As with every holiday, me and my boyf spent a lot of time researching hotels and areas in the Dominican Republic before settling on the Gran Ventana Beach Resort in Playa Dorada. This seemed to be the most lively area with nice beaches, and the reviews for the hotel were all very good, so of course our expectations were high.

The Gran Ventana is split into 3 blocks - we'd heard rumours that one of them was near a road and nightclub and was quite noisy, so we were relieved when we were directed to the Catalina Block. The rooms at the front looked out over the pool, and the back rooms, one of which was ours, looked out onto some trees and we could see the beach to our left. The rooms itself was very spacious, with 2 double beds, a double wardrobe with a safe inside, chest of drawers, 2 bedside cabinets, table and chair and a TV. There was also a patio set on the balcony. There was a mini bar stocked with beer, Pepsi, 7UP and water. The room was also air conditioned and had a ceiling fan. The bathroom was very clean, and had a bath and shower, basin and toilet. Our room was cleaned daily to a very high standard throughout our stay, and the mini bar stocked up every other day. The whole hotel was spotless, and the cleaners worked really hard all day just constantly mopping, stocking and sweeping!

The beach was a 2 minute walk through the landscaped gardens. It was beautiful, lined with various tropical trees, and you could always find a sunbed (although had to be up early to get under an umbrella!) My boyfriend proposed to me on the Friday night on the beach while we were watching the sunset, it was so romantic, this certainly helped towards this being the best holiday ever!

Having never been all-inclusive before, I went a little bit mad on the cocktails! By the second night we had worked our way through the entire list of about 20 drinks all in various shades of colour. Remember, there are no measures in foreign countries, they just whack it in, so they vary in strength, especially as the night goes on! The bar tenders were all really friendly and spoke excellent English. We'd read that some people had to tip them to get served, but we did not have this problem at all. I had a dodgy stomach one day, and our holiday rep had told us to ask for something called a Bumba which settles your stomach. So I did, and they sympathetically made me one, it tasted fowl, and goodness knows what they were putting in it, but it had sorted me out in a few hours! Our all inclusive also included tennis, snorkelling, pool, table tennis, sailing, and kayaking.

We went on 3 trips during our 2 weeks, all of which we booked through our Thomas Cook rep. We were told about people in the plaza shopping centre just outside our hotel before we went, and everyone said you can book the same trips with them at half the price. I really wouldn't recommend this - none of them have any insurance, and there are so many of them you don't know who's trustworthy and who's a bit dodgy. They were cheaper, but we had such a fantastic time on all our trips, we thought they were still excellent value for money. We visited Ocean World and swam with dolphons, sting-rays, sharks, and sealions, which was brilliant, the animals are all very well looked after. We also did the Dominican Discovery tour, which was a whole day on a massive army truck, going up the mountain, visiting houses, schools, cigar and coffee-making 'factories', horse riding where Jurassic Park was filmed (which isn't inluded in the ones you book in the Plaza), and stopping for a traditional Dominican lunch. I would definately recommend this it was brilliant. We also did a jeep buggy half day trip, where you drive a little 2-seater kart through villages, sugar cane fields and beaches, but be warned you get FILTHY! We bought some cheap clothes just to wear on the trip, then threw them away!