As you drive down the coastal road past all the resort hotels along the northern coast you'll begin to worry like in that Thomsons (?) advert on the TV that you're driving past all the best hotels! Then as you drive through the less developed towns along the road you'll worry that you're going to end up stuck in some shack in the middle of no-where! But as you turn off the coast road just before reaching the town (village?) of San Juan and into the Bahia Principe grounds you'll wonder what all the worrying was about! As with the other Bahia Principe Hotel in Mexico you first drive down the Hacienda, a short road lined with shops bars and restaurants, the one at San Juan has a hairdressers, a jewellers, a snack bar, a disco, a 'hard rock' bar, the reps building internet access (for footy scores of course!) and various shops selling touristy stuff, postcards, beach towels....

Your room will be in a block of eight (or maybe ten?) split into two storey buildings dotted around the grounds and linked through lush lawns by paths edged with yet more lush vegetation (in fact anywhere you look in the Dominican seems to be blooming with plant life). The rooms themselves are spacious, clean and air-conditioned. Bathrooms have showers and baths and also hairdryers which if you’re anything like my wife saves on the luggage allowance. The rooms come with a well stocked mini bar but be warned you'll pay for using it! The same drinks are available free at the bars and are for sale much cheaper in the hotel shop. All rooms have a balcony which is furnished with a cheap plastic table and chairs which do the job fine.

Back on dry land the facilities don't fall short of even the highest expectations! A multitude of bars and restaurants mean you're never far away from either a snack or a drink (heaven!) there is a swim up bar in the main pool and one in reception along with bars on the beach, a bar in the cabaret room and a piano bar where every night a Canadian couple would belt out the oldies for the mums and dads.

The two a-la-carte restaurants were a once-a-week do for us but I've heard some all inclusive deals vary so please check, but both are well worth a visit. The Mexican especially, sat looking over the beach as the sun sets. The menu has probably changed but back then the crepes were to die for! And a mexican evening wouldn't be complete without a few rounds of tequila slammers or 'boom-booms' as the lads dressed up as mariachis liked to call them. If you're lucky they might even play your song!
There is also an afternoon tea available in the piano bar, normally tea, coffee and cakes, but nice if you want a break from the sun.

Excursions as ever are available from your rep. The jungle safari in the old army trucks finds a good balance between education and fun if you get the right guide, driving up through the towns with the rum distilleries, through the fields of sugar cane to the workers villages where you can see the cock fighting arena and into the wilder country, driving through rivers to the rest point where you get a buffet lunch and a chance to have a swim in the river. Other excursions available are the usual all inclusive catamaran trip, we set off from Puerto Plata and went don the coast to Sosua where we went snorkelling on the reef and fed the fish banana out of our fingers (although this didn't work with the fish back at the hotel!) and then back up to Puerto Plata where a school of dolphins followed the boat! Also on offer at Bahia Principe is the Laguna Gri Gri trip. Save your money and go yourself! You can get a taxi outside the hotel who will drop you off in San Juan where the trip starts and arrange to pick you back up and take you back to the hotel. We hired a boat to ourselves, no pushing and squashing onto small seats or fighting to get a good picture! The trip takes you through the mangrove swamps and out into the sea, along the coast past some not very interesting coastal caves and up into a bay where you can get out and have a swim, this bay is flat bottomed and so sheltered that its like a natural swimming pool. Then on the way back in you can stop again in another bay where you can buy souvenirs on the beach, and if the guys still there he'll make you a pina colada in a fresh pineapple (very nice).