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Checking out Cuba: A stay at the rebranded Sheraton Starwood Hotel is a horror story

A vintage car, which are quite common in Cuba, passes in front of the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Havana.
A vintage car, which are quite common in Cuba, passes in front of the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Havana. A vintage car, which are quite common in Cuba, passes in front of the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Havana.

By Associated Press 5 min read

photo The Miramar section of Havana, Cuba, still has an exclusive feel with foreign embassies, upscale shops and high-brow tourist attractions.
photo A worker cleans stairs near the lobby of the Four Points by Sheraton Havana in Cuba. American hotel giant Starwood has begun managing the hotel previously run by the Cuban military.

HAVANA – Cuba is a land of architectural splendors, stunning scenery, warm, welcoming people – and some of the world’s worst hotels.

Communist states aren’t known for their hotel management, and you can find hotel horror stories with no problem: inedible food, rude staff, sewage leaks in kitchens, glass doors collapsing into shards onto guests as they shower.

So it was intriguing when American hotel giant Starwood announced a deal to manage the Fifth Avenue Hotel run by the Cuban military in the upscale Miramar section of Havana. Would Starwood be able to upgrade a facility that guests had lambasted online for crickets, cockroaches and dirty carpets?

A lot’s riding on the answer.

Tourism rose 20 percent last year after Cuban President Raul Castro and President Barack Obama declared detente after decades of a U.S. trade embargo against the Caribbean country. Commercial flights from the U.S. begin in September and are expected to bring another surge in visitors. And Cuba needs tourists’ money.