“Not even the fire extinguishers are ready,” says an employee of the Habana Libre
14ymedio, Jorge Lassa, Havana, 16 February 2025 — For decades, the Habana Libre hotel has been an element of beauty and glamour in the skyline of the Cuban capital. But behind its beautiful façade, the central building in El Vedado hides a panorama of deterioration and abandonment that drives away tourists and scandalizes tour guides. Its close cousins, the Riviera and the Colina hotel, are also not doing well in these times.
Carlos is dedicated to inspecting the security systems of hotels and recreational centers. With more than three decades in his profession, this Havana resident’s opinion is blunt: “The Habana Libre is a danger, it is very deteriorated and in the last inspection we did it practically failed in all parameters, not even the fire extinguishers are working,” he comments to 14ymedio.
“They have had to close many rooms and, right now, the hotel is barely functioning. In operation are the lobby and the 25th floor, where activities take place, but the rest of the facility is practically unused,” warns Carlos. “They have not decided to close it completely because it is a very emblematic place and they are also waiting for the opening of the K Tower, which has the capacity to absorb the clients who want to be in that area.”
“The rooms are terrible, the air conditioning barely works, there is barely any hot water in the bathrooms”
This is how the worker refers to the controversial new skyscraper at 23rd and K, which will house a luxury hotel managed by the Spanish company Iberostar, whose opening has not yet been finalized despite having been announced, first, for January 15 and, later, for February 1.
It is not necessary to delve into the bowels of the accommodation, as Carlos and his team do, to notice how breakdowns and neglect have taken over the former Habana Hilton, opened in 1958 and built with money from the retirement funds of the Cuban Union of Gastronomic Workers. Now, little remains of that former splendor of its early years, when it even housed Fidel Castro’s main office after he came to power.
“I was there in November,” says Marlén, a Cuban who works in the tourism sector. “The rooms are awful, the air conditioning barely works, there is barely any hot water in the bathrooms, leaks keep several rooms closed and everything looks very old.” In the hallways leading to each room, the smell of humidity seeps into your nose and damage accumulates in corners, lamps and surfaces.
In the hallways of the Habana Libre, the smell of humidity seeps into your nose and damage piles up in the corners. / 14ymedioThe lobby, where a few decades ago Latin American guerrillas protected by the Havana regime and intellectuals from all over the world exchanged greetings, is now a nearly empty area. But it is the nearby shopping gallery, also located on the ground floor, that most honestly shows the state of the entire hotel: with leaks in the ceilings, closed shops and few lights, it scares away customers instead of attracting them.
Last December, Raúl stayed at the Habana Libre thanks to an invitation from some relatives who had emigrated. “I stayed on the 21st floor. The elevators are gloomy, it’s scary to get in them because they creak as they move. The rooms are very outdated, you can see that they haven’t invested in modernizing them, the carpets are stained and everything smells old,” he tells this newspaper. “To use the hot water, I had to take it easy because between turning on the sink and the water coming out, just a little warm, I spent a long time. One of my wishes was to take a break from the low pressure and cold water in my shower at home, but I didn’t find what I wanted.”
The air conditioning was also poor, but at least the mild Cuban winter kept Raul from sweating in his room. “The breakfast buffet was missing a million things,” complained the guest, who had planned a wide variety of fruits, cereals, cheeses and other combinations. Instead, he was met with a poor offering, a lot of monitoring by employees to ensure that customers did not serve themselves more than they should, and poor quality food.
“It has become like an empty shell, the period furniture, the stylish lamps and all that atmosphere of the 50s have been lost”
With only four stars – it recently lost one – the worst thing about the Habana Libre, according to Raúl, is the way the staff treats national guests. “The service was very bad, especially at the door. Every day they asked me if I was staying at the hotel and that made me feel very uncomfortable. If the employees don’t have the ability to memorize faces, it’s better for them to give guests a bracelet, because the other thing is pure harassment.”
