Senility creeps in slowly but stays such a long time - it's knocking at my door, but I'm NOT letting...
Senility creeps in slowly but stays such a long time - it's knocking at my door, but I'm NOT letting it in yet!!!!!!!! Sold up in UK, ran a bar in Benidorm, came back to UK to live!
Member since:01.01.2004
Reviews:11
Having read the only Ciao site review on this hotel (from 2000) I thought I would take the opportunity to provide an updated opinion. I've read so many poor reviews about this hotel on other sites that I felt it necessary to give as honest and unbiased a review as I possibly could so that anyone planning to travel to this hotel can go without any worries.
Its worthwhile getting your tourist visa before you travel if time allows, otherwise you will join the queue and fight for a space to complete your form (remember a pen!) - there is just one long table at Punta Canaairport and it was like a cattle market! Be prepared to hang on to your luggage at the airport after reclaim, as there are plenty of eager hands waiting to load your luggage onto your transfer coach (at a cost, of course, about $1 a bag, although they will try to get more out of you)
After a long flight, the lengthy coach transfer to the hotel (from Punta Cana approx 3 hours, from La Romana approx 1½ hours) can leave you somewhat jaded, and arriving at this shocking pink decorated hotel via a very quiet bumpy little road may lead you to wonder what on earth you have let yourself in for!
The hotel itself is divided by a service road, the majority of accommodation and pool and restaurant areas being on one side and beachside accommodation, the beach disco and restaurant on the other. The first thing we noticed, having a disabled passenger with us, was the availability of ramps and easy access to the beach and main areas, although the beach front block that we were in surprisingly did not have an access ramp, and would have caused a problem for a wheelchair user on their own as there were 2 steps to negotiate to enter the building.
Check-in is fairly simple, have a pen with you and your passport numbers handy as you need to complete a form for every passenger in your group - you are then issued with a security bracelet; ask them to secure it a little loosely on your wrist as it can rub otherwise. Once again, I have read adverse comments about hostility from the reception staff, but during our stay we never once encountered any problem other than the occasional language barrier
which is often overcome by a lot of handwaving, miming and smiling!
The rooms are spacious, but with a narrow passageway leading to the bathroom which may cause mobility problems again for wheelchair users. I have seen many complaints about rooms being dark due to the vegetation outside - the whole complex overflows with greenery, but this only adds to the charm and atmosphere, and let's face it, you don't go on holiday to spend the whole time in your room! TVs are provided in each room (Disney channel for the kids - what a lifesaver when you're trying to have a shower!), and you are given a remote control along with your room key. Safety deposit boxes are available also, at a current cost of $38 for 2 weeks, good value to share one if there are several of you as the boxes are more than ample enough to take passports, money, a couple of cameras etc.
Hidden amongst the greenery of the hotel gardens is a small Internet cafe, where for $2 you can have internet access for half an hour, or $3 for an hour, and I have to admit the speed of conenction was far superior to mine at home! There are also Playstation games consoles for use. Opposite the Internet cafe is a small but well-equipped medical centre. By the pool area is a covered sports bar, with fussball and pool tables, and you can hire table tennis equipment from the animation office, which also doubles up as a towel hire reception - you just hand over your towel card (supplied at checkin) and you get a clean beach towel for use. There is a Kids Club, but we only used it once, and found that we had to stay with our 4 year old grandson, so decided against using it again - he was so happy playing with his older sister in the pools (most were no deeper than 3') that we hardly ever saw him anyway !
The pool and entertainment areas are stone tiled, and this can be fairly uncomfortable to walk on barefoot as it is fairly uneven and gets very hot in the heat of the day. The pools themselves are cleaned regularly, as is the poolside area. There are 2 bars in the pool area. Plastic cups are used for drinks during the day, but glasses are available at night - any breakages are swiftly dealt with by the friendly staff. and we never heard of anyone having cut their feet with glass during our stay.
The restaurant areas and staff often come in for a lot of flak - mess, no cutlery, crockery etc, again, we found this not to be wholly true - OK, yes, sometimes when it was busy there might not be a table laid out ready and waiting for you, but as soon as the staff saw you stand by a table they were there preparing it for you - you didn't have to wait long.
The one thing that we felt let the hotel down was the food - this is not a complaint, more a constructive criticism, and shared by our entire group of 16, who all have different tastes and requirements in food and appreciate the scale of catering that has to be provided in a hotel of htis size.
During the day you have the choice of the main restaurant or the beachside restaurant. Although you had plenty of choice, especially for vegetarians, it was nothing to really write home about, and was fairly repetitive. There is a separate Kids Bar with hot dogs, burgers, chips etc, but unfortunately set so high that it needs an adult to serve the food to the children. Lunchtime and evenings there is always a Pasta bar, and most evenings a carvery, so we did have the opportunity of changing our options during our stay, but other than that, we did get a bit fed up with the same chicken and pork every night. The evening carvery area becomes an egg bar at breakfast time, where you can choose freshly fried eggs or have an omelette cooked with fillings of your choice.The bread bar is superb though! Baked fresh on site every day, there is a choice of brown, white, croissants, rolls, normally still hot - a dieter's nightmare!
