Varadero is huge – there are at least 50 hotels. For budget travelers turning up impromptu, hunting down bargain rooms is a sport akin to marathon running. Book ahead or concentrate your efforts on the peninsula's southwest end where hotels are cheaper and the town retains a semblance of Cuban life. It is illegal to rent private rooms in Varadero and the law is strictly enforced.
Having a more understated look (and more personable service) than many of its neighbors has helped Sandals Royal Hicacos immeasurably: it just might be the most appealing resort on this part of the peninsula with vast ranchón-style publi.
This old stalwart stands like a royal blue sentinel at the entrance to Varadero.
Some of the rooms are mini-suites with a fridge, microwave and seating area and, although the furnishings are a bit drab, everything is clean, functional and spacious.
The first hotel you encounter when driving into Varadero is an attractive enough place with a lovely palm-fringed pool, integrated colonial-style architecture, and a choice stretch of beach.
This intimate Spanish castle-style pensione is one of Varadero's nicest budget-type hotels and has long been a backpacker favorite for its fair value and good location.
Apparently this garden suburb of cream bungalows sits on the most coveted part of the peninsula judging by the prices of the Barceló.
Plain from the front, but infinitely more attractive on the oceanside, this four-story, crescent-shaped hotel is right on a recently replenished section of the beach.
Formerly the Gran Hotel, Club Amigo’s lurid pinks, yellows and greens suggest Disneyland, Vegas or worse; but the place has perked up since its Aguas Azules reincarnation at the turn of 2008–09.
Another decent choice for independent-minded travelers is one of these one-bedroom apartments with kitchenette and small balcony. Cooking your own food is possible (check that the kitchen has proper cooking gear).
This stunning resort wins the prize for Varadero's most impressive lobby (and there's some pretty ostentatious competition), with its seven-story domed vine-dripping atrium ensuring that reception area's wow factor.
The monstrously sized 1025-room Sirenis, opened in 2007, is Cuba's biggest hotel (you'd need a book to list half the facilities). The temple-like lobby is beautiful and the grounds pleasantly manicured.
This complex is actually made up of two hotels situated three blocks apart.
A mammoth place with 532 rooms in two eight-story towers. Inside the impressive two-level atrium looks more like a train station than a hotel while the freshwater swimming pool (one of the biggest free form pools in Cuba) is equally huge.
Opened in December 1950 as a sister hotel to Miami's Fontainebleau, the four-story Internacional is Varadero's most famous and fabulously retro resort.
A venerable old hacienda-style building from the 1930s, the Kawama is a piece of Varadero history.
Hotel chain Islazul goes (almost) all-inclusive in this friendlier, cozier copy of the big resorts further northeast.
Varadero's most intriguing, intimate lodging is in the grand former residence of US chemical entrepreneur Irenée Du Pont, where eight lavish rooms tempt guests.
This very good value resort in western Varadero is squeezed between the beach and the canal, meaning even the cheap rooms have a view. The pool is big, there are tons of activities and all the rooms have balconies and satellite TV.
The eastern tip of the peninsula at Punta Hicacos is five-star territory and this Meliá wins the Oscar for Varadero’s most expensive hotel (no mean feat).
Built in the shape of a pre-Columbian Mexican pyramid, the Blau might have taken the Cancún comparisons too far, especially as the vast vine-draped reception evokes more a retro space station than a Mayan monument.
Right on a great piece of beach, this activities- oriented hotel attracts youthful package tourists and a few married Cubans. It’s well located right in the center but, at 40 years of age, the slightly tatty rooms don’t merit the asking price.
You've arrived at the luxury end of the peninsula. Everything that went before was small-fry compared to these proverbial giants.
Affording some semblance of independence, the one- and two-bedroom apartments in this scattered complex have cooking facilities and living rooms. It's all several hundred meters from the beach (a long way in Varadero), but decent value.
This large resort right on the beach now run by the French Accor chain was once a personal residence of dictator Fulgencio Batista.
If you prefer a little house to a hotel set-up, try one of these 25 older two-story villas, each with three or four double units.
Some may revel in Tryp's four-star luxuries. The facilities here are admittedly plush, but there's not much cross-fertilizing with the real Cuba.
At no-frills, no-pretensions Villa la Mar you'll dine on fried chicken, mingle with peso-paying Cuban tourists and fall asleep to the not-so-romantic sound of the in-house disco belting out the Cuban version of Britney Spears.
The 1960s concrete-block architecture make this all-inclusive one of Varadero's ugliest tourist shrines, but the Tuxpán is famous for other reasons, such as its disco, La Bamba, purportedly one of the resort's hottest.
Admittedly, this 1970s Legoland structure is never going to win any architectural prizes.
Formerly known as Hotel Bellamar (locals still call it that), this place is one block from the beach.
Ever had the feeling of déjà vu? You will here at this other large end-of-peninsula complex, where children are banned and the atmosphere is that of a retirement village: tranquil but flat.
This hotel is a training ground for Cuban students vying to work in the tourist industry and is the best bargain in town, barring a night on the beach.
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