For every tourist enchanted by Cuba's azure waters, fine cigars and cheap package vacations, another is put off by poor service, street hustlers and little to do.

The bottom line: Cuba's rapidly expanding tourism industry has succeeded in drawing hundreds of thousands of European, Canadian and Latin visitors. But some are not thrilled by their vacations -- and may never return.

Here, then, are the voices of several visitors to Cuba's biggest tourist destination -- the beach resort of Varadero.

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Looking tanned and relaxed, Donna Plympton and Andrew Chiles said they could hardly have been more content with their Varadero vacation.

"Nice sea, nice beaches, nice hotel,'' said Plympton, a 30-year-old trainer on the floor of the London stock exchange. "It was really good for the money. From some of the all-inclusives I've been on before, it's a lot cheaper.''

She said she paid 800 British pounds (about $1,312) for a round-trip on Cubana Airlines from London, an 11-night stay at a four-star hotel, all meals, free drinks and a gamut of water sports.

"It's better now that it's not very commercial,'' added Chiles, an options broker. "If you want to do things, there are loads of things to do, like water sports.''

Plympton said she was eager to boast about her Cuba vacation back home.

"It's just different. Nobody's been here,'' she said.

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Vidar Bekken and Inger Rund, a young couple from Norway, got a nasty surprise in Varadero: Both got diarrhea.

"Hygiene is very bad,'' Rund said. "They reuse the straws. They just wash them under running water. Some of the Norwegians changed hotels because they saw cockroaches in their rooms.''

The couple chose the island because they were curious about closed Cuban society -- and wanted to avoid the hordes before Cuba opens its doors wider.

"We wanted to come before all the tourists come,'' Bekken said.

What they've seen, though, has not been completely to their liking.

"It's nice, but it's very poor. It's not what I expected. I thought it would be like Greece. We went to Havana today, and once we got out of the bus, they started begging, asking us for money,'' Bekken said.

Added Rund: "There's not much to buy around here.''

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Robert Hoffman, a tourist from Montreal, looks dreamy as he gazes out the window and studies the queue of antique Chevrolets and Dodges sidling down the road.

"As a man of my generation, I'm just fascinated by these cars. I saw a '46 Chevrolet yesterday. That was the first car my brother-in-law bought for my sister,'' he said.

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"I love the old cars,'' echoed Diane Coulter, a lawyer from Kilkeel, Northern Ireland. "It feels, you know, like you're traveling in time.''

Coulter, 28, a veteran at world travel, already had been to Barbados and the Bahamas and settled this time on Cuba. She wanted beach -- but less commerce.

"I thought it'd be less Americanized. I don't mean that to be cheeky,'' she said. But the huge hotel complexes and slick fast-food restaurants in Nassau turned her off. "You get sick of too much luxury in the Bahamas. I like to see how people really live. Go into town and see the dirt huts.''

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"The beach was very nice,'' Klaus Wagemann begins diplomatically as he and his wife Petra wait for their flight home to Dortmund, Germany. Then the complaints pour out.

"There is so much that has to be repaired here. Not so much in the hotels, but in the cities,'' he said.

Petra Wagemann, 29, said tourists find little entertainment away from the resorts. Only a handful of state-run restaurants and a few outdoor activities.

The couple won't be back.

"The world is so big. I must see other countries,'' Petra Wagemann said.