Outstanding place, great people

Brisas Sierra Mar is a perfectly located hotel on an idyllic beach, staffed by invariable friendly and helpful people. The swimming and snorkelling is great. They had a serious house fly problem in the buffet, which detracted from the otherwise good food and represents a worrisome health and sanitation issue. The plumbing and wiring is a bit dated, and required the (cheerful) assistance of the staff on a few occasions. These are minor issues more than made up for by the superb location and excel [... lire plus]lent staff.

Great Resort

Spent two days at resort and then taken into the city to stay at a hotel due to possible hurricane. Very pleasant hotel Melia in Santiago but no beach. Tour operator very good at keeping us informed about hurricane conditions.

Great place been there 6 times

Great view of mountains and carribean sea. Staff is e xcellent Food is good . pool was refurbished. Nice to rent scooters and travel around country side very safe outside of resort .I highly re comend brisa sierra mars

Advancing Decrepitation!

Brisas needs MAJOR reno's. Yes, it's scenic & staff wonderful, but hot food at best is lukewarm, flies arnd food a constant & halls leak after any rain, making floors slippery & dangerous to walk on.

Mixed

Beach: weeds bottom with huge sudden steps down, could be dangerous. Service: usual Cuban Food: usual Cuban Room: All the rooms have balconies and look at the ocean, but all the locks to balconies are broken, AC works as noisy as Harley-Davidson but getting nowhere. Value: it was cheap but good enough. Some adds Try to avoid Cuban Airline if possible. There is a nice coral reef in 300 meters from the beach.

Most Scenic resort in Cuba

This was our 4th visit over 12 years to Brisas Sierra Mar, our favorite location for exposing the kids to a true Cuban experience. The resort has the most beautiful vistas of both the Caribean Ocean and the Sierra Maestra Mountains. The beach is excellent for long walks, snorkeling and it is surrounded by small farms. The included snorkeling trip is well worth participating in and is only a short boat ride so there is plenty of time to explore the reef. The resort is dated but they have made a l [... lire plus]ot of progress repairing and painting the effects of hurricane Sandy, the Ranchon, (beach Restaurant) is in excellent shape again, the elevator worked throughout our stay. The fountain and the jacusiw were also functional, they created a new snack bar next to the buffet for snacks throughout the afternoon and after the buffet closes in the evening. The staff and regular visitors are always friendly and make everyone feel welcome, some surprisingly even remembering our names. The food was as varied as could be with their limited resources, nicely spiced for Cuba, always a good selection of salad ingredients, bread/buns and fruit. They never ran out of Rum in the lobby but the odd time red wine was no longer available until the next day. The Cuban guests, mostly on weekends were always pleasant and respectful, better dressed than many Canadians but have to work on picking up their cups etc and disposing of them. Great value for your money and a well designed facility. Definitely will be back.

Very Tired

They are doing the best they can with what they've got, but this resort is extremely tired and in need of an update. Food essentially the same every day and not great, but I was forewarned so didn't have big expectations. Individual restaurants a little better, as was the private restaurant Oceano back at the highway. The apparent need for constant raucous music by the pool area was unfortunate but one could go down to the beach for quiet tanning.

