Valentín Varadero El Patriarca
Reopening Date & Status
Valentín Varadero El Patriarca is temporarily closed — Temporarily Closed (Cuba energy crisis).
Valentín Varadero El Patriarca is a family-friendly all-inclusive resort in Varadero, Cuba with 420 rooms. Amenities include Beach, Nightclub, Nightly Entertainment, Snorkeling and Water Sports Rentals. Travelers rate it 4.3/5 across 3,846 Google reviews.
Things to Know
Before you book in Cuba
Cuba's tourism sector is in crisis: most hotels are closed, every international chain pulled out in 2026, and no credit card of any nationality works anywhere in the country.Read what actually changed →What travelers said before it closed
Traveler Insights(89 discussions)
Pros
- +Sits directly on Varadero's main beach out on the Hicacos Peninsula: wide, white, calm-water sand that has always been the real reason people came here
- +The grounds are built around El Patriarca itself, a giant cactus the owner Gaviota describes as more than 500 years old, which gives the hotel its name and a genuinely one-of-a-kind centerpiece
- +Under Valentín it ran as an adults-only hotel with a minimum age of 16 and a ban on student and spring-break groups, so the atmosphere was calmer than the family hotels along the strip
- +Big, green, low-rise layout: 420 rooms spread across 35 buildings, with balconies or terraces rather than one tower block
- +A sensible restaurant lineup on paper: the Garañón buffet plus Brasilete (gourmet), Raizúo (Asian) and Carrasquillo (Italian) à la carte, and beach and pool snack bars
- +Out-of-the-way location near the tip of the peninsula, about 1 km from Marina Gaviota and 5 km from the Varadero Golf Club and Plaza América, away from the busier town end
- +Non-motorized water sports, tennis and multisport courts, a theater and a disco were part of the all-inclusive setup when it operated
Cons
- −Closed since February 6, 2026, when Cuba shut low-occupancy hotels during its energy crisis, and as of October 2026 there is no announced reopening date
- −Valentín Hotels has left: its website no longer lists El Patriarca or any Cuban hotel, so whoever runs the building if it reopens, the Valentín product described in older reviews is gone
- −Since June 6, 2026 no Visa or Mastercard from any country works in Cuba, so any trip here means carrying your entire budget in cash
- −Getting there is the hard part: Canadian tour operators including Sunwing and WestJet Vacations suspended Cuba indefinitely in June 2026, and Canada has advised against non-essential travel since February 2026
- −For US citizens a Cuban beach-resort holiday is not a legal trip at all, and anyone who has visited Cuba since January 12, 2021 loses ESTA visa-waiver eligibility for the United States
- −Before the closure, guests on traveler forums were already reporting tired rooms: broken locks and fridges, no hot water for stretches, toilets that would not flush and mold in bathroom grout
- −The main buffet drew steady complaints about repetitive menus and poorly cooked proteins on week-long stays
Varadero El Patriarca is a large, low-rise beachfront hotel near the far end of the Hicacos Peninsula, owned by the Cuban state group Gaviota and built around the cactus it is named after, a giant the owner says is more than 500 years old. For several years it was sold as Valentín El Patriarca, an adults-only (16 and over) all-inclusive run by the Spanish chain Valentín Hotels. That operation is over: Valentín's website no longer lists the hotel or any Cuban destination, and Gaviota still shows the property under its older Ocean Varadero El Patriarca name.
More importantly, the hotel is closed. It was one of the Varadero hotels shut on February 6, 2026, when Cuba consolidated guests from low-occupancy properties into other hotels during the energy crisis, and as of October 2026 no reopening date has been announced. When it was operating, the beach and the grounds were the strengths and the rooms were the weakness: traveler forums described broken fixtures, hot-water outages and mold, a buffet that repeated itself, and better results at the Brasilete, Raizúo and Carrasquillo à la carte restaurants. If it does reopen under new management, expect the room count and layout to stay the same (420 rooms in 35 buildings) but treat everything about the service, age policy and restaurants as unknown until an operator publishes it.
If you hold a booking here, contact your tour operator or agent now: guests at closed Cuban hotels have been moved to other properties, often without much say in which one, and Canadian operators have suspended Cuba packages altogether. Before planning any Varadero beach trip, check four things: whether the hotel has actually reopened (not just whether a booking site still sells it), whether your flight is really operating, how you will pay when no Visa or Mastercard works on the island, and your own government's advisory. US citizens cannot legally take this kind of beach-resort holiday, and anyone who has been to Cuba since January 2021 needs a full US visa rather than an ESTA afterwards.