Hotel Solymar

This was always the budget end of Varadero's chain hotels, and it still is, at a price that undercuts every other former chain resort on the strip. The beach is the same world-class strip as its pricier neighbours, the staff are friendly, and September 2026 guests, writing after the handover, said everything was good. The honest weak point is food, and the one detailed post-handover report, from October 2026, is a bad one: poor rice, gristly meat, desserts without sugar, no variety, and almost nothing left by nine in the evening. That is the island-wide pattern in a year when every Cuban kitchen buys from the same state supply system, and at this hotel's price there is less to cushion it. On the night of September 18, 2026, when the national grid collapsed, a visitor filming Varadero's dark streets noted that the Solymar's generator was still running after his own hotel's had stopped.

Solymar is for travelers who have done Cuba before and know what they are signing up for, or budget-minded first-timers who want this beach at the lowest price a former chain hotel charges, and who can get there, which with every Canadian airline suspended until further notice means Europe, Mexico or Panama. Go in expecting the beach to be the trip, bring cash for everything, and eat early. If the food matters more than the price, Palmeras Varadero and Los Pétalos Varadero have had better post-handover reports for not much more.