it seems you either love or hate the blau we loved it, the beach, the pool, the food, the dancing, the staff, we loved it all.

Before I traveled I enjoyed reading the long reviews so I am trying to include as much info as I recall. So sorry for the long ramble.

We went to the Blau Colonial with a group of 7 people from April 14th to 21st. This is my 3rd trip to Cuba so we understood about keeping our expectations reasonable and we had a fantastic time.

The airport is small but has all the necessary amenities like currency exchange, store with cigars and liquor and souvenirs, (the downside is that these shops are on the departures area so only of use when you are flying home). Just outside they sell cans of beer to take on the bus.

The resort rooms are all in a circle around the pool starting at building 12 (main lodge), then 13 through to building 18 on left side of pool facing ocean. The end of pool housing building 19, (which backs onto the Trypp hotel next door), and then on right side of pool was building 20 back to 23 (which border on the canal). You may ask why the buildings start at 12 to 24, but the side of the resort that is now under renovations houses buildings 1 through 11. Unless you go exploring, you really don’t notice that the resort is divided in ½ as there is plenty of stuff to do. When the wind was down they had the boats and kayaks available.

The trip from the airport to the resort is only about 15 minutes. Our bus was only going to the Blau.

The grounds are lovely. The gardens and trees are mature and well looked after. (We tried to knock down coconuts. It is much harder than it looks. Don't worry about them constantly falling as another poster mentioned). There is an outdoor courtyard with the Placitas bar which is open 24 hours a day. We enjoyed sitting here every night to drink, smoke cigars, and tell stories. You can order the 24 hour sandwiches at the bar. They are usually either chicken, tuna, or ham (done Panini style). We had them a couple of afternoons and several times at 2 am. They were always tasty.

Also off the courtyard is the Italian restaurant. The food here was ok and a nice change from buffet. It had a pretty good menu selection. For $7 you can also order off a larger wine list with some Chilean wines. The meal was good, but certainly not comparable to Italian food in North America.

Just to the left of the entrance of the Italian restaurant is the piano bar. We didn't spend any time at the piano - except to drop in and refill our drinks at 11 am when the lobby bar closes and the courtyard bar lined up and this bar was still open. Some people seemed to really enjoy this bar. We could hear people singing along with the piano on a couple of occasions.

The main building is unusual. The center of the building (where you check in at the lobby desk) has an open center full of plants, a small fountain, and no ceiling. All of the admin stuff is spread around this area. The currency exchange room is past the pool table. At the other side of the room is the lobby bar. Unlike other resorts, there was never a line at currency exchange and it seemed to open early and stay open late. The lobby bartender, Liber, is pretty funny. This bar has a full time blender so they are always able to make the best blender drinks.

Across the main streetscape from the lobby bar are some shops which we didn't discover until our last day. One store had small selection of beach items like disp. cameras, sun screen, European chips and cookies. Another had cheap liquors and a pretty decent selection of cigar styles - but only from a couple different manufactures the main one being Montecristo. The shops give you a better exchange rate with visa than with currency.

The pool is very large and this allows for tons of seating. As others have mentioned, we had no problems getting 10 chairs any time we dropped by. The center of the pool (by the bridge) is the deepest part. As you move away from the bridge, it gets shallow on the sides. (It stays deep enough in the center for swimming laps.) I really enjoyed the quiet side of the pool for reading and sleeping. We also enjoyed the entertainment side. (Our team - team beer - won the poolside Olympic games.) On another occasion, we played pool volley ball or other "super crazy fun pool games". (It sounds funnier when said repeatedly over a microphone by a Cuban .) There are a couple of little paint chips around the pool, but it otherwise very nice. In fact, lounging and reading by the pool or laying in the shallow water with a drink was one of my favorite trip memories. We went midnight swimming on a couple evenings and the security guards just watched to act as lifeguards. They didn’t seem to mind - as long as we didn’t have any glass around the pool deck.

The downside of the pool size is that it a bit of a walk for drinks so be sure to bring an insulated mug. Remember, everything they give you is served in a 1/2 pint plastic glass. But they usually had 2 bartenders on duty so the line went quickly. The restaurant at the pool opens for lunch and was very popular and a couple days we waited for a table. The menu looks impressive, but they take artistic license with use of the names. Pizza Primavera is breaded circle with tomato paste and canned veggies. As with most meals, the chicken is a safe and tasty choice. The Mexican choices were also pretty good.

