THE HOTEL

A number of rooms of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, where the renowned personalities stayed, are preserved as historical rooms and known by their names, like Compay Segundo Room (224), Nat King Cole Room (218), Mafia Room (211), among others. When you go down the stairs from the lobby to the restaurant La Veranda or to the exchange office, you will see the signed photos of some of these personalities hung alongside the walls of the stairs.

The central location of the hotel provides the hotel guests to reach most of the touristic places of Havana by walking. The hotel has a mixture of several styles of architecture, but the Art-Deco design is the dominant one. The H ground plan of the Hotel Nacional is similar to the Breakers Palm Beach Hotel in Florida, US, but the stone adornments on the roof that look like the chess pieces, seem to be placed in tribute to José Raúl Capablanca, Cuban world chess champion between 1921 and 1927. 

The hotel differs from most of the hotels in Havana by having a large front garden that allows to demonstrate its grandness. The hotel has 426 rooms on 8 floors, including 1 royal suite, 1 presidential suite and and more than 40 other suites.

In the lobby, the good preserved original mahogany furnishing, the tiles with overwhelming blue color that cover the walls, the wooden reception counters, the columnar design of the offices and the brass pieces sustain the atmosphere of 1940’s. The hotel has 6 halls for meetings and receptions, the biggest being the Sala Vedado with a capacity of 250 persons in theatre design. The second biggest hall, Sala Taganana, received its name from the famous cave that existed under the base of the hotel. The Salón 1930 is used for music concerts and has a capacity of 300 persons in theatre design. Every Tuesday and Saturday the Cuban traditional music group Buena Vista Social Club take the stage in this emblematic hall. At 20:30 the doors open, and the show begins at 21:30, ending at 23:30 (for reservation:  +53 7 8363663 or +53 7 8363564-119). The hall is also called Compay Segundo in memoriam to the immortal musician. The hotel has three restaurants: The Comedor de Aguiar that features excellent chandeliers and waiters in tuxedos, La Veranda, used usually only for breakfast, and La Baraaca, the traditional ranchón-style restaurant in the garden

The lobby opens to an elegant colonnaded veranda, where you can taste your piña colada sitting on a comfortable big straw chair and watching the peacocks wandering around. At one corner a trio plays the popular Latin songs. The spacious breezy garden behind the hotel that looks out to the sea, has an excellent view of the Malecón, particularly at sunset. It has a well-tended lawn; however, some trees were severely damaged by the hurricane Irma in 2017.

The garden contains two cannons, remained from the former Batería de Santa Clara: the Krupp and the Ordoñez. The Ordoñez that had a heavy caliber and long range, was the largest cannon in the world at the time. The Krupp twice bombed the cruiser USS Montgomery during the blockade of Havana in Hispanic-Cuban-American War in 1898. Both the cannons were included in the List of the World Heritage Sites in 1998. There is also the bell of the same battery that was used as reveille to raise the flag at 05:00 in the morning and to lower it at 18:00. The hotel still follows this tradition. During the Missile Crisis in 1962, the hotel had built some trenches and a bunker in the garden that are transformed into exhibition areas today. The palm-flanked swimming pool is on the left side of the garden; it looks outmoded, but still functioning.

The Hotel Nacional became famous also by the quality of the show in the Cabaret Parisien that you can find in front of the hotel on the right side, opposite the car parking. The shows reflect the effects of the Indo-American, Hispanic and African cultures on the Cuban culture. The show opens its doors at 21:00 and the show starts at 22:00, ending at 24:00 every day (except Wednesday), however, the music from the band continues until 02:00. (for reservation:  +53 7 8363663 or +53 7 8363564-119). In general, the front tables are reserved to the guests that prefer to watch the show, taking their dinner (40 $ /with dinner 70 $).

There is a Wishing Well in front of the Cabaret Parisien. According to the legend since 1930, the hotel guests achieve their wish, if they would hold their hands over the mouth of the well.

The Hotel Nacional de Cuba is declared National Monument and included in the list of World Heritage Sites. The last renovation of the hotel was in 1992.