I stayed at Los Helechos as part of a two-day Cienfuegos-Trinidad-Topes des Collantes tour we booked through our resort in Varadero. I should add, the tour was a lovely two days even for a person like me, who doesn't usually do so well on structured tours!

Overall, the hotel was quite adequate. The staff were helpful and efficient. Unlike Varadero where most people speak some English, a little Spanish does come in handy out here though. Our room was clean and smelled of fresh mountain air and pines. Everything worked as it should. The buffet supper was limited in choices compared to the mega-resorts of Varadero, but very tasty and quite Cuban (yummy cream cheese soup, roast pork and chicken, yucca, plantains, rice and beans). The omlette station was closed the next morning, but the breakfast buffet was certainly adequate to get us ready for a day of hiking in the mountains.

The whole experiece of staying at the mostly empty and somewhat isolated Los Helechos was a little surreal, although not at all unpleasant. As a homebase for exploring the mountains, Los Helechos was perfectly acceptable.

We stayed here for 2 nights and were dreading it after reading the reviews. However the room was ok . Everything worked , fridge, tely, shower, a/c, plugs , and it wasn't dirty. We stayed on the second floor of the right block. The entrance to our block and the stairs up to the room were a bit dismal . We had a balcony which overlooked a beautiful patch of forest. It can be quite noisey as the trucks and busses struggle up the steep hill. The hotel has regular tour groups passing through.
The restaurant was buffet style for both dinner and breakfast. There was a good selection of food with a plentiful supply of fresh fruit. The evening meal ,as much as you can eat , with a free drink included was very good value at 13 cuc.
Topes de collantes is a very strange place, it feels like a 1950's cult movie set but it has lovely walks,even in the rain.
The hotel provides a refuge in the weirdness!

this hotel was booked for us by the british heart foundation, as part of our trekking adventure through the cuban countryside,
the only reason i would ever tell anybody to stop at this hotel is because, its in the most Amazing location , however we knew before arriving that it was a bit of a hell hole, so we ( a group of 19) were well prepared and after spending the last 2 nights under the stars we were so pleased to have a clean shower and an average comfort bed, the food was better in this hotel than alot of places we had eaten however the food in this part of cuba is pretty basic, there is a discotech at the complex and a great chance to mix with the locals, but if your in this part of cuba then expect to rough it and enjoy being in such a remote place the scenary is mind blowing , do go trekking and exploe this amazing national park and you wont care how run down and basic this place is,

My friend and I stayed overnight at this hotel as part of the Trinidad overnight trip that we booked with our Thomas Cook rep back in Varadero. Check in was fairly hassle free and we were given a complementary drink of rum and coke. However, when we arrived at our room, i started to worry. The doors weren't very secure at all, and they were covered with a flimsy type of curtain that didnt cover the entire window in the door allowing anyone to peer in from outside. The door stuck badly on the floor too, and when you tried to open it, it made a terrible screeching noise. The bathroom was by far the worst. The shower - dont get me started - i refused to use it. The good news is that the toilet flushed fine! The little window in there couldn't be shut properly either and i slept in fear that night of being eaten alive by mosquitos. However, i doused myself in repellant before going to bed and i was bite free in the morning thankfully. If you have lots of things to charge, like camera batteries, camcorders, phone etc, make sure you take the flat 2 pin travel adapters as there is only one plug for the round 2 pin adapter in the bathroom. One thing i will say though: i found the bed very comfortable. Sometimes, hotel beds can be quite hard but this one was just right. As i recall, there was a disco on the night we stayed over and it got quite rowdy at about 1am with people shouting and talking loudly whilst returning to their rooms. I wasn't impressed with the food either; there was hardly any choice. All i had for dinner that night was a bit of chicken and a plate of rice because there was nothing else! Breakfast was a similar affair although slightly better. There wasn't enough to fill me up though so i had to spend half an hour cutting all the fat off the bacon to make a couple of bacon rolls.

Overall, the hotel setting was nice and im sure there'd be a nice view if you're allocated a room not on the ground floor. The room itself wasn't too bad i suppose, although i wouldnt class the hotel as a 3* - more like a 2*. But still, it was adequate enough for one night.