Brisas Sierra Mar

At the Santiago airport we were met with a mass of travelers trying to get to the immigration wicket. There were no lines just people milling around trying to get ahead of the others. After making it to the immigration wicket we exited through a door that lead to the security search area. Two stations were open and again no lineups just a mass of people trying to inch their way forward. Eventually we made it past security where each bag was scanned by an x-ray machine. I had to obtain a customs  [... lire plus]declaration form since they had none on board the plane. Trying to fill it out the form was a challenge with all the pushing and shoving going on. Airport rating: 1 star. Exiting the terminal building there was no sign of the BSR tour rep. We wondered from bus to bus only to be redirected. Eventually we found our bus and obtained our tour info package. At the BSR, a Bell Boy grabbed our luggage and motioned for us to follow. We were assigned a room on the 6th floor. We had to climb about 60 steps from the lobby which was a challenge for my wife. There was water in the hallway and on the stairs. We went back to the lobby to request a room with fewer stairs to climb. We were told the only room available was on the 5th floor, one floor lower. We checked out this room and it was worse than what we had so we decided to stay for the night. The next day, we went back to the front desk and asked again to be moved. This time it was a different person and she offered us a room on the 3rd floor. We moved to the 3rd floor since it was fewer stairs to climb. The rooms are old and tired. For the most part we had hot water. The food in the buffet restaurant was poor. The quality was poor; the selection was poor and repetitive. It seemed whatever was not used up for one meal was recycled back for the next meal. I have been to Cuba ten times so I know what to expect. Pork and chicken every day. Same dried stuff day in and day out. There was a pasta section and a meat section, hardly any hot vegetables. I would have expected more fish dishes, but it wasn't so. I ate mostly bread and cheese.Fresh fruit was limited, oranges, grapefruit and pineapple. The waiters in general were okay. The Cuban al a carte restaurant had good reviews from people that tried it. Be prepared for a lot of stairs. From the beach to the 7th floor are almost 200 steps. That is a lot of stairs especially for older people. Most of the clientele are older people. The elevators are always out of order. Only one elevator works occasionally. Maybe every other day. The entertainment was acceptable. The two tennis courts are good by Cuban standards. We brought our own racquets and tennis balls. The beach is small for the size of the resort. There are eight beach umbrellas, hardly enough. There are some trees that provide shade. The lounge chairs are old. The nearest washrooms are a five minute walk. The scenery from the pool area was excellent with a view over the bay and mountains. This was the best part of BSR.

Smokers retreat

This resort is in a lovely location wonderful staff however the fact that the management refrain from inforcing smoking laws that are meant to protect their staff and non smoking guests is disturbing to say the least perhaps a smoking area to accommodate people who wish to kill themselves would be in order. Fellow Canadiens and European guest are well aware of the hassards of secondhand smoke.Your own leader was against smoking. Because of managements inability to protect its guest in the lobby  [... lire plus]area in this resort young children are exposed to the death wish of the few. In today's world this is insane!!! Look around the resort and you see many cigarette butts I guess smokers like to leave souvenirsHow could I recommend this resort to all my non-smoking friends?

Excellent resort

Liked the rural position of this site, food was good, service was good. It is very relaxing as thers are few cars and only the hotel motorised boat. The swamp beside the hotel grounds however makes you a pray for bugs to bite... All in all it was an excellent vacation.

Rustic peaceful friendly

I always like going here because it is relaxing scenic with the mountains very safe place to go people are friendly food is good they grow much of there food in there gardens on resort its not party central they have nightly entertainment not all night long beach to walk on weather is always nice

People are great, Anthony, walking guide, awsome!

immaculately clean, friendly, typical Cuban food, but the a la carte restaurants were good. views spectacular, and long beach walks were awesome. loved the beach restaurant for lunch, with great live music!

Good resort. Extremely friendly

Hotel is not fancy but has everything you need. Food is good and water is good. Very easy to kick back and enjoy yourself. pool is in reasonable condition and the beach is kept clean. Rooms definitely need to be updated but are clean and well kept

Fun Week in Cuba

This was the best time we have had in Cuba - lots of great entertainment, excellent beach area and better food than expected. The hotel suffers from the usual infrastructure problems in Cuba - the elevator only worked for half the week, a lot of the hallway lights were out and the pool liner needs replacing - but everything was sparkling clean and the staff were great.

