coral beach

it was an amazing experience. we rented a scooter and went by ourselves. it cost 20 cuc for me and my partner for the equipment and the guide. bring an empty bottle filled with bread and when the water pushes a small piece of bread out, 50-100 fish swarm around you. it was beyond amazing. go in the morning as the waves are less choppy. the people working there are sharks and they will ask you for your glasses, goggles etc, so be wary of that. also do not order anything from the beach it is a rip off. bring your own food. cuba is safe though and you never need to worry about your belongings. this is a must see.

Unfortunately we could not go snorkeling because the weather was not great. It is a nice spot. Seemed more like a spot to spend money on souveniers. There were lots of local asking for money at this location.

We love the coral, clear water and colourful fish! It is a busy place but well worth the wait. The guides were great too!

I went scuba diving at this location for my first time and it did not disappoint. There were tons of fish and beautiful coral. Once you were under the water, the waves didn't matter. The comments about jellyfish are ridiculous - what do you expect? It's the OCEAN.

This was a beautiful coral reef to snorkle out and have your pic taken for 10 cuc if you wish..great photographer delivers later same night to your resort, great shopping here and drinks! will definately do this again next year!

My boyfriend and I took a few hours to get off our resort (Memories). We took a taxi from Memories to Playa Coral for 40 CUC each way, I'd say it's about a 30-40 minute drive. You' get to see some of Varadero and it's a nice easy highway drive. There's two parts to this beach, the private and the public side. At the private side, this is where the excursions will take you. You can also go alone and pay 10 CUC I believe to have access to the snorkel gear, their facilities and a guide.We had our own gear and are relatively experienced and wanted to escape the grounds so walked about 200 m down the road to the public beach. It was not busy at all and it's free to use. There is a gentleman there (Eric) who sells drinks (cold beer/pina coladas), grilled meals and rents chairs. We brought towels and had our own snorkel gear so spent 15 CUC or so on drinks. The reef is nice, small, easy to navigate and there's lots to see. Mostly small reef fish, I didn't see any turtles, rays, sharks etc... Nice coral formations though, big fans and brain coral. I'm not sure if htere were bathrooms/change rooms to use however.

My friend and i never have been scuba diving and we learned and dove here and saw beautiful fish, starfish, urchins & other sea creatures. beware of jelly fish !!!

We took a taxi from our resort to here and the driver waited for us. We swam out and enjoyed the fish. 70 cucs for two of us and it was quite a drive - 45 mins.

We stopped at coral beach on our jeep safari tour but the winds were too strong so we couldn't swim or snorkel at all. There is no sand beach here but I imagine you just jump into the water from the edge, it looks deep to start off. Nice little tourist shops and restaurant, good bathrooms to change. There were some locals asking for money, shoes, clothes etc if you walked down the paths so just watch out for that and don't walk alone.

Wonderful snorkeling.Wonderful reef and lots to see and reef drops down from 7 feetto 30 feet. I think you cannot snorkel here unless you have a local guide.Very very interesting place!

This beach is close Matanzas and also close Saturno Cave so you can visit both when you are here. For snorkelling is the place very nice, for swimming not that good, if you like more swimming in the sea or sunbathing, better is Varadero.

guided snorkel tour, neat but only 20 min. Not sure if you can go solo if you have your own stuff, but I don't think so. 1 peso if you have to go to the potty...

If you are new to the area hirer one of the local guides to take you out, he knows the reef well and will stopp you from getting cut up!

If I could rate it a zero than I would. Not sure how Coral Beach made it to the top rated attractions for Cuba. My husband and I just returned home from Cuba yesterday. We decided to check out Coral Beach on Feb. 13th.We were wanting to snorkel but we didn't want to join a guided tour that dictated where and when we would do everything. We had had very good luck before doing this in Cabo, Maui and Cozumel.We had asked the hotel concierge where great snorkeling would be and he said Coral Beach. I remembered seeing it on TA so we paid a cab 60 cuc(cuban convertible pesos) so he could drive us there, wait for for 2 hours than drive us back. It is about a 20-25 min drive each way. Unfortunately on this day the winds were a bit high and so the waves were choppy :(But this wasn't going to stop us.Upon arrival to this very small beach we were approached by two cubans trying to sell us Lobster and a snorkel guided tour. We were about to go into the water then I noticed a ton of blue round/oval puffy things on the rocks that had been washed up. Yes, Jelly Fish!! Right away I knew that this is what they were...eek...very dangerous! We saw an older guy and his wife there too and we asked the guy when he came in from snorkeling how it was and he said that he saw Jelly Fish and that there were other little fish too but not nice pretty fish and the view from under water was nothing to see. From standing on the shore you can see that there really isn't much. The water is very shallow and there were a ton of rocks but no coral and there isn't an area of relief where you can swim out to to enjoy snorkeling. So between the overpriced cab ride and the beach we were very dissapointed overall. I mean of course you can't help that there were Jelly Fish but the beach overall is very sad. From the name of the beach you'd expect to see a beautiful beach with a bunch of pretty fish and coral. If you want to check it out maybe the guided tour is the way to go in Cuba. There are no snorkeling spots close to the resorts in Cuba. When researching online any good snorkeling is at least 2 hours away. Cuba is definitely not the type of place where you would snorkel. I also wanted to find shells in cuba and they are very hard to come by. Found 6 little half shells at our resort along the shore but that is all : (

Coral beach is a very fine place to start with (scuba)diving or to snorkel. You reach the beach by taking the péage (paid highway). After you left the cabins for pay (CUC 2 per car) you drive to the split of the way and you drive right. After some kilometers you find the beach. Pay atention that there are to parking lots. The first is used by busses and diving scools. People advise us to go to the second parking place 400 meters further. There is a small bar where you can have some drinks or a sandwich. The beach is sandy and the coral starts just in the water. We spent some 4 á 5 hours and it was great. There was one diving school teaching the beginning of diving and went afterwards with the alumnants to an other place with a boat. When you go afterwards to the airport you dan visit Saturno Cave with sweet water which is only a few kilometers away. Thee are no showers on this beach.