Hostal Beltran de Santa Cruz, Havana

Hotel Beltran de Santa Cruz is in the heart of old Havana and in a great position for the area's major attractions, as well as paladares, cafés, and bars. The hotel is part of a Cuban chain (Habaganuex), but don't let that put you off. Recently refurbished, it was formerly a colonial merchant's house. You enter by a huge wooden door and are in the reception area, beyond which is the beautiful courtyard. In the corner is a bar where you can also opt ...
...a bit of crusty bread.

There are ten rooms and one junior suite over two floors, and all overlook the courtyard. Each room has shuttered doors that can be opened to let in light - ours had no other window and really needed the shutters opens although this limits your privacy. This means you don't get an outside view - just one of the courtyard (or "patio" as its known in Spanish).

There were two large beds, ... more

Hotel Beltran de Santa Cruz is in the heart of old Havana and in a great position for the area's major attractions, as well as paladares, cafés, and bars. The hotel is part of a Cuban chain (Habaganuex), but don't let that put you off. Recently refurbished, it was formerly a colonial merchant's house. You enter by a huge wooden door and are in the reception area, beyond which is the beautiful courtyard. In the corner is a bar where you can also opt to eat breakfast, joined by the inquisitive parrots who love a bit of crusty bread.

There are ten rooms and one junior suite over two floors, and all overlook the courtyard. Each room has shuttered doors that can be opened to let in light - ours had no other window and really needed the shutters opens although this limits your privacy. This means you don't get an outside view - just one of the courtyard (or "patio" as its known in Spanish).

There were two large beds, a bathroom with a bath, and a lovely wash basin set in an old dresser at the far end of the room. There was a TV with all the US, stations as well as some Cuban ones. A small fridge was very useful for chilling some much-needed water; it was meant to be a minbar but contained little other than soft drinks. Fuirnishings were in good order, the bedding was crisp and clean. The towels were on the small side but they were clean and after three weeks of backpacking, our own towels weren't!

Breakfast was very disappointing - some coffee, some weak orange juice, and toast with butter or jam. We got much better breakfasts when staying in casas (renting a room in a private house), so this was a real letdown considering we had paid around 70€ for the room. Once breakfast was served nobody came back to ask if you wanted anything else - it seemed that what you got was all there was.

Our other complaint was that the air-conditioning was not working and the room was so stifling and airless that we would have left had we not paid in advance by credit card and thought a refund unlikely. We asked for a fan, and the receptionist said that there were none but he would phone the other hotels and see if he could borrow one. He also said he would call out the engineer for the air-conditioning, but he never came. Returning to our room after a night out, the room was horrendously stuffy, so we went back to reception to be told there would be no fan. After some argument about the whole thing, he said we could have his fan (there was no fan in reception to be seen) and that he would bring it to the room, but he had to have it back by 8am (we had not been thinking about such an early call). Reluctantly, we accepted the offer, but were bemused on checking out the next afternoon to find that the fan was used inside the locked store cupboard in which our luggage had been stored after checking out. The precious fan was doing nothing more than blowing air around our rucksacks! Very odd indeed.

One thing we thought strange was that no attempt was made to contact the other hotels in the chain to see if there was a spare fan. I did suggest it but the receptionist did not seem keen to do this. Despite the fact that foreign chains are making in roads into Cuban tourism, there still seems little progress in customer service. In any other country all the options would have been tried for our satisfaction. However the same receptionist did organise our taxi to the airport later that day and gave us a warm farewell - he was probably pleased to see us go!

In the corner of the patio was a small bar with some stools along the bar. Here you could buy hot and cold drinks and all kinds of alcoholic drinks - the friendly barman made us some lovely refreshing "Ron Collins" and mojitos. It was nice to do this but spoilt a little by the continual playing of American sports channels on the television above the bar.

So long as the air-conditioning is okay, this is a lovely place to stay: full of character, clean, and comfortable. The okay breakfast was mean, but otherwise it was a lovely way to end our trip to Cuba.

Overall I have given a rating of "good"; this is because of the excellent location, the attractive building and the stylish rooms. An improved breakfast and better customer service would have clinched the "excellent" rating.

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Hotel Beltran de Santa Cruz
Calle Ingacio 411 (between Muralla and Sol)
Habana Vieja

Bookings cannot be made directly with the hotel. There are several websites where this can be done.
We used:
www. cubahotelbookings.com

Services include car rental and toruist information from reception

 

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