Cuba Riu-Turquesa

We have been at the Riu Turquesa for two weeks in October 2002

Personal impressions:

Short summary: great place to spend a vacation

Rooms:
The room was ok, not many furniture but enough to put your clothes away. A safe is free to use to put your camera, money etc. in. There is a small fridge in the room where the free drinks are located but there is still room enough to store some things you brought from home. The bathroom is large and above avarage what I got to know from caribian hotels. Hot water is available anytime. There is a wall mounted hairdryer, however if you have much to dry bring your own. The voltage is 220V. The SAT-TV provides some spanish and american stations including CNN. The room maid did a good job, they are very happy if you leave a tip or some things they can use at home like soap ... As I got to know they earn only about 10-20 USD a month. If you don't like your room it's possible to change without problem. Don't get a room to close to the pool if you are a 'early in bed' because the animation is sometimes going past 11:00 pm and you can hear it very good in the room.

Food:
The food was good, there is a buffet provided where everybody can find something (meat, fish, pizza, rice, noodles, etc.). Sometimes the salad-bar is not fully filled because they import very much and if they run on a shortage then you'll have to wait for the next delivery. For lunch there is a snack bar at the pool where you can find a salad-bar, Hamburger's HotDogs etc.. Be careful with the hamburgers as the meat is sometimes still red inside. Nobody I met at the hotel complained about the food. This wasn't so for the other hotels around where people complained about bad food or nothing much to choose between. Don't forget that you get more to choose from than many cubans can get in their live. For their own food they get 'food-cards', e.g. two liter milk per month etc., if they want more they have to buy it in the expensive stores where they can only pay in USD.

Beach:
There is not much to say about the beach, its great, we haven't spend a day at the pool only at the beach. However you have to get there latest around 8 to 8:30 am to get a chair in the first row. Bring a second towel as the plastic chairs are very hard to lie on. They also do animation at the beach but they do it around noon so a sun-burn is easy to get. If you have problems with sun-burn take a sun-blocker as you can also get a sun-burn in the shadow. It's hot ! A bar is located at the beach where you can get some drinks - no food. Canoes, surfing and a catamaran are free to use for 30min a day. Use the canoe in the morning and the catamaran in late afternoon because then there is more wind, it's really fun. One of the beach stuff comes with you if you don't know how to sail.

Excursions:
We did a two day excursion to Havanna including Tropicana show and Pinar del Rio. With the combined tour you get the most for the money. This tour included all food and one drink. Be careful about tours including air-transfer, they use old russian planes or helicopters and you can not be shure if the maintenance is done right as they have to get spare parts from Russia (if available). As a pilot I also can not recommend the ultra-light boat-plane flights offered at the beach as the have no rescue parachute.

Bring many USD with you as the tours are expensive.

Horse-Riding: 15 USD
Two hour jet-ski+mini zoo: 65 USD
Catamarn Snorkling Tour
+ swimming with dolphins: 79 USD
Two day bus excursion 168 USD
( Havannah+TropicanaShow+Pinar del Rio )

Varadero Riu-Turquesa **** Pictures from the hotel:
Hotel reception	View from reception to the pool
The pool	Nice bungalows with eight rooms, four on each side
Every return to the room is a surprise	Snapshot at breakfast
Snack-Bar ...	and from insisde
Enjoy the beach	Cleaning is done every morning