Clubhotel Riu Merengue – Puerto Plata – Dominican Republic – Caribbean

We have just returned from an excellent holiday at the Clubhotel Riu Merengue in Puerto Plata! The hotel was first class, incredibly clean & well maintained throughout. All public areas were spotless; there were even cleaning staff outside all of the public toilets, snack bars & restaurants with hand-gel for everyone to use.

The gardens are delightful. Our room was lovely and the cleaner would often leave “towel sculptures” which was a lovely touch. We had no problems or issues with any of the food, there was plenty of choice for all meals. The freshly made breakfast smoothies & omelettes were excellent. The food was well cooked, although at the pool snack bar my son did have a slightly undercooked burger on one occasion.

The Merengue is one of 3 Riu hotels on a big complex in the Dominican Republic. One is mainly for German/Scandinavian holiday makers, one is USA & the Merengue had mainly English and French holidaymakers. You could however use all of the facilities at all of the hotels although they were all pretty much the same. That said, we much preferred the USA pool which had plenty of sunbeds throughout the day. Do not bother to pack beach/pool towels as the ones provided on a daily basis by the hotel are more than adequate.

The beach is lovely & clean with plenty of sunbeds under the palm trees so none of the getting up at the crack of dawn to put your towels out. All the hotel staff were friendly & helpful too. One of our bedside bulbs needed changing so we reported it & it was mended within 15 minutes. We then had a phone call to check that it had been replaced & then even a letter to check that all was OK. We also had a phone call on day 7 from reception to make sure that we were enjoying our holiday.

The entertainment was generally of a good standard although not all acts were to our taste. The Michael Jackson act was brilliant and the karaoke (especially when done in French) was very funny.

The only downside of the Merengue hotel was that they watered down alcoholic drinks. We would also not recommend the local wine!!