Dominican Republic trip report.
Basically, whining. Don't go to the "Lifestyle Tropical Hacienda" resort or whatever in the DR. Here's why (I plan to post this at tripadvisor.com). Anyone else have any experiences like this?
I just returned from the Hacienda Tropical resort with my girlfriend, short one digital camera, which means no pictures from the trip. I just gave the camera to her for Christmas. I wasn't going to mention this theft in this review, however, I googled "stolen camera Dominican Republic" to see if this happens to people all the time, and I found a link to a review of the exact resort I just left. Someone had their digital camera stolen while they were checking out. Sounds familiar, too... They get you to check out one hour before your airport shuttle arrives. In that hour, you leave your bags with the "bellman" and go take a last look at the beach, eat breakfast, whatever... It is possible that in that time period your luggage is cleaned out of all that is valuable.
Now, I say "it is possible" because I don't know for sure that's where the camera was stolen... it could have been anywhere between then and the next time me and my g/f opened the suitcase in Toronto. However, after reading another person's review--in which it was evident that their camera was stolen during the "bellman hour"--I'm starting to wonder.
I was also robbed. My Gilette “M3 Power†razor was stolen. It’s a fairly ordinary plastic razor handle with disposable replacement cartridges. It looks kind of fancy though, and it takes a triple ‘A’ battery (it vibrates) so I guess the thieves thought it might be worth something to someone. It’s worth about $25 Canadian, new, if I remember correctly. They went through all of my toiletries, looking for cologne or an electric razor, I guess. I have since thrown out and replaced all of the items in that bag… I have no desire to touch any of it.
Looking further into other people’s reviews, I found that somebody else had a camera stolen as well, also after checking out, also from the porter’s area while they waited for their airport shuttle. And that’s just the people who took the time to post reviews here.
I won't let that stuff affect my overall review though, as I don't have all the facts. But if you do go, consider yourself warned. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, keep your valuables with you at all times, but there you have it.
Check-in: Not good. We arrived at the resort with a number of other people on the shuttle from the airport and then waited around forever for the two people behind the desk to sift through all of us. There was no order to it... they would help each other, help some customers, answer phone calls, get halfway through checking in one party and start to check in the next, change some currency for someone, eventually get back to the original party... chaos. Not air-conditioned either. We were told that our room wouldn't be ready until 3:00, which was reasonable. It wasn't their fault the shuttle arrived at 1:30. We went to the desk at 3:00 and were told 10 minutes. 3:15, we were told 10 minutes. 3:30, we were told 10 minutes. 10 minutes was a theme at this place, but nothing ever took 10 minutes. At 3:45 we got our room key.
Rooms: Ours wasn't great, but not terrible I guess after I read some of the problems others have had. There were no leaks… we were on the second floor. No bugs that I could see or feel, either. It was air-conditioned, and the sheets seemed to be clean. The downsides were: dirty fridge, very little water pressure when there was any water at all, the toilet stopped working for a while, the TV stopped working for a while, the phone kept blinking with no way to stop it (no message, no way to retrieve it if there was one), no handles on the closet doors, the maids ignored the 'do not disturb' sign and came in anyways, the hallway outside was extremely loud, mostly because of staff, yelling, laughing, with their walkie-talkies cranked up, starting early and ending late.
Food: Not great. We only ate at the buffet because it was impossible for us to make a "reservation" in one of the "real" restaurants on-site. Hoops to jump through? You betcha. We tried diligently to make these reservations. At this point I should mention that most of the staff speaks very little—if any—English. On the first day, we tried to make dinner reservations and were told that everything was full. The next morning, we woke up at around 10 and tried to call the lobby to make dinner reservations. My girlfriend asked them about it, and the woman on the other end said everything was full. My girlfriend asked what the procedure was for making reservations (very politely, not that it matters) and the woman hung up on her, immediately. If they're selling friendliness as their big saving grace, they're not selling it very well. We eventually found out that you have to make reservations at 9:00 am on the same day you want to have the dinner. OK... strange, but OK. I was thinking "why can't I make reservations for tomorrow today instead of tomorrow?". Also, we had to make them in person. So we went down at 8:30 the next morning and found the reservations guy. He said to come back in ten minutes. At 9:00 he told us that the restaurants were all closed that night. And the buffet wasn’t great: undercooked meat, no real juice, bad coffee, etc etc etc etc, but that's all we could get so that's what we ate and drank. My g/f didn’t get sick… I got diarrhea twice but nothing too serious. We both have iron stomachs. I didn’t see any of the cockroaches or dead flies in syrup, etc. that I read in other reviews, but I wasn’t looking too hard if you know what I mean. There were a lot of flies around, and birds in the dining area.
