Sol Palmeras is certinaly a good hotel - very big and very busy at peak times!

My husband and I visited during the first wek in August and by the time we were due to leave every little corner within the hotel seemed to have someone in it! Quite a change from the first few days, when we could go for breakfast, lunch or dinner without a problem, but the latter part of the week became an absolute nightmare in this respect!
It didn't seem to matter what time we went to eat during our last 3/4 days, there was a queue! Very often guests were just bare-faced and jumped the queue, and this I must admit is one of my pet hates.... my opinion of the resort just got worse and worse as the time went on - though I suppose I should have thought about this more before making the reservation?

When we talked to other guests it was interesting to find they were of the same opinion - the last week July was fine, but I don't think I could have coped with another week the way things were shaping up! We were told it was the Cuban people who were ther problem - they just ignored those in any queue, and admittedly there was often a row - which is not whay I go on holiday at all - it just made the eating experience a nightmare and one which we dreaded every meal time to be honest!

That said there are lots of positive things aqbout this place too - entertainment is good, food is generally good .... if you reserve a table in one of the 5 a la carte restaurants,,,,,,,,,,, and the pool area was generally good too.
The most disappointing bit about the pool was that when you were in the water it was common form to have to try to avoid the plastic cups which hindered every swim. I'm not sure if they staff were having a lazy fit, or if this is ormal, but we weren't the only folks who noticed this problem.

Staff at the hotel were generally nice - though each day it seemed that they didn't recognise you? I always think this is such a shame in an hotel - though I suppose with all inclusive punters tips are seldom forthcoming - so perhaps they didn't really care about excellent customer service. It would have been helpful to have waiters walking around the pool area to take drink orders (and lift the rubbish) but this wasn't on the agenda.

Housekeeping were great though - we stayed in the main hotel and our room was just to the left of the main entrance - it was quiet enough, though there were dogs and cats in the bungalow area who spent many nights on the prowl, howling and meowing - if you aren't a light sleeper I don't suppose this would matter? The room was well kept and we were kept well (if you know what I mean)?
We actually had a corner room which appeared to be rather more spacious that others on the straight part of the corridor. TV was quite OK for English speaking guests if you liked watching subtitles, but then again who goes on hioliday to watch the box? I love a cuppa coffee, and I was relevied to find that there was a kettle and condiments on offer. We got these replenished daily and without any hassle at all (which was a thumbs up from me).

The beach - well, that was beautiful - white, white sand and lots of ocean - plenty of room not to be swimming around in a little square, and spacious enough not to have a water baby at each ear too - which considering the number of people was a real bonus!
The beach was clean and it was good to be able to walk for a mile or two - especially if you are a shell over!

It wold have been much better to have had some more information about what we could do out of the hotel - there was nothing much at all. We were fortunate to chat with many people during our stay and it was the day before we left that we discovered the train would take us to a shopping centre, not far and without charge.
Weather wise we had a rather mixed bag - some days it rainined all day, others had blinks of sunshine, and 2 days it was gorgeous. On one of the wet days we took the rtip to the shopping centre and thankfully we were able to buy some souveniers and gifts for our family members back home. One shop was much the same as another though, and variety was lacking - we got what did though, and everyone was happy!

Would I return - not sure! I think I would have to do some research to find out when the holiday time for locals is / other European Countries... if it was less crowded? Possibly - though I did miss having something to do out of the hotel.

We've just returned from Sol Palmaras and by far this is the best resort we've been to in Cuba. There were 6 of us travelling together The staff are amazing, the food is very good, the layout of the resort is good, and the resort was kept clean.
We were upgraded to a bungalow for free our first night but we moved to the motel, we found it was too far away from everything. It was very cute though.
The staff were truly amazing!! At the activities booth at the pool, Mary works there and she is more than helpful at arranging anything you want to do. She found transportation to Havana for us at a lower cost than the bus tour and this way we could do what we wanted and not have to follow a tour. She also booked our a la carts for us and arranged transportation to the nearby town for us. Very nice girl!!! At the Mojito bar in the lobby, Santiago works there. Very nice and a lot of fun. In the lobby a waitress Francie, who is warm and very lovely. The lobby bar staff are exceptionally friendly.
The food was very good and I am a little picky about flavour. Some reviews said the Chinese was terrible, well I eat a lot of Chinese Hong Kong Style at home and I thought it was very flavourful. Acctually we went there for dinner twice.
Some people on other reviews compained that the pool is cold. Well ya but that is what makes it refreshing. The beach was of course very nice. I just found the beach chairs hurt my back because they were hard plastick.
All in all, I would definately recommend this resort. In fact we will probably return next year.