The pool restaurant closes at 2 pm and then opens again at 6pm as the Cuban restaurant. It is an open air restaurant. We ate here under a full moon one night and had a very nice meal. For some reason during our week the Cuban restaurant was never busy and you could choose any night to eat here. I found the food here very good. Like most of the a la cartes, they let you have 2 entrée’s if you ask. The downside of this place was the cats. They would run from table to table. When the waiter left a plate sitting at the bus boy station they would jump up and eat off it.

The beach was beautiful. As others have said, it is long with soft white sand. The beach is regularly cleaned and we saw very little seaweed in our week. There are plenty of huts and chairs. A couple days the surf was up and we body surfed. On a couple of days the water was calm and they had the catamarans out. One day, the jellyfish came in but they were tiny and not the kind that stings.

The only draw back of the beach being so long is that it can be a bit of a long walk to the beach grill to refill your beverage mug. I was very happy to have the big insulated mug. The beach grill also had a pretty good hamburger, hot dogs, and chicken. The only substantial side dish was rice, but could also get salad(which was really just Cole slaw). It was usually pretty busy so took a bit longer for both drinks and food here.

The food was above average for Cuba. The buffet had turkey, pork and chicken every night. They have 10 or 12 tables outside which we sat at whenever possible. We tipped our buffet waiter early in the week and he was great to bring drinks, beer, bottles of wine and coffee all week. The ice cream is delicious and we all enjoyed a cup every night. The only downside of the restaurant is that it only has one hot meat area. Everyone has to line up for a cut of turkey or beef of the day. Even on the worst night this wait wasn't more than 4-5 minutes.

Just past the buffet entrance towards the ocean is the Churro, (donut), stand. We found them a little too doughy (undercooked) on the first day but on advice from another traveler we asked him to extra fry them. After that they were amazing. Add a little of his strawberry sauce and then some ice cream from the buffet and this is a great lunch time dessert.

Continue past the Churro stand towards the beach and across the turtle pond bridge. The seafood restaurant is on your left. We suspect that this was the second buffet hall when the full resort was open. Now that 1/2 the resort is under construction, it doubles as seafood restaurant. We found our fish to be tasty but not great. Like much of Cuban food, it can be a touch bland. They had music during dinner. With a couple bottles of wine we had a very nice meal.

The disco is behind the Churro stand ( entrance off the courtyard). We went in a couple nights after the nightly shows had ended and had a couple drinks. At 11:30 they take people on the beer bus to “the cave” bar offsite and it would empty out for a few hours.

I have left the rooms for last because they were the only real downside of an otherwise nice resort. We were in building 16. It was nice because our room backed on the pool so we could pop inside for washroom breaks. Our room was very tired and it had a musty smell all week. The days when we left the a/c off and the windows open it would improve. However, the smell never went away. Others in our group had better rooms with no smell. Ours was pretty bad.

It was good value. I would definitely go back. Aside from the room, the rest of our trip was great. We didn’t spend much time in the room anyway. We tipped pretty well and enjoyed very good service all week. We also brought plenty of gifts to hand out and felt good about doing so. Cuban resorts are always a funny mix. Some things done very well occasionally, others are done well often, and other things are seemingly ignored.

Just returned from a wonderful trip to cayo coco, was a bit apprehensive after reading such bad reports on the Blau Colonial, we need not have worried, it was a wonderful holiday all the staff were friendly and very helpful, the hotel and grounds were always kept clean and tidy, our rooms were large well furnished with large balconies overlooking the lagoon, bathrooms were great plenty of hot water at all times. It was my 50th birthday, and had lots of special things laid on for me by the staff without them being asked to do so. There is plenty going on in the hotel, and the beach if you want to join in, but if not just lay back and enjoy the glorious weather, and sip cocktails. We also did our own trip to Havana by Taxi from the hotel, it took 6 hours to get there, but glad we made the journey saw lots of the country side, plus the sights in Havana and went to the fabulous Tropicana club it was awesome, one of my favorite parts of the trip. The costumes were brilliant so colourful, the dancing, the ballet, the gymnastics it was all amasing, the food was fab, all in all a good trip.

Lovely grounds, friendly staff members (most of them) set on a spectacular beach. Food in a-la-carte restaurants is fantastic, buffet restaurant is decent (great omelotte at breakfast). Resort is large, we were told the were close to capacity when we visited but didn't feel crowded.

Problem with hot water in the morning, or lack of it..... my room was in the "un-renovated" section in block #20 closest to the pool and smelled of damp upon arrival. Otherwise A+ in my books!