Pools: The main pool features a swim-up bar that is in the shade for most of the afternoon (a triumph of design and layout). This combined with the fact that the water temperature of the pool was freezing meant that the swim-up bar was pretty much out of play. There was nobody working that side of the bar anyways. Probably for the reasons I just mentioned. On a related topic, our "towel experience" was pretty funny, in a sad kind of way. We tried no less than four times during our stay to secure the elusive beach towels. When you check-in they give you "towel cards" which you present to get your towels. Unfortunately, there were no towels to be found on any of these occasions. Ten minutes, every time I asked. Yeah, right. And the resort wasn't even that busy... I can't imagine how bad this situation gets when it's full. We eventually gave up, went to Ocean World (which was a blast, no doubt, albeit an expensive one) and bought some souvenir towels which we used at the resort.
After my fourth trip to the resort's towel shed, when the guy told me "ten minutes", I literally laughed out loud, shook my head, and walked away.
VIP'S: Apparently someone thought it was a good idea to make some people really obnoxious by telling them that they are "VIP'S" and giving them special VIP wristbands that they wear like superheroes. Now, I'm not saying that all of the VIP people are like this, but here was my experience... On New Year's Eve, they had a "SPECIAL BUFFET DINNER" which was just like any other buffet dinner at this place. Except they had a bad keyboardist. And people dressed up a bit, and they carved the numbers "2 0 0 6" out of ice. Anyways, they also had someone at the entrance actually seating people. She asked how many, I said "two", she led us to a table--the same one we'd been eating at for every other meal--and as we were sitting down an extremely unattractive woman walked over to us and said "No no. Maybe for me. VIP" as she pointed to her bracelet. (I only mentioned that she was extremely unattractive because I am hoping against hope that she reads this and realizes that she isn't a very nice human being.)
Well, la di da. She and her husband were deciding where to sit, and on the off-chance that they decided they wanted that table, they wanted us to stand, in reverence I guess. Shocked, we told the woman who seated us what had happened, and she sat us at a nearby identical table. The VIP's ended up near us, and whenever the woman walked by, me and my girlfriend would bow solemnly and say "ooooooo.... VIP! Whoa! VIP!" Immature, I admit, but come on. I was disappointed that the woman who was doing the seating succumbed to the idiocy of the VIP by seating us elsewhere... it was a buffet, it was New Year's Eve, we'd paid our money to be there like everyone else, no reserved seating for anyone. Unreal.
The beach: I loved the beach. Perfect weather, perfect water temperature. The bulk of our vacation was spent on the beach. We are a pretty new couple, and she's in her twenties and I'm in my thirties. What I'm trying to say is, we can have fun anywhere, and we did have fun. But, we had fun in spite of these problems, and that shouldn't be the way it is, but that's the way it was. There were way too many occasions when we felt--consciously or otherwise--that we had to "suck it up" in order to keep things fun for us. Like I said, it shouldn't be that way when you're on vacation.
If you hate friendly staff, showering, decent food, decent beer, undisturbed sleep, towels, and digital cameras (maybe), then this is the place for you. Otherwise, look elsewhere.
I just returned from the Hacienda Tropical resort with my girlfriend, short one digital camera, which means no pictures from the trip. I just gave the camera to her for Christmas. I wasn't going to mention this theft in this review, however, I googled "stolen camera Dominican Republic" to see if this happens to people all the time, and I found a link to a review of the exact resort I just left. Someone had their digital camera stolen while they were checking out. Sounds familiar, too... They get you to check out one hour before your airport shuttle arrives. In that hour, you leave your bags with the "bellman" and go take a last look at the beach, eat breakfast, whatever... It is possible that in that time period your luggage is cleaned out of all that is valuable.
Now, I say "it is possible" because I don't know for sure that's where the camera was stolen... it could have been anywhere between then and the next time me and my g/f opened the suitcase in Toronto. However, after reading another person's review--in which it was evident that their camera was stolen during the "bellman hour"--I'm starting to wonder.
I was also robbed. My Gilette “M3 Power†razor was stolen. It’s a fairly ordinary plastic razor handle with disposable replacement cartridges. It looks kind of fancy though, and it takes a triple ‘A’ battery (it vibrates) so I guess the thieves thought it might be worth something to someone. It’s worth about $25 Canadian, new, if I remember correctly. They went through all of my toiletries, looking for cologne or an electric razor, I guess. I have since thrown out and replaced all of the items in that bag… I have no desire to touch any of it.
Looking further into other people’s reviews, I found that somebody else had a camera stolen as well, also after checking out, also from the porter’s area while they waited for their airport shuttle. And that’s just the people who took the time to post reviews here.
I won't let that stuff affect my overall review though, as I don't have all the facts. But if you do go, consider yourself warned. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, keep your valuables with you at all times, but there you have it.
