Guanabo

[jamesheine]

#22188

Due to the condition of Guanabo Beach and the lack of activity by other tourists you mentioned in your video, do you know of another place someone should try and get a Casa in Playa Del Este?  We’ll spend our days in Santa Maria Beach, but it sounds like Guanabo is in pretty bad shape in every way.

[Mario]

#22191

Hi James,

Well, if you want to go to a beach near Havana and spend the night, you have very few options. Guanabo has a terrible beach, but it is a town so you can find bars and restaurants and hotels and room rentals. You can see a couple of the best casas in Guanabo on my website (https://bestcubaguide.com/casas-particulares-in-guanabo-cuba/)

Santa Maria is just about 1km west of Guanabo, but it is not really a town. It is just a large, beautiful beach, with 4 or 5 hotels on the beach. You cannot find independent room rentals in Santa Maria. Only hotel rooms, and the hotels are absolutely terrible. The Tropicoco hotel is old and probably the worst hotel in Cuba. The Atlantico is terrible too (and the beach in front of the Atlantico is also terrible as it is close to Guanabo.

Fundamentally, if you want a nice, big beach, close to Havana, then your only choice is Santa Maria. (There are other smaller beaches but they are tiny). But if you want lodging for the night, I would suggest you get a casa in Guanabo. So, sleep in Guanabo and then go to the beach in Santa Maria. You can get there by bus or walk about 1km. I have some details on how to get to Santa Maria from Havana here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H199wCzPg2Y&t

It’s really the only choice I see and it is what I personally do as well. Basically, get a good casa in Guanabo and use that as your base. Then, from there, go west to Santa Maria. Also, in the summer, Guanabo is slightly better. I just came back from Cuba and visited Guanabo and Santa Maria. At this point, I would not even call Guanabo a beach. It was pitiful. The demarcation between Santa Maria and Guanabo can loosely be said to be Hotel Atlantico. West of Atlantico, the beach is good. East of Atlantico, the beach is bad. I found this video on youtube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kestfXW4ceQ It shows the walk from Atlantico, east, towards the town of Guanabo. Not my idea of a great beach. (The first few minutes of the video are in front of Hotel Atlantico. I was there in 2013 and the beach was one of the best beaches I had ever seen. Now it is a pile of rocks with a bit of sand and tree roots… Too bad).

Also, I have recently found another very nice beach which has very few tourists on it (almost nobody at all really). The locals call this beach Rincon de Guanabo. It is located east of Guanabo, on the east side of the city. Here is a map with some details. You can check it out here: https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/Guanabo_Beaches/J0DtbQkV9A

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