Havana Cuba. – The K Tower or “Torre López-Calleja”, the hotel that will shortly become the tallest building in Cuba, rises at full speed in the middle of a ramp almost uninhabited by tourists and while the surrounding buildings are they fall apart.
The block will have 44 floors and more than 500 rooms, as they reproduce with immense pride the journalistic media financed by the Cuban regime, which, in turn, is the one who finances the construction of that great white elephant “built with the highest standards of quality and safety”, even when hospitals, cinemas, homes and even other Hotels throughout the Island do not have the minimum conditions to maintain their activities normally or habitability.
So the tower has its admirers among Cubans, of course it does, but not as many as its detractors who, suffering daily and in their own flesh the generalized abandonment in which they live, find it offensive that a government allocates the resources it says not having as a “cause of the blockade” something that is obviously not necessary, rather detrimental for an economy in crisis that depends totally on donations, international aid, renegotiations and postponements of debts.
But if the tower bothers ordinary Cubans, I suppose it will irritate the owners of those hotel chains even more than seeing the new Gaviota jewel go up (where no expense and innovative technologies have been spared: solar control glass , glass with an argon gas chamber to increase thermal and acoustic insulation, among many other engineering “trinkets”) have also seen how their facilities are going backwards and although they have not yet reached the state of imminent mortal danger in which they are close Of half of all the buildings in Centro Habana and Habana Vieja, some would be almost on the verge of reaching them and even surpassing them in misery.
As is the case of the Habana Libre hotel, a few meters from that Tower K whose architects say they have conceived it as a “wink” or “homage” to its neighboring building, managed by the Spanish Meliá chain and for more than a decade calling out to cries for a capital renovation that restores the splendor of yesteryear (even down to the light sign that was removed in February 2019 and that has not yet been put back) but, above all, that honors the four stars it uses for its marketing in a deceptive way, because in a fair fight there would have to be two, or perhaps none.
Four stars for the Habana Libre hotel that once were five, but the day came when it became impossible to maintain them: when comfort and services began to decline, to the extent that some “brilliant minds” of the Cuban regime discovered that, Paradoxically, much more was earned by building hotels in droves (and subsequently abandoning them) than by systematically recovering or giving the required maintenance to those that exist, even with fewer resources.
Thus, it could be said that for every three or four floors completed in Tower K, one in the Habana Libre would be closed, to the point that in the latter only a few rooms function on floors 17 to 24 (the rest are out of service due to deterioration), according to the comments, in the form of a veritable barrage of complaints, left by some clients on pages like TripAdvisor, where the ratings are the worst, despite being a “Meliá product” and that it is still counted among the “emblemático” hotels of Cuba.
For many years, journalistic reports have been —among them those of CubaNet— that they have launched the alert about the deplorable state of the facility but they have not been enough to start taking actions in favor of this true jewel of Cuban architecture or to stop the construction of other hotel facilities that, judging by the low occupancy rate shown by those that are currently in operation (around barely 15%, according to the most recent data from the National Office of Statistics and Information, from 2022), they will remain practically empty, not at all profitable and, therefore, exposed to similar deterioration in just two or three years.
Neither the press releases nor the negative comments of the guests who continue to narrate their bitter experiences have been worth it.
Thus, a couple who stayed in May of this year described their stay at the Habana Libre hotel as “painful” and “horrible”, and therefore do not recommend it to anyone, according to what was expressed on TripAdvisor.
“Hot water doesn’t work. The windows, locked. Out of six elevators only two work and sometimes only one, which can take up to 20 minutes waiting. The room door did not have a peephole. Just the hole. The fridge didn’t work. Well, close the hotel”, commented the user who identifies herself on TripAdvisor as Carmen PS84 and that he extensively describes his bad experiences in that place where “only the damn tips matter” despite the fact that, he says, “in [el] There is never water in the bar and bad treatment abounds everywhere.”
“The carpets in the corridor full of stains”, “be careful with the people at the door who always try to get something out of you”, “they change personnel and management”, “they are real scoundrels, disastrous and rude treatment”, “dirty facilities and poorly maintained”, are other comments that can be read on the same website.