Check-in: Not good. We arrived at the resort with a number of other people on the shuttle from the airport and then waited around forever for the two people behind the desk to sift through all of us. There was no order to it... they would help each other, help some customers, answer phone calls, get halfway through checking in one party and start to check in the next, change some currency for someone, eventually get back to the original party... chaos. Not air-conditioned either. We were told that our room wouldn't be ready until 3:00, which was reasonable. It wasn't their fault the shuttle arrived at 1:30. We went to the desk at 3:00 and were told 10 minutes. 3:15, we were told 10 minutes. 3:30, we were told 10 minutes. 10 minutes was a theme at this place, but nothing ever took 10 minutes. At 3:45 we got our room key.
Rooms: Ours wasn't great, but not terrible I guess after I read some of the problems others have had. There were no leaks… we were on the second floor. No bugs that I could see or feel, either. It was air-conditioned, and the sheets seemed to be clean. The downsides were: dirty fridge, very little water pressure when there was any water at all, the toilet stopped working for a while, the TV stopped working for a while, the phone kept blinking with no way to stop it (no message, no way to retrieve it if there was one), no handles on the closet doors, the maids ignored the 'do not disturb' sign and came in anyways, the hallway outside was extremely loud, mostly because of staff, yelling, laughing, with their walkie-talkies cranked up, starting early and ending late.
Food: Not great. We only ate at the buffet because it was impossible for us to make a "reservation" in one of the "real" restaurants on-site. Hoops to jump through? You betcha. We tried diligently to make these reservations. At this point I should mention that most of the staff speaks very little—if any—English. On the first day, we tried to make dinner reservations and were told that everything was full. The next morning, we woke up at around 10 and tried to call the lobby to make dinner reservations. My girlfriend asked them about it, and the woman on the other end said everything was full. My girlfriend asked what the procedure was for making reservations (very politely, not that it matters) and the woman hung up on her, immediately. If they're selling friendliness as their big saving grace, they're not selling it very well. We eventually found out that you have to make reservations at 9:00 am on the same day you want to have the dinner. OK... strange, but OK. I was thinking "why can't I make reservations for tomorrow today instead of tomorrow?". Also, we had to make them in person. So we went down at 8:30 the next morning and found the reservations guy. He said to come back in ten minutes. At 9:00 he told us that the restaurants were all closed that night. And the buffet wasn’t great: undercooked meat, no real juice, bad coffee, etc etc etc etc, but that's all we could get so that's what we ate and drank. My g/f didn’t get sick… I got diarrhea twice but nothing too serious. We both have iron stomachs. I didn’t see any of the cockroaches or dead flies in syrup, etc. that I read in other reviews, but I wasn’t looking too hard if you know what I mean. There were a lot of flies around, and birds in the dining area.
Pools: The main pool features a swim-up bar that is in the shade for most of the afternoon (a triumph of design and layout). This combined with the fact that the water temperature of the pool was freezing meant that the swim-up bar was pretty much out of play. There was nobody working that side of the bar anyways. Probably for the reasons I just mentioned. On a related topic, our "towel experience" was pretty funny, in a sad kind of way. We tried no less than four times during our stay to secure the elusive beach towels. When you check-in they give you "towel cards" which you present to get your towels. Unfortunately, there were no towels to be found on any of these occasions. Ten minutes, every time I asked. Yeah, right. And the resort wasn't even that busy... I can't imagine how bad this situation gets when it's full. We eventually gave up, went to Ocean World (which was a blast, no doubt, albeit an expensive one) and bought some souvenir towels which we used at the resort.
After my fourth trip to the resort's towel shed, when the guy told me "ten minutes", I literally laughed out loud, shook my head, and walked away.
VIP'S: Apparently someone thought it was a good idea to make some people really obnoxious by telling them that they are "VIP'S" and giving them special VIP wristbands that they wear like superheroes. Now, I'm not saying that all of the VIP people are like this, but here was my experience... On New Year's Eve, they had a "SPECIAL BUFFET DINNER" which was just like any other buffet dinner at this place. Except they had a bad keyboardist. And people dressed up a bit, and they carved the numbers "2 0 0 6" out of ice. Anyways, they also had someone at the entrance actually seating people. She asked how many, I said "two", she led us to a table--the same one we'd been eating at for every other meal--and as we were sitting down an extremely unattractive woman walked over to us and said "No no. Maybe for me. VIP" as she pointed to her bracelet. (I only mentioned that she was extremely unattractive because I am hoping against hope that she reads this and realizes that she isn't a very nice human being.)
