Hotel Review: Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski La Habana, Cuba.

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Overview

Great hotel and facilities in the centre of Havana, looks like a normal ultra-high standard Kempinski until you realise it’s not matched by the service. Five star prices not matched by five star service. Currently voted as #7 out of 246 hotels in Havana on TripAdvisor (www.tripadvisor.com).

https://www.kempinski.com/en/havana/gran-hotel-kempinski-la-habana/

Would I stay here again? Not sure I would unless there was a significant improvement in service. So lets down the Kempinski international acclaim to excellent service, or what we’ve experienced elsewhere from their other hotels.

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 Location

Havana, the capital of Cuba, is located on the northern coast of Cuba, south of the Florida Keys, where the Gulf of Mexico joins the Atlantic Ocean. The hotel is located on the Parque Central square, located right in the heart of ‘Havana Vieja’, Havana’s old town. It’s located within 30 minutes of the international Jose Marti airport. It was easy to walk to many of the main sites in the old town, as well as only being about a 10-15 minute leisurely walk down to the waterfront, the Malécon. Couldn’t be faulted in terms of location.

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Accommodation

In a completely refurbished building, rooms and suites are located across three floors of the 6 floor building (3rd, 4th and 5th). There are patio rooms and suites which face inwards over a central courtyard, rooms (deluxe and gran deluxe) and suites however facing out to the city offer much better views. We had a room on the 4th floor overlooking the Parque Central, with a small balcony which was great for watching the start of the Havana marathon which took place on the Sunday of our visit. Though the room was extremely well soundproofed, we were woken up early that morning with the announcement of the start of the marathon at 6:30am.

Our room was well appointed with an extremely high ceiling, nicely furnished and elegantly decorated in muted greys and whites but with an accent of colour. At the entrance there was an open-plan sink and vanity area with separate WC, with a large glass-fronted cubicle between the bathroom area and bathroom housing both a large bath and a huge overhead shower (the water pressure however didn’t really do the size of shower head justice though). 

As well as the massive king-size bed (though firm but was comfortable, albeit rather mean with a total of only two pillows) there was writing desk and a chair/table. The room was spotlessly clean and came provided with bottles of mineral water, and decent Kempinski toiletries. We came back one day though, only to find there were no towels whatsoever. We called reception and were advised they would be brought immediately - about an hour later housekeeping brought them.

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Food & Drink

There was a restaurant on the 2nd floor serving breakfast (exceptionally dear at $33/33CUC [Cuban convertible peso, matched to the $] each) where there was also a lobby lounge and bar. On the 6th floor was the panoramic restaurant and bar, with outside seating too on the lower level deck below the pool. 

We had lunch both days at the rooftop restaurant, food was good but service (especially on the first day) was really lacking - getting fed up waiting to be served, we went to seek out our own menu. Finding one, we were just deciding what to have and order, when one of the servers actually took this out of our hands to show more guests that had arrived after us. Completely ignoring us, she then went on to seat them before we called her back to take our order. I asked her if she had really grabbed the menu out of my hand to serve other people, and she said yes. Food was good, albeit our pizzas were taken to three other tables before ours on the first day.

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Facilities & Service

Though we didn’t have time to try it, on the rooftop level there was an outdoor pool with seating (incredible city views) and a spa (Spa Albear by Resense) with fitness area, indoor pool, sauna, steam bath and a solarium. There were 8 treatment rooms for both body, hair, facial and beauty treatments - a hot stone massage 90 minute massage was CUC 140 (the Cuban convertible peso was matched to the US $ rate) so $140 or £110. All spa treatments were subject to an additional 10% service charge.

The only criticisms are really around service - from the VIP arrival service at the airport (due to meet us from the plane with a Kempinski sign) only turning up about half an hour after we had been waiting at the luggage carousel, to being made to prepay our accommodation immediately on arrival but not taking any prepayment for incidentals so we were forced to pay cash for lunch. 

WiFi throughout Cuba is patchy, as is cell service. We were given a code each from the Kempinski to access WiFi in the hotel - this was a decent speed, but the lengthy log on details had to be entered each time you wanted to use it.

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ThePrivateTraveller’s top tips (any areas for improvement?)

• Service, service and service - the hotel was great, but so badly let down by rude and inefficient service.

• Being able to dial out directly from the room (as was indicated was possible) without always have to go through reception to ask for the number

• Something which annoyed us most was when we went to the concierge desk to get umbrellas to take out with us (none in the room and Havana was rainy at times). The man that was behind the desk was the person that checked us in - rather than just get umbrellas, he pressed a bell to get someone to come to the desk to deal with us - surely the right thing would have been to help us when he was there and not doing anything. 

ThePrivateTraveller’s absolute highlights:

• Location - perfect in the old town, so easy to walk to sites, the waterfront, restaurants and bars.

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Useful website links:

• Cuba Tourism Portal https://www.cubatravel.cu/en/

• Iberia https://www.iberia.com/gb/

• Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski La Habana https://www.kempinski.com/en/havana/gran-hotel-kempinski-la-habana/

• Fusterlandia https://www.lonelyplanet.com/cuba/havana/attractions/fusterlandia/a/poi-sig/1554872/358014

• Finca Vigía http://www.hemingwaycuba.com/hemingway-house-cuba.html

• Taxi in Cuba (hotel transfers and between cities) https://taxincuba.com

• Iberostar Grand Hotel Trinidad https://www.iberostar.com/en/hotels/trinidad/iberostar-grand-trinidad/

• Paradisus Princesa del Mar http://www.paradisusprincesadelmar.com

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