Hillarious review Tropicoco Havana

[helix]

CubaCrazyPaul

Windsor, Canada

23

Reviewed 5 days ago

My 2 Star Adventure !!!

What to say about The Tropicoco?
Well Let's just say, you can really have a Great Time, as long as you have a Game Plan.
First of all, the Proximity to Old Havana is Primary, it's almost impossible to find an all inclusive, bargain hotel on the Beach this close to Havana.
Just spend the 5 C.U.C. and get the T3 Bus into Old Havana and spend 2 or 3 Days, exploring Havana, with it's rich culture, history, customs & beautiful Spanish Colonial architecture.
On your down time the Beach (across the street from the Tropicoco) is Beautiful, the Locals from Havana & the area also use this beach, making it all the more interesting & enjoyable!
Time at the Hotel is best spent in the Huge, Open Air Tropical Lobby, Lots of places to sit & get comfortable, while making new friends with people from your Home Town, Country or from around the world !
The Hotel itself was a creation of some concrete crazed Russian, with Blueprints from Ikea (for a LEGO warehouse).
Management has made the Lobby a warm cozy focal point and is constantly renovating, painting and repairing the building.
The History of the Tropicoco makes for some good stories too !!!!
For many years, it catered to Old ,Hugh Hefner wanna be's, The Frisky Geezers would entertain their little Cuban Cup Cakes, oblivious to how ridiculous it appeared.
Management (for the most part) has gotten rid of all the trade, working the Lobby.
Occasionally an older die hard Jezebel, will leap out from behind a potted palm tree & try to ambush you, but the staff will shoo her off real quick !
Grandpa now has to Prowl far from the Hotel to find a Little Princess, to add insult to injury, Gramps has to dig up an additional $50.00 C.U.C. out of his Pension money to entertain his victim in his room !!!
The rooms are VERY BASIC, (but clean).
NO trip to Cuba is without a Glitch or two or a little inconvenience, don't spend your holiday complaining, just tell the staff of your concern & let them help you. Almost all the staff there, will try their best to make your stay comfortable.
As for the Food, BE SAVVY:
I noticed many people would go for Breakfast, have a freshly made Omelet, then make their way to the large selection of sliced meats, cheese and bread, most would make a couple of really good sandwiches, then head off for Havana or the beach, (Lunch in hand).
Most of the Hot Pork dishes are delicious, rice & beans are fine too, but the Chicken is more like Old Buzzard & the Beef !!!!!. (Really Strange), sort of a stringy meat mush, with carrots? It looks exactly the same on your plate, as it does in the toilet, (6 hours later).
No worries with dessert, most are good.
The Tropicoco is a different kind of place, but mostly a place that is changing fairly quickly.
The dedication of the Management & Staff will see the Hotel become better & better.
It's well worth a visit.

[Martin_F]

Thanks for posting the review!

Maybe one day I'll get the chance to go...

[El Presidente]

There is a certain charm to the Cuba KGB hotels. 

......once is enough 

[helix]

"older die hard Jezebel"........... LOL ! 

[Ryan]

That's great. I stayed in the Tropicoco hotel once, by mistake, in 2010.

It was my first trip to Cuba, actually when I met Prez for the first time, and travelling with a friend.

Our Air France flight on the Sunday night after the festival was cancelled. No information at the airport, just "Cancelled".

We went back to the Parque Central hotel, checked in and went to the Air France office the following morning. We got a flight out, to Gatwick, on Air Cubana on the Tuesday night, back to the Parque Central with us.

Tuesday night, the Cubana flight is delayed 10 hours, no information, just "Delayed". My friend is freaking out, he's a nervous traveler, I literally had to convince him that we would see Ireland again.

With the 10 hour delay, Cubana bused us back to the Tropicoco for the night. They offered us "food", the usual bright pink mechanically-recovered ham and something in the shape of croissants. We declined. We saw the room, a cinder block box like a room in a detention centre, we went back to the lobby for the night. Mojitos were $1.

Some good came out of it, we got to know Ameeta Seth, she was in the same predicament as us.

When I say "same", while we were in the Tropicoco lobby, one of us had our dad on the phone who had organised a car from Gatwick to the Ritz and the other one of us was bribing hotel staff so we could get on the internet to book a Ryanair flight out of London.

 

[cookj1]

If you don’t want to stay, they have a 20 CUC deal where you can have a beer, sandwich and use the pool all day.  You might get lucky, as we did, to have a roller in the lobby.