Another user, identified as Carolina C., who was hosted in April 2023, believes that she felt discriminated against in the cafeteria, although she does not clarify the reasons; however, it is common knowledge that not giving tips (even when they are aware of the poor service they offer) or being Cuban (even when they are white-skinned and pay in dollars) are frequent causes of discrimination in hotel facilities on the Island where Apparently “internal directives” are in operation that seek to maintain a separation between foreigners and nationals, and that give “continuity” to that apartheid of the 90s, by which it was forbidden for a Cuban not only to stay in them but also to hang around in the vicinity .
Complaints about the Habana Libre range from the absurdity of having to pay for a bottle of water at the breakfast buffet to basic hygiene and safety issues in the rooms and common areas.
Gonzalo Beaware, who was there in April 2023, describes it as “a hotel of nightmares”: “I will never come back here (…), so as not to forget and above all to never return (…). The room’s safe, propped up on a shelf. Bad cleaning. Zero maintenance. Awful”.
melanie malso housed on the same date, denounces that “they load the elevator that is for eight with 15 people.”
Juana M., whose visit was in March 2023, speaks of “furniture with moisture fungus”, of “terrible service in the restaurant” and warns of publications that try to discredit negative comments and that could even be generated by hotel staff to improve rating on TripAdvisor: “To be honest, I would not go back to Cuba. Pay close attention because there are many false comments in the hotels in Cuba”.
The user identified as gynospine, wrote in March 2023: “They stole money and Armani glasses with a medical prescription. Room smells musty, old, bedding and towels the same. Ugly smell”. He also talks about the peeling paint on the walls, the rusty furniture and the lack of enough staff to do the cleaning.
“We never imagined that an establishment with the prestige of the Meliá chain, reserving a premium room and paying 500 euros for two nights, could be in the unfortunate state that they gave it to us,” the user wrote in February 2023. Joana L.L.. “There is no toilet paper in the bathrooms. Sagging roofs with leaks and humidity. Leaving the room it was scary that everything was going to fall down, ”she added.
But, according to what can be read on the same page on the Internet, it is not only a problem of the Habana Libre hotel, but also the deterioration and abandonment, especially in services, have spread to most of the facilities in the country, including the most emblematic, such as the Hotel Nacional de Cuba; and even those that have recently opened, such as the Grand Aston Habana or the Iberostar Grand Packard, belonging to other chains.
Regarding the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, the user identified as Odyssey21087111110, in May 2023 he complained about his terrible experience on the hotel terrace due to the “bad attention from the staff”. Similarly, the TripAdvisor user george louis ha month earlier described the place as “worst impossible”.
user experience Samir B. at the Gran Aston Habana, in March 2023, it was described as “horrible”. Its recommendation was: “Do not waste your time or your money in this hotel.” A similar opinion to that of Rodolfo D.who a year earlier, in May 2022, spoke on the same page about his “terrible experience”.
Not even the Iberostar Grand Packard hotel, despite the recognition it has received in recent times, has been rid of bad ratings, some of which could explain how they manage to obtain so many honors without apparently fully deserving them. In this sense, the TripAdvisor user identified as Grace B.in May of this same year he referred to his “horrible experience”, to the “terrible service” and incidentally denounced the “harassment of workers” asking for “comments on social networks”.
“It is embarrassing that they do this when what they offer is not worth it or value it,” he said. Grace b.
For his part, the Cuban Armando Rwrote in February 2023: “The most racist hotel in Cuba,” and added: “A hotel that from the moment you enter, from the doorman to all the (employees) they see that you are Cuban and as if they see a ghost, it shows that you are not desire to host you (…), they looked for 70 ways not to encourage hosting”.
Meanwhile, the majestic Tower K, future hotel “K 23” (which they should name differently so that its current nickname does not seem like that of a laboratory virus), continues its ascent over the roofs and discolored structures of a languishing city. because of dropouts. Abandonment of the institutions that should take care and do not, and of the tourists who do not arrive, or who have decided never to return after such bad experiences.