SIMPLE RESORT, NOT FOR PEOPLE WITH POOR MOBILITY

THE PERSONNEL AND THEIR SERVICE IS TOPS. MUSIC GROUPS ARE VERY GOOD, BUT NOT ENOUGH OF THEM. THE SCENERY IS SPECTACULAR AND THIS IS WHAT BRINGS PEOPLE BACK AGAIN AND AGAIN. STAGE ENTERTAINMENT IS OK. AT THE RESORT, ONE GETS WHAT HE/SHE PAID FOR. DO NOT EXPECT ANY LUXURY AT ALL. FOOD IS GETTING WORSE FROM YEAR TO YEAR. MANY THINGS NEED FIXING, LIKE ALMOST NO WATER TO HAVE A SHOWER. THE POOL LINER IS TOTALLY RIPPED ALL AROUND. PUBLIC WASHROOMS ARE OUT OF SERVICE FOR DAYS. RESORT BICYCLES ARE A DAN [... lire plus]GER TO DRIVE AND ARE FALLING APPART. ELEVATORS DID NOT WORK FOR DAYS, VERY TOUGH FOR OLDER PEOPLE WITH WALKING PROBLEMS. AIR-CONDITION IN THE DINING ROOM HAS NOT WORKED FOR YEARS NOW. ALL WINDOWS ARE OPEN FOR COMFORT, BUT IT BRINGS IN A LOT OF FLIES. THE WORST PROBLEM IS THE AIRPORT CHECK IN AND CHECK OUT. THE PLACE IS TOO SMALL TO HANDLE TWO OR THREE PLANE LOADS OF PEOPLE ALL AT THE SAME TIME. ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE TIMES SHOULD BE SPREAD OVER A FEW HOURS APPART. TORONTO/ MONTREAL BUSSES AND FLIGHTS ALL ARRIVE AND DEPART AT THE SAME TIME. THIS LEADS TO HOUR LONG LINE UPS. THIS TIME THERE WERE THREE FLIGHTS BEING CHECKED IN, ALL AT THE SAME TIME IN A SPACE OF A BUNGALOW. FOR ALL THESE HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE THERE IS ONE SECURITY CHECK POINT. IT TOOK HOURS OF WAITING UNTIL ONE FINALLY GETS TO THE DEPARTURE ROOM.

Wonderful time

We would go back. Hotel shows its age; however, repeat vacationers galore - so must be good . Most rooms have ocean view even the garden view. 2 nd floor closer to beach , 4th closer to pool and restaurants.

Unique resort

Very nice ground, mountains around, almost every room is ocean view. Food is Cuban. But beach is with dark sand and a lot of bags. Nice coral reefs are close to the beach around 100 meters to swim. Workers are nice. In winter time it's the warmest place in Cuba.

Very nice, as expected

We went for the 5th time to this resort in past 11 years. As expected, our stay was relaxing, good food (very tasty), nice people (local and tourists). We liked the most the fact there is no motor sport activity. One can enjoy the "raw Cuba" and Caribbean Sea, as God created them. Slow paced of everything, makes me forget about stress and take it easy, relax. Scuba diving is very good, experienced dive masters which take no risks. There are about 10 different dive spots in the resort vicinity, m [... lire plus]ostly coral reef dives from 30 feet down to 120. With a little bit of persuasion and few extra pesos, we convinced the Cuban divemasters to take us to 2 famous shipwreck (more like 1 hour drive from resort, but bad road condition) sunk in late 1800's during the Spanish-American war. Full of artifacts, and 100-150 feet visibility.... it was mind blowing.

Beautiful Resort !

Great resort,, nice weather friendly staff the beach was very nice. The service was great by each and every staff we came across on our vacation eapecially Rene the gardener who took the time to talk and showed us the grounds. The maid service was excellent ( Marisa) she was wonderful made sure our room was replenish every day! Thanks guy keep up the great work! Hopefully we will be visiting soon again!

Beautiful views from just about every where/

Food was OK. Service is very good. Rooms clean. Nice beach with dark sand, water still clear and you can see the ground below. I recomend this place, 30 degrees in January. Great.We plan a return rip sonn fo sure.