I'm gonna try to make it simple,The hotel lobby and reception area looks tipically like a 2 star hotel,the public washroom (rest room) is thirty and very smelly (both men's and lady's), The room, first when you enter the room, you will say "what's this smell " actually we(my wife and I) realize that smell comes from the ceiling of bathroom, there must be some leaks of pipeline becouase it smells a mix of urine and etc..plus cigarettes smell as well.. The food ,actually we didn't expect very much but this was way below our expectation.

I'm not a negative person , and there's some good point of this place . Safety deposit box at "No extra charge" You can keep your passports and any valuables. worry free.
Staff are generally friendly and some are excellent. the
Beach ,the best I've seen yet;

My final advice : If you booked already ,take some airfreshner (like fibriz or something) make it in your shopping list.
Tipping. you don't have to but remember Cuba is one of last Comm country on earth and this people (Hotel staff) working hard
to make some extra pesos and to get their basic needs.giving 1
peso or $ evry other day at least wouldmake the difference

I admit we did get a good deal of $994 Canadian but the next week after it was about 1200 to 1300 and I would definitely be dissappointed if I had paid more than what i did for this hotel. The hotel is older and we knew that but the biggest problem was the service. My goodness the service was horrible. It seemed like no one person was in charge of the resort and that to get any kind of help from anyone was a huge upset to any of the employees. Sometimes i would stand for 10 minutes at the front desk in need of help and the two lady receptionists would be chatting to themselves, it was in spanish but you could tell the talk was social talk. Many times i had to interrupt them because i had been waiting for so long to be noticed. The 24 snack bar and the 24 drink bar is definitely not that. they stay open but one night the 24 drink bar was out of everything but whiskey.. the snack bar is ALWAYS out of something. You have two options.. hot dogs or fries and they were ALWAYS out of one or the other and it wasn't because there was none at the resort. the cook was too lazy to go into the main building to get more and when he did get more he would get 2 bags of fries KNOWING he had a line up of about 10 people and the fries only served 4. I have been to alot of resorts but i was very surprised I walked into the breakfast buffet that was open until 10 and it was 945, yes I still had 15 minutes I had just wanted to grab a quick bite and the sign said OPEN. i go inside and the man there said 'HURRY UP..." I will never go back here or tell anyone to go back. The pool was nice, it was very big and the beach was BEAUTIFUL. the resort was decent too for being a 4 star just the service is absolutely horrible. horrible service. I would pay the extra 300 dollars and go to a 5 star.

What a dissapointment!!! My husband and my 2 yr old spent 7 days at this hotel, from May 24th to May 30th. Even though the hotel is old there is no excuse to be dirty. The pool area is OK, the lobby is outdated, there were leaks on the roof , the reception area looks like a 2 star hotel, the drinks are just OK, washrooms are dirty and smelly, the hallways were never cleaned or vacuumed all they did to my room was making the beds and sometimes sweep the floors, they changed the white towels every one day and remove the garbage, it was dusty at all times and beach towels were never replaced for 6 days even though we asked and leave little gifts and tips every other day.
The food was terrible and I arrived with very low expectations, I've been in Cuba before... the buffet is very poor , we ate bread and butter most of the times, the staff at the restaurants don't care, they are not polite at all, you dont feel like tiping them 'cause if you do they treat exactly the same way so there was no point.
A la carte restaurants are litlle better... try to book them every day.

This was a family reunion, luckily other family members were at another hotel and we managed to spend a couple of days at their hotel and just sleep at ours, both hotels are 4 stars and the price of their hotel was even cheaper , I have to mention that Sol - Sirenas Coral was way better, the food was above average, the staff were nice at all times, even the snack bar was good, the hotel in general was clean and it looks that they try to keep it that way.
I could go into details but there is no point, I read reviews before about Arenas Blancas and most of them were good, that is why I've chose this hotel and will never do it again. Maybe people don't mind stteping into dirty floors and smelly hallways, food that is crappy and bad customer service, I do ! and even though we managed to have fun and forget about it the reality is that we felt that we paid for a 2 1/2 stars or 3 for the price of 4.
Vardero beach is indeed gorgeous and will come back in a heartbeat of course to another hotel.

I don't even know where to start. This is a bad review because it's a bad hotel... Period.

I see a lot of people say that food is not important. Well, It is if you spend 4 days out of your 7 in bed vomiting... And you even get to take it home with you for an extra week or so... Nice eh ?

I give Cuba the gold meddle for the worst food in the world and the Arenas Blancas Hotel should take first place. I'm sure they get their food out of the dumpsters from other hotels..

Their plan is keep you drunk and keep you tipping.
There were almost NO young people there accept for about 3 couples. The rest were 60+++. I spent 4 days there before I complained to be moved to another hotel. Anything... Please help me !!!

The beach looks awesome, but don't be fooled. I had so many sand flea bites on my back that I had to stay clear of the sand for the rest of my trip. I saw a girl bitten from her toes to her knees with the worst bites I have ever seen. OFF don't work because I brought it with me... I wish I could show you some pics right now but I don't want to gross anyone out... 3 weeks later I still have them.

The plugs in the hotel are the same as ours here in canada with the 2 prong + ground... I tried to unplug a lamp (NOT plug anything in - Lets be clear about that) and it blew up in my hand and burned me.... See my pics.

The room was wet and stunk all the time and even my fresh cloths were wet and smelly ... Everything in the room was wet.. No Sleep and no food for days which seemed to go on for a lifetime...

Bad time of year.. the beach was empty (See Pics taken at noon) and was filled with nothing but retired senior citizens in the pool area (Someone shoot me please)...lol!

The staff was down right lazy and was constantly looking for tips before they give service. Seems like anything less than a cuban Dollar was an insult to them.

Oh .. Let's get started about the money exchange from Canadian Dollar to CUC / Cuban Tourist Paseo.... They have us so sucked in that they even made seperate money just for us and it's worthless in canada - They will laugh at you in the bank if you try to trade it so it's best to just give it away to them... Ha!! Fooled ya again.

1 Canadian Dollar is worth about ... Well let's be honest - They give you what ever they feel like. One day you get 60 cents for our dollar and the next you get 50 cents after they take their own personal cut ... Suckers. And then they want a tip for changing your hard earned money.... Sounds like the canadian government to me ... I could have stayed home to get ripped off for less money !

Do you really think Cuba is cheap ? If you do then you couldn't be more wrong. I could have gone just about anywhere in the world and I chose 2 weeks at the Arenas Blancas Hotel... I'm a real sucker.

If you go to this hotel I promis you will be back here like me giving a bad review... Sorry about your luck.

Take my advice or find out the hard way... Most of these people who give good reviews for this hotel are probly seniors. Not to offend anyone but that's all I saw there.

If you're single or young couple just forget it.
I spent my last day in Cuba and will never go back there even if it's free ... I can't even tell you how much I hate that place. There are much better places to go for a lot less money.