Holiday Tags: Caribbean

We travelled to the Dominican Republic after having our trip to Mexico was cancelled due to the swine flu epedemic and I was not looking forward to going as we had our mind set on Mexico (went to Riu Tequila in 2007). We changed to Punta Cana & the Riu Palace just days before flying as the hotel looked fabulous in the brochure. …

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I visitied this hotel purely to relax & chill out. I checked trip advisor to see other peoples views on this hotel, & boy were they wrong. …

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The Grand Oasis Marien is a great hotel and a nice place to stay. The staff were extremely friendly especially “mosquito”!. The hotel has an extremely big pool & has a few games you can play like volley ball, basketball, polo. …

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Just returned from a two week stay at Melia Cayo Coco. Was unsure of what the standard of hotel would be in Cuba but we were delighted with our stay & would highly recommend it. The food was excellent with a massive choice for all meals. It was freshly cooked & the quality was excellent including the service provided by the staff in the resturant. …

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Just returned from a two week holiday, complete bliss. Hacienda Dominicus hotel is spotless, food very good and drinks galore. The hotel has a very large swimming pool with swim-up bar and the water is nice & warm. Entertainment around the pool from first thing in the morning till early evening. The beach is large with some nice big waves, not too rough so children are ok to go in. The beach bar is also popular you could get whatever drink you wanted. There were always plenty of sunbeds available with …

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We stayed at the Riu Paradise Island hotel in Nassau for our son’s wedding- the beaches & location are wonderful but the rooms are very dated. The staff seem very unfriendly & dont want to serve you in a hurry. The wedding was great, as was the weather but the food was another story. We all came back home with crypto sparidium which took us about 4 weeks to recover from apart from my husband who had this for at least 12 weeks!

I would not recommend this hotel - and we were not the only ones to fall ill. The entertainment was rubbish so was glad we had a minibar & TV in our room.

The Sirenis Suites are absolutley spotless. There are cleaning staff around the reception area all the time and a maid service every day. The rooms are cleaned & fresh towels & the personal touch of flowers is lovely. The reception staff are very helpful too. The food is very good & the waiting staff very attentive. The location of the hotel is right on the beach so you dont have too far to …

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We had a great stay at the Bahia but points made above are valid. You are in the middle of nowhere but thats what we wanted.One of the beaches was rocky and good for snorkelling the other more sandy and good for sunbathing. Good choice of food however some evenings it was luke warm but we did notice that there wasnt alot of people eating that night. We got in all the other restaurants as we booked a week in advance the Mikado was the best you have the food cooked in front of you. We had no problems getting beds by the pool or sea but the super comfy ones had gone as we didnt get up very early.We used the safety deposit box but thought $6 anight a tad expensive and our key did deactivate after a week.We heard other people with problems but we had none.The corridors did need cleaning more regulary and apart from the made swapping our towels at 8 in the morning a few days service was ok. It was only on the weekend before we flew home when the hotel became busy did we have to start queing for anything and bewarned they are still to open one half of it and its rumoured to then be the biggest in Jamaica…yeahman!!!

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All inclusive is a must; there is no limit on what you can drink,how much or when, other places where I have stayed on an all inclusive basis impose limits eg you must pay for cocktails & icecream and anything after 10pm. I would advise that you take a themos mug with you which can be bought in the UK for 99p (they are sold in the hotel for between 10$ - 15$), the bar staff have no objection to filling them with your chosen drink and it has the added benefit of keeping your drink cool.

On arrival in your room I would recomend that you check everything works; the lights, shower and that the balconey door locks. We found that our didn’t lock and as we were on the ground floor I felt uneasy, we asked in reception if this could be sorted and they immediatly gave us the option of moving to another room and gave us the key so that we could ‘inspect’ it and make sure we were happy before moving. Our new room was on the third floor which gave us an excellent view of the beach and appeared to be in a much better condition (newer bathroom and brighter lights). Our room was cleaned daily - bin emptied, towels changed, floor swept and mopped)and flowers left on the beds and in the bathroom which was a very nice touch. The pools were cleaned daily even if they had not been in use; it was quite fun to watch them wading in the pools with the large mops.

I can not fault the food and the choice was vast catering for all tastes. Breakfast consisted of fresh fruit, pastries, yougurts, ham & cheeses, toast, meats and eggs how you wanted them. Omelets were made to order. Unlimited fruit juice, water, tea and coffee. Lunch in the dining room again offered a vast choice including soup, salads, a selection of hot items and cold meats; a large choice of puddings and icecream. Lunch in the beach bar worked on an alternating basis of fish & chips, and burgers / hot dogs with pizza on a daily basis. I would recommend the fish & chips; very light and not covered in oil. Evening meal in the dining room again offered a vast choice with fresh meat and fish being cooked in front of you and a choice of at lease 4, lots of vegetables, rice and salads items, local speciality dishes and pasta cooked to order. Unlimited fruit juice, beer, water, wine and soft drinks; the staff are very helpful and will bring the drinks to you even though it is self service. If you have the munchies late at night snacks of brugers & hot dogs or toasties are available outside the disco from 11pm. Although there are 4 alacarte restaurants on the site you have to book a table; included in your welcome pack from the hotel are two booking slips for each week you stay. We didn’t get round to booking any but the reports given to us by other guests were favourable. If you do plan to use these it is advisable to aim for the weekend as domicicans are booking into the resort for weekend stays; we were there for a dominican national holiday and the hotel was full.

