I went with 3 of my friends from law school, and I think we picked a great group - no quarrelling and getting on each other's nerves at all. We stayed at the Occidental Grand, at the Playa (Beach) Turquesa, near Holguin. The resort was absolutely beautiful. Rather than being one large hotel, it was a series of villas with about 8 - 10 rooms per villa, plus the main buildings, lobby, restaurant, etc.
Here's a picture of one of the villas (they all looked exactly the same, but I could get a better angle of this one than of our specific villa)
The resort had a series of 5 or 6 pools, starting at the top and each cascading into the next, kind of like a really long waterfall. The beach at the hotel was absolutely beautiful, and restricted solely to our resort. The pools were also amazing to sit by. One pool had a little island with a tree in the middle, and it was a wading pool, and by the edge it was so shallow that the lounge chairs could be placed in the water. SO relaxing!
Here's a partial view from the beach (yay for photo stitch function!)
And a couple pictures of the pools:
The food was pretty good, especially at some of the a la carte restaurants (there were 5 a la cartes, and we were allowed to eat at all 5 included in the all-inclusive, but only once each). There was also the main buffet area, where we ate breakfast and most lunches. I'm not going to put pictures of those because really, who cares?!
The rooms were very cute and cozy - which makes them sound small, but they weren't - and had the best balconies, with the most comfy lounge chairs, ever.
There were also lots of very fun excursions to go on, to explore the area and do activities. We went on the Catamaran excursion, where we took a bus to a Catamaran, Catamaran to a snorkelling area, then went to an aquarium area and swam with dolphins, then had a very delicious lunch and took the Catamaran back and the bus back to our hotel.
A couple of days later, we did the 'Country See Excursion': we were picked up at our hotel in jeeps, drove to a little town close by where we got to tour a cigar factory (no pictures of the inside allowed, though), then drove to a local farm where we got to drink coffee that was as fresh as it possibly can be and eat a mid-morning snack of a variety of fresh (coconut, pineapple, banana, grapefruit, fresh honey, sugar cane, etc. - just picked that morning). After the farm, we drove to a horse ranch, where we went horse-back riding. After that, we drove to the marina (same one where we caught the Catamaran) and went jet-skiing. Then we had a yummy lunch, and drove back to the hotel. It was a long day: left at 8:30, back at about 4. Our guides wanted to take us to Holguin to show us the night-life in Cuba, since it was our last night there, and while they were very nice and it would have been fun to go, my one friend was really sick (she'd gotten bronchitis while we were there) and didn't feel like it, plus one of the guides had (unwelcomely) fallen in love with another one of my friends, so we passed on that opportunity!
The rooms were very cute and cozy - which makes them sound small, but they weren't - and had the best balconies, with the most comfy lounge chairs, ever.
There were also lots of very fun excursions to go on, to explore the area and do activities. We went on the Catamaran excursion, where we took a bus to a Catamaran, Catamaran to a snorkelling area, then went to an aquarium area and swam with dolphins, then had a very delicious lunch and took the Catamaran back and the bus back to our hotel.
A couple of days later, we did the 'Country See Excursion': we were picked up at our hotel in jeeps, drove to a little town close by where we got to tour a cigar factory (no pictures of the inside allowed, though), then drove to a local farm where we got to drink coffee that was as fresh as it possibly can be and eat a mid-morning snack of a variety of fresh (coconut, pineapple, banana, grapefruit, fresh honey, sugar cane, etc. - just picked that morning). After the farm, we drove to a horse ranch, where we went horse-back riding. After that, we drove to the marina (same one where we caught the Catamaran) and went jet-skiing. Then we had a yummy lunch, and drove back to the hotel. It was a long day: left at 8:30, back at about 4. Our guides wanted to take us to Holguin to show us the night-life in Cuba, since it was our last night there, and while they were very nice and it would have been fun to go, my one friend was really sick (she'd gotten bronchitis while we were there) and didn't feel like it, plus one of the guides had (unwelcomely) fallen in love with another one of my friends, so we passed on that opportunity!These are the jeeps that we drove around in for the day - we were lucky and got to have a guide driving us. His name was Orlando, and he spoke excellent English and knew a lot about Cuban economics and politics, so he told us a great deal about his country... it was very interesting, and much better than just driving our own jeep and worrying about hitting the millions of potholes!
Fruit:
Horse-back riding:
I didn't take any pictures of jet-skiing, because I didn't want to take my camera out on the water! But I do have a picture of the marina employee who took me out on the jet-ski, when they found out that I didn't want to drive myself:
Here's a picture of the 3 us of (our 4th friend was back at the hotel sick), and our two guides - from the left: Ariel, Jo, Jan (I'm just giving short names on purpose), me, and Orlando. Fun day!
Horse-back riding:
I didn't take any pictures of jet-skiing, because I didn't want to take my camera out on the water! But I do have a picture of the marina employee who took me out on the jet-ski, when they found out that I didn't want to drive myself:
The guy on the left (the older gentleman) is the guy who took me out - he spoke literally no English, and I spoke very little Spanish, but we got along just fine, and I had more fun with him than I would have alone, since he wasn't scared to go after the big waves! The guy on the right is one of our guides, Ariel - the one who had a bit of a thing for my one friend.
Here's a picture of the 3 us of (our 4th friend was back at the hotel sick), and our two guides - from the left: Ariel, Jo, Jan (I'm just giving short names on purpose), me, and Orlando. Fun day!
Those are all the important pictures to show. I also have most of my pictures up on facebook, and I'll probably create a yahoo or photobucket album, so if anyone wants to see more, just let me know!
Anyway, Cuba was amazing, and our resort was fantastic - I would highly recommend both! Oh, and I also got to buy some great Cuban cigars for WAY less than you'd spend in Canada, so that was good too! :)
Anyway, Cuba was amazing, and our resort was fantastic - I would highly recommend both! Oh, and I also got to buy some great Cuban cigars for WAY less than you'd spend in Canada, so that was good too! :)