There are also 2 other restaurants that you can use - the Italian restaurant (reservations required, at Reception around 12.30pm) was part of the All Inclusive package, apart from menu items such as lobster which incurred an adidtional charge. L'Ecrivesse is a French restaurant attached to the hotel, but is not part of the 'AI package' and all food eaten there has to be paid for.
Entertainment staff work hard - a variety of daytime beach and poolside competitions followed in the evening by a kids mini-disco at 8.30pm then the adult evening entertainment, which is 90% audience participation and great fun. Entertainment ends at 11pm, when the Beachclub Disco opens until 2am, or you can get on the free courtesy coach to the nearby casino. Many of the complaints I have read have been about the noise from the disco heard in adjacent rooms - we were only 6 rooms away from the disco and I have to say that it sounded no worse than someone in the next room having their TV on - we heard more noise coming from the couple upstairs have an argument and slinging chairs around than we ever heard from the disco!!!!!
The beach is man-made, not over large but well equipped with sunbeds. It is very shaded by trees, another complaint I have read, yet it offers welcome shade from the sun, especially if you have young children with you, and you can always move your sunbed nearer the sea if you want continuous sun! Beach vendors are always present, but a polite 'no thanks' will send them on their way, at least for a little while. The more tanned you become the less they bother you, and those that do tend to hassle are smartly reprimanded by the ever-present security guards, who really do have eyes in the back of their heads! You will always be asked to buy sea shoes, even if you already have them - although the water's edge is a little stony, once you are in the water it's fine, and the sea urchins that everyone warns you about are mainly on the rocky reef - not so at the neighbouring hotels, where the water's edge is much more stony and you can actually see the urchins in amongst the rocks. The water is shallow - you can walk out about 50 yards and only be knee deep - there's very little current, and our 4 and 7 year old grandchildren played out there quite safely. There are some strange looking machines, a bit like a jet ski with an umbrella on, which you can hire out, but at $25 for 25 minutes, they are very expensive. Each day you can hire out canoes and snorkelling equipment free of charge for half an hour from the Neptuno dive centre - well worth the effort to go and see the fish around the reef, even though the smaller fish come right up to the water's edge! Take a banana or a bread roll and crumble it into the water - you'll see hundreds of tiny fish darting around your feet!
Organised trips can be costly, and despite what the hotel reps tell you, they can be safely purchased at a lower cost from Broughton Tours or the Chocolate Box,(turn right out of Reception and walk for just a few minutes). We booked the Saona Island trip through the Thomas Cook rep at a cost of $75, then found we could have booked it, along with the Catalina Island snorkelling trip and the Jeep Safari trip, for a total of $115 for all three trips!!!!!!! Manati Wildlife Park is being boycotted at the moment - we had planned to swim with the dolphins there, but several have died in the past year through apparent neglect, so we gave it a miss. A privately booked fishing trip gave us the treat of a lifetime though - dolphins swimming naturally in the sea and the sighting of a whale - something we will never forget!
The majority of the trips you do will involve contact with local children - the Dominican Republic is a very poor country - we visited a sugar cane plantation where workers earn the equivalent of £1 a day - the children living there must attend school, and although text books are provided by the Government, all families have to provide their childrens' writing books and pens, so if you plan to go to this country, please take some cheap exercise books, pens and pencils with you - they aren't heavy to carry in your luggage and the children will be delighted to receive them.
There aren't a lot of shops near the hotel - turning right out of Reception and a 5 minute walk will bring you to a small supermarket and gift shop, along with a couple of bars, and a 10 minute stroll towards the left along the beach (20 minutes if you go by the main road) will bring you to a few more shops and a couple of restaurants and bars - if you want a shopping excursion go into San Pedro de Macoris or further afield into SantoDomingo itself.
I know I've deviated slightly from the hotel, but I wanted to give you my honest opinion of the hotel and surrounding area - if you go expecting 5* luxury from a 3* hotel you may be disappointed, but all in all it's excellent value for money. The staff are friendly and always willing to help - I treat people how I expect to be treated myself and I've always had positive responses. I've visited the Dominican Republic twice now, both North and South of the island, and have had an enjoyable experience each time. I hope you take the opportunity to visit this little part of the Caribbean and enjoy it as much as we have, and I hope this review encourages you to visit this hotel.
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Brilliant op - vey thorough and made me feel like I'd already been there! Sounds absolutly idyllic, wish I could afford to go to the Caribbean now! Sarah x
DDG_Moi 08.05.2004 19:33
Sounds a great place to stay. x
Fruity_Tart 08.05.2004 16:21
Sounds like a great place to stay, and an excellent review. Chris x
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May 8th, 2004
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