Well, la di da. She and her husband were deciding where to sit, and on the off-chance that they decided they wanted that table, they wanted us to stand, in reverence I guess. Shocked, we told the woman who seated us what had happened, and she sat us at a nearby identical table. The VIP's ended up near us, and whenever the woman walked by, me and my girlfriend would bow solemnly and say "ooooooo.... VIP! Whoa! VIP!" Immature, I admit, but come on. I was disappointed that the woman who was doing the seating succumbed to the idiocy of the VIP by seating us elsewhere... it was a buffet, it was New Year's Eve, we'd paid our money to be there like everyone else, no reserved seating for anyone. Unreal.
The beach: I loved the beach. Perfect weather, perfect water temperature. The bulk of our vacation was spent on the beach. We are a pretty new couple, and she's in her twenties and I'm in my thirties. What I'm trying to say is, we can have fun anywhere, and we did have fun. But, we had fun in spite of these problems, and that shouldn't be the way it is, but that's the way it was. There were way too many occasions when we felt--consciously or otherwise--that we had to "suck it up" in order to keep things fun for us. Like I said, it shouldn't be that way when you're on vacation.
If you hate friendly staff, showering, decent food, decent beer, undisturbed sleep, towels, and digital cameras (maybe), then this is the place for you. Otherwise, look elsewhere.
Comments
Now, all inclusive resorts aren't really my style, I much prefer camping, hiking, and actual travelling on vacations, so maybe that was part of the problem.
Remember, I have no kids and no wife (yet). I may never get another opportunity to not care about money!
That being said, an island is really a great idea. I'll have my people look into it...
Everyone was great - the food was great - the alcohol was always flowing.
We left our shit all over our rooms - including cash, cameras, watches etc...
If I were a gambling man (which i am not) I would wager that it wasnt an employee who stole that stuff but rather some teenage kid travelling with his parents.
Anyhow my only advise is stay 5* I have stayed 3* it is fine. But the 5* is by far worth the extra money.
Any if you go last minute - use www.yourtraveltickets.com it is based out of St Catherines - cheapest tickets around. Always beats selloffvacations.com by atleast a few dollars.
Any additional queries let me know.
And enjoy.
For the complete opposite, try St Maarten/St Martin. Longer flight, small island, more costly but no poverty and lots of beautiful naked women on the beach. And they all speak English!
Also, the poverty in the DR is very apparent. But, some times that makes you appreciate what you have even more.
If you dont care to see the poverty stay on the resort - they keep all outsiders out. You would never even know what was going on around you.
the beach was amazing and the water was always nice.
as for the people of the country, and this may sound harsh, but if you can walk downtown toronto without letting the homless people and beggers get to you, then the DR is a breeze.
oh yeah, this was the first time i had ever been in a casino so i played carribian stud. made me a nice $200us profit on the week.
Johnny
If you stay at a cheap place or a complex it is true that people will be all over you for your money.
But if you go 5* secluded you will be sure to have that removed.
The employees are generally happy because they are paid more. Remember this is a 3rd world country with an economy dependent on tourism they need you there and are happy to work. Resort workers make a lot of money, relative to most industry there.
The animation team members often have university degrees and speak 5 languages and they get paid very well.
Check out the RIU hotels in PP thats where I stayed.
It was secluded so no locals straggling on the beach trying to sell you $5 necklaces for $100.
I enjoyed it because it was 3 hotels in one - pay for one play in 3. All 3 were 4* - 5*.
There were over a 1000 rooms and only one disco. So although there was a large mix of demographics every night was a crazy international party.
Would highly recommend it.
Oh - and there are liquor dispensors in every room. So you have Rum, Vodka, Gin, and Brandy on tap.
NNOOOOooo Thats a 5% house edge. If you want a gambooly poker table game with a lower house edge try Three card Poker. Effective HA of 2.2%.
As an aside, I find it interesting that a report about a non-gambling trip to the DR, posted in the Off-Topic section, eventually gets around to discussing gambling.Â
Blackjack house edge depends on things like the rules set they are using, if you play perfect basic strategy, and if you incorporate previous card knowledge (i.e. "counting cards") into your betting strategy.
Generally, Blackjack (if played using correct basic strategy) has a house edge of less than 1%, and is normally one of the better casino games (besides poker, that is, real poker) to play in terms of low house edge.
An excellent resource is
www.wizardofodds.com
ScottyZ
Hit a boat and they pay you off - especially if you are playing so drunk you dont know the value of the pesos you are gambling with.
And ofcouse you must follow the number one rule of casino gambling - when you do take the house on that big hand - leave, and fast - because its all going back.
On a side note - one of the girls I met down there and myself sat down at black jack - also waiting for the 4 am bar to open. We played for about 30 mins - when the bar opened we both said "F*ck it, lets put the rest down on one hand (approx $50 US) we both hit 21"
Some times the Gods smile at us.