The resort is about 1.5 hours drive away from the airport and the infrastructure leave something to be desired however it is fun to see just how many people you can get onto a moped. The resort is beach front and there are signs advised of sea hedgehogs(sea urchins) so it is advisable to wear beach shoes but there is a section marked out where you can enter the sea in a sand only section and for the most part of it is only chest height deep. There are lots of sun beds and palm tree umberellers available and the beach is regularly cleaned by the ground staff. Be firm but fair with the beach front sellers if you don’t want to buy although it becomes an art to check out what is on offer as you walk past; if you stop to look they immediatly ‘offer help’. If you do want to buy something from them barter and barter well as it is a way of life for them. The hotel has a wide expance of greenary which attracted many birds and to my pleasure very few bugs. There are a number of resident peacocks in the grounds which wander about freely and in the pond by the Tropical Luperon reception there are flamingoes.

I could not find fault with the staff, and I spoke to most of them including the maintenance men, gardeners, VIP timeshare men and cleaners. My advice regarding the VIP timeshare men if you don’t want to be hastled by them is to tell them that you are already a member of RCI and that you pay no maintenance costs; we went onto a sales pitch with them and the package that they basically offer is either 25 weeks or 50 weeks over a 15 year period for a cost of about £5000 - for this you can stay in any RCI accomodation over the world but if you return to a dominican property you stay for free and only pay from your flights and daily all inclusive (about 30$ per day). This took about 30 minutes out of our day and I had no intention of signing up to it; told quite a few porkies during the sales pitch but got a bottle of rum given to us with a thanks for listening. All staff were polite and friendly with a smile on their face. Their aim is to please guests as they hope to receive a tip for good service. Tipping is a way for staff to earn more money as they earn no more than £200 per month, if you take money with you ask for you dollars to be low denomination - it is easier to regularly tip 1$ than to expect change from a 10$.

The annimation team is made up of locals and needs to be refined; most of the adult entertainment starts from 9pm and can be quite repetative but the dance & music shows on the weekend are quite fun to watch. The entertainmant that is ‘bought in’ is very good but this may be due to the fact that they are professional entertainers. The mini disco for children becomes annoying as the same 5 songs are played every night but to avoid this just make sure that you don’t leave the restaurant until 8:30pm. During the stay we never got round to doing any of the activities that are on offer eg horse riding, archery, salsa lessons etc but there are events taking place daily.

I would go back to the hotel again as it ticked all the boxes I needed. However, at the moment it seems that there is refurbishment work taking place in block 20 (this did not have an impact on our holiday and there was very little noise - only dominican republic guests were put in this block)and I was told that there are plans to update the site as a whole which would benefit from an update. The one thing that we weren’t told on our transfer from the airport which I felt was important is that you should not put paper down the toilet; the dominican republic has the same poor plumbing as greece, this information was passed on in the welcome meeting the following morning and thankfully we had no blockages.

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Upon arrival at the hotel hubby and I were very impressed. The entrance lobby was beautiful and very welcoming.
The hotel itself was immaculate and the gardens well tended.
The food was fantastic, best food options we have ever experienced. (well this was our first time in Mexico). From breakfast, lunch and evening dinner there were amples of variety for all taste buds.
Breakfast: any type of egg you wished for, cereals, bacon and sausages, lots of fresh fruit and the smoothies were gorgeous (especially the beetroot).
Lunch: again amples of variety, lovely salads, burgers and chips etc, pasta dishes and freshly made sandwiches.
Evening dinner: well dont know where to start? carvery every evening, mexican, salads and barbecues on the terrace.
Restaurants:
named Bamboo this was lovely, in the main it was sushi and chinese food.
Steak and grill, the food was superb here, wow steaks were gorgeous, rib eye, fillet etc. This was very difficult to get in at times but well worth getting up early in the morning to book it.
Mexican was ok, this was situated accross the road at the hotel Yucatan, the setting was nice as it overlooked the beach.
The location of the hotel was great, out of the Rui hotels the Tequila is the one not situated on the beach. It is however,only a 10 min stroll down the promenade at the side of the Yucatan hotel. Out of the Rui hotels our seemed to be the one that had the most going on, especially for teenagers due to the disco.
The staff were lovely and would go out of their way to please you, the bell boys were also friendly. Could not fault the staff at all and the gardeners and maids work extremely hard.
The entertainment staff were friendly, their days appeared very long. The shows of an evening were good, the ABBA and Michael Jackson shows were the best.
Would I go to this hotel again, yes in a few years time, but Mexico as alot more to offer.

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