This is a difficult one as I only spent the one night here and circumstances meant that my experience probably wasn't typical. Most of the accommodation is in what are described as 'garden rooms' that is small single storey chalets dotted around the grounds. As a woman on my own I did feel a little vulnerable walking through the grounds in the dark - as is usual in Cuba the lighting tends to be quite low. Also, a lot of building renovation work was going on in advance of the July 26th meeting of the Party Congress taking place in Holguin this year with most of the important delegates being housed in El Bosque. So the hotel was noisy and also very grubby because the main reception area was being re-plastered. It appeared that it was the barmen who was also doing double duty as receptionist!

I arrived late evening and the food on offer was very limited. I wanted only something light and so opted for the fish which was probably a mistake - I fed most of it to the cats that were hanging around the open air dining area and so don't know if the bites I got on my legs were due to mozzies or fleas! I had an upset stomach the following day and don't know whether this was a result of the food or getting quite dehydrated (a long story that is irrelevant to a hotle review). The hotel had very few guests and breakfast was waiter service from the same menu as I'd been presented with the previous evening so I just settled for an omelette.

My room was pretty basic though it did have an enormous fridge in it. I was taken by surprise by the fact that while it did have some sockets which had a 220V supply, they were for plugs with 3 round pins in a straight line and the 110V supply was for plugs with 1 round pin and 2 flat pins but horizontal rather than vertical as per the usual Cuba style. So despite coming equipped with a range of adaptors (you can encounter different types of sockets throughout Cuba) not one of them fitted either type of socket!I've never come across either type before - judging by the age of the hotel and the fact that it was mainly aimed at Cuban guests, I did wonder whether the sockets were of a Russian type.

The hotel is located in a suburb of Holguin and surroundeed by busy traffic making it quite noisy if you were in one of the rooms close to the perimeter of the grounds. I wasn't there long enough to use it but the hotel pool looked quite nice and there were certainly more than enough loungers for the number of guests who were around. There was also a disco which was open (and noisy!) despite the fact that no one was in it.

If you have to spend a night in Holguin before onward travel (most international flights from the UK arrive in Holguin too late for catching a bus to any of the towns in the south/east of the island eg Santiago) then a friend assures me that El Bosque is one of the better hotels to have to do this in but it definitely wouldn't be somewhere I'd choose to spend longer than one night in.