankful that we were. Steps & handrails looked ready for replacing in areas due to rot. There are two pools – a fresh water pool that was closed for repainting after we were there for two days & a salt water pool that had just been refurbished & opened when the other was closed. No problem there.

Kid’s entertainment was nil. Another family we had met had paid extra for a kids club but arrived to find that there was no staff to run the club – maybe because it isn’t yet the school holidays they don’t think it warrants opening the club for just a couple of kids. After a complaint, a kids club was run, but was limited to playing in one of the converted apartments with a babysitter – not really what the kids were wanting – they wanted to be in the pool/sun playing games. At this point, I just want to mention the staff at the hotel, they were superb – always happy & smiling & all said hello & made a big fuss over my 5 year old daughter.

The location of all hotels as far as I can make out in the Cayos is such that they are all on the beach & the Blau Colonial is no exception. The beach is staggeringly beautiful & I would say that this hotel sits on the best part of the beach too. Not only is the beach wonderful, it is quiet too! I mean almost deserted. I cannot understand why people will fly 9 hours to sit by the pool when you have a beach like this on your door step.

The sea is fairly shallow, so is ideal for kids. You have to go quite a way out before it gets deep. The plusd side of this is that the water is very warm. There are no rocks or stones in the water so it is easy on the feet. The downside of this means that if you’re keen on snorkeling, you can forget it, unless you like looking at sand. You have one hour’s use per day of pedalos, catamarans, kayaks etc in the boat house.

Music is played from the lifeguard shelter & is usually a mix of Cuban & rap music & beach volleyball games are arranged daily if they can rustle up enough participants. The beach bar is pretty good & has a nice waitress fetching you drinks – it is only decent & reasonable to give her a tip for getting your drinks for you.

Drinks are obviously included in the holiday price. Just a quick work on the drinks: the local beer is called Crystal & is pretty good. Local spirits are just like any local spirits found anywhere in the word. Cocktails are fine & the house red/white wine is Spanish & good. Beach towels are provided by the hotel, although there is a 15 peso deposit that will be returned at the end of your holiday.

The entertainment at this hotel is almost non-existent during the day & limited to a show each night in the disco. The show started at 9.45pm so was too late for us with our child.

Mosquitoes are a big problem. I have never been to a country were the mosquitoes don’t wait until dark to start devouring you – these blighters will get you in the afternoon! Not an issue on the beach but be wary if you stay by the pool. Get yourself the strongest repellent you can – I got some 97% spray (Repel100) that I had some success with but still had around 10 bites after about 3 days. The hotel sprays smoke (supposed to kill the mosquitoes) all around the grounds twice a day (quite funny when you first see it really) from a tractor & later on from a hand held smoke machine – I don’t know if it actually has any benefit or not but it seems to give them something to do & doesn’t seem to kill many guests that I could see.

Ok, not so bad up until now huh? This is were things take a turn for the worse. It is just one thing really but it is probably the most important of all. The food. Now before you say “well you can’t expect to get gourmet food in Cuba can you? “, I went fully prepared to be presented with more basic food – chicken, rice etc. But what I wasn’t prepared for was being poisoned. You heard me, poisoned. 3 hours after lunch one particular day & I was vomiting & suffering with diarrhoea for the next 12 hours. After 12 hours I could finally drink water without throwing up. It was not the most pleasant of experiences & one I certainly did not wish to repeat. I spent the next day in bed feeling sorry for myself & the following day I admitted defeat & went to the doctor. A shot in the bum, some antibiotics & some rehydration sachets & I was almost human again.

Now, back to the food. Ok, the food itself isn’t too bad, it is the people putting it together that are the problem – they just haven’t got a clue about cooking & basic food hygiene. The food was generally undercooked which means for tough stewed beef or burgers that were pink in the middle. Not too much of an issue until you start coming across the same problem with chicken & pork – that is when things start getting dangerous. We saw staff using the same utensils for vegetables as they did for raw chicken which is just asking for trouble.

Because the hotel was so quiet, i’m convinced that the food was being reheated from meal to meal which would be an ideal breeding ground for bacteria. It wasn’t just us complaining about the food either – most other guests had had one or both of their party go down with the vomiting/diarrhoea thing – one guy had to be taken to hospital & put on a drip!

Anyway, we endured a week of picking at poorly produced, dangerous food before we finally said enough was enough & requested that we be moved to another hotel (funnily enough, at the time we asked to be moved, there were four other parties that had arrived the day before that were refusing to stay there & demanding to be moved also). The rep was fantastic & understood completely. She moved us to another hotel, the Iberostar Daiquiri (40 mins from airport) which actually had pretty good food but was very busy. However, even at this hotel, my daughter was served raw chicken. So just be careful with the food you eat wherever you chose to go in Cuba.

It is a shame that the food situation at the Blau Colonial is in the state that it is because it is such a simple thing to put right – if they get that right & give the place a lick of paint it wouldn’t be too bad. As it stands, I would have to be plain crazy to return there.