As with previous reviews, we found the hotel is definitely showing it's age, broken lamps, knobs, tiles and flooring but overall the location on the beach and the food is probably the best on the peninsula. At least 9 out of 10 of the staff was great especially Bar staff: Ernesto and Jorge (Lobby), Jaimie and his boss (sorry forget his name) in the pool bar. Also Madeleine at the ice cream stand by the pool and Rosa in the buffet. There is an amazing server in the Seafood restaurant that I also forget his name,(darn) but he spoke 5 or more languages and was really upbeat and funny. We had no problem booking the a la cartes, maybe not for the day of but that fact that you can book for the next two days meant you could go to the lobby in the afternoon with no line and book for the next two days and then go the same time the next day. If was really easy with no limit on how many times you went. That said, the Chinese and Italian were definitely the best but the seafood had the best steak, better than the steak house by far on 4 out of 5 portions. We are from Alberta so......normally don't even bother with beef anywhere else but we were quite surprised by this. The Mexican we found tough meat all around and the steak kabobs were dry and overcooked. Also, the musicians, though talented, were so incredibly loud we couldn't hear our server to take our order, it was truly annoying.
The activities are some of the best anywhere, archery, shooting, yoga all the other usual fare. Our biggest negative surprise this time around, was that in both of our two original rooms, we found a small and a large cockroach in the closet area where the drawers are built in. When we informed the reception (we were on the second floor back behind the Italian restaurant and lobby bar Rm. 2032 and 2033) they said that we were in the tropics and it was to be expected. We have never had any "sightings" in rooms at any of the other resorts we have stayed at, especially on the second floor and I did have some concerns about going back to the Italian restaurant because if we had no food in our room they had to be "living" somewhere. In any case , we moved to a better room on the other side of the hotel, far away from food sources and they sprayed the rooms we had been in. Overall, the resort has great service staff and entertainment staff and the food is quite good for Cuba, better than some of the 5 stars according to people we talked with. We would go back, but will make sure we get on the left side of the hotel. We left all our suitcases in the -25 degree weather overnight when we returned to make sure we didn't bring any "friends" into our house! Hopefully, the hotel will keep up with the maintenance issues, anything we mentioned that didn't work, they promptly attended to but to arrive to broken patio tables on the balcony and a remote that didn't work, fridge that didn't work and knobs breaking off was a little disappointing after our previous visit. One thing I must give great accolades to the hotel, best water pressure ever....I miss it at home and we never had a trouble getting pool chairs even at 9 a.m. and there were 5 of us. Apparently they increased the number of chairs a few years ago and this is such a nice and smart idea because it tends to be a stressful part of a vacation especially when you are traveling with a group of 5 including seniors and a child.

It was our first time to be to Cuba, and we enjoyed this week (January 8 to 16, 2012) at Sol Palmeras very much. Great location, wonderful beach area. Lots of activities were available all day long (volleyball, basketball, table tennis, arching, shooting, darts, some other table games outdoors).
Excellent entertainment program was given. My son especially enjoyed a show by "team of magicians", and all my family - "Beach party".
Food was very good, five a la carte restaurants were available for dinner.
I would particularly single out great service from people working there and say thank you again to Roberto and Raymundo (La Panchita restaurant), Nivia (O Sole Mio rest-n), Omar (El Marino rest-n), Robertico and Fernando (Cubitas bar-cafeteria), Juan (Sol Cubano bar), Ronald (sports instructor), and our maid Judith (bungalow zone 2).
One suggestion: it would be great to have a gym available at the resort, too.