The problem of leaks from the ceilings has affected not only the rooms. “You get water on your head, whether it’s on the terrace in the middle, in the hallways, in the Ambassadors’ lounge, in the Presidential lounge or in the Latin American lounge. They all have leaks,” Raúl continues. “The buffet table next to the pool was closed when I went, so I had to sneak some bread from breakfast to have as a snack while I was in that area.”
Those who think that this symbol of Havana could not be worse off are shocked by the nearby Riviera Hotel. Last year, when the diving board of the hotel’s swimming pool collapsed, many people realized the ruin that had taken over the building, founded in December 1957 by the Riviera Hotel Company, owned by the mobster Meyer Lansky. Lack of investment and years of excess had been undermining the building, which in its design combined luxury and comfort.
This week, at the entrance to the Riviera, a security guard and a woman watering the lawn were the only “guests” in the hotel. Behind them, large, broken windows, giving a view of scaffolding covered in dust from a restoration process that has clearly stopped, give the impression that the hotel is closer to being demolished than to being restored. The ceramic-covered dome, which once covered the casino area, has been losing pieces and color due to the harsh salt of the nearby sea and lack of renovation.
Despite the damage, the Riviera still stands out for its spacious terraces, its rationalist style and a structure that allowed guests to enjoy the sea breeze and the views over the city. But, according to a tour guide who frequently visited the place, “it has become like an empty shell, the period furniture, the style lamps and all that atmosphere of the 50s have been lost and now with this closure even more so.”
In its heyday, the Chilean writer Jorge Edwards stayed there , sent in 1970 by Salvador Allende to reopen his country’s embassy and who would end up recounting his experience in Persona non grata, a devastating book about the Castro regime.
“The staff’s attention is not good and the supplies are very unstable, one day they give you something for breakfast and the next day there isn’t any more.”
“If Lansky comes back to life, he’ll either die again or have to rebuild the Riviera,” says the guide, who fondly remembers the hotel lobby, the gym, the smoking area and the pool area. “When you got on the diving board, you didn’t even want to jump into the water because from up there the spectacle was sublime. You could enjoy the sea so close, the breeze and the hotel itself, which looked spectacular from that position.”
The younger brother of the Habana Libre and the Riviera, the Colina hotel shares the path of deteriorating services with them. Also located in El Vedado, a few meters from the University of Havana, the accommodation reopened last January after a renovation process that has not left a good taste among those who knew it. “It is now managed by the state chain Isla Azul, which is one of the worst in Cuba,” says Marlén, who also visited the establishment before its repairs.
Discreet to the eye, the Colina hotel has 80 rooms and from the beginning attracted a mid-range clientele looking for its central location and amenities. At the end of the last century, after the dollarization of the Cuban economy, the ground floor was used by local musicians who were attracted by its intimate atmosphere and the type of guests who came to the place, many foreign professors and academics who wanted to be close to university classrooms.
Discreet to the eye, the Colina hotel has 80 rooms and from the beginning attracted a mid-range clientele looking for its central location and amenities. At the end of the last century, after the dollarization of the Cuban economy, the ground floor was used by local musicians who were attracted by its intimate atmosphere and the type of guests who came to the place, many foreign professors and academics who wanted to be close to university classrooms.
The reopening of the building, however, has not meant the return of those cultural moments. The Colina hotel now has the same standardized and characterless image as all the other accommodations managed by Isla Azul. That bohemian atmosphere of its beginnings, where writers, troubadours and merchants from the provinces would gather around the bar, remains only in the minds of the oldest residents. Nor has the retouching seemed to have restored the good service that characterized the place.
“The staff is not very attentive and the supplies are very unstable. One day they serve you something for breakfast and the next day they don’t have it anymore,” says Marlén. The employee dedicated to tourism promotion is blunt when evaluating the current situation: “Cuba is saved by the views, the sunrises and the nature, but not by the hotels.”
Unlike what usually happens in the rest of the world, where historic buildings are restored – as is the case of the Riviera and the Habana Libre – the Cuban government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the construction of new, larger, luxury facilities, despite the pessimistic outlook for the tourism sector.
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