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mail@janetgranger.co.uk
Review:
We have just got back from a wonderful fortnight at Dreams La Romana. This was our first visit to the Dominican Republic. We are already looking into booking the same hotel for next year. This review is long (sorry!), but I hope it’s informative…especially for those people who are a rare breed – vegetarian and teetotal. I hope this review can show that it’s very easy to have a great time at this hotel, seeking out the quieter corners and lesser-used facilities. We had a few ‘niggles’, but nothing major. It was a great holiday, and we can’t wait to go back!
Flights:
We flew from Manchester with Thomas Cook Airlines. The flight was about an hour late taking off, due to fog in London (our flight had started from Gatwick, so was already half full when it reached Manchester). We made up that time during the flight, though, and arrived exactly at the time we expected. In-flight meals were good for the money (we both had vegetarian meals). Didn’t bother watching the films.
Arrival & departure: Punta Cana Airport was a bit chaotic, both ways. The Thomas Cook rep didn’t make himself very noticeable, so we missed him at first, so we were unable to find the correct transfer coach easily. Eventually we located him. By then, it was dark (8pm) and raining. The transfer time was about an hour and a half, and uneventful (by Dominican standards!). Going back, we had one Gate number printed on our Boarding Passes, and a different Gate number showing on the screens – then, a third Gate number was announced in a garbled message over the PA system.
Arrival at the hotel was nice – staff waiting with orange juice and towels on hand, lots of bellhops ready to take the luggage up to the rooms immediately. Our luggage got to our room almost before we did, as we got lost (giving guests a map would be good, but apparently they are ‘between maps’ right now, due to the renovations making the old maps obsolete). We had brought two suitcases of charity donations with us, and we needed to sort out where to leave these (we didn’t want them taken to our room, which bemused the bellhops at first ). Eventually, we left the suitcases for Kerry to deal with the next morning, which she did.
Rooms: Our room was in Building 5, on the top floor (of three). We were so tired and disoriented by then, and it was dark, so we couldn’t work out which direction our room faced. When we opened the curtains in the morning, we were really pleased to discover that we had a great view overlooking the main pool, looking through the trees to the beach and the sea. As this view was so nice (and, incidentally, looked onto where the evening shows are temporarily being held), we often used our balcony. If we couldn’t be bothered to walk down to watch the shows close-up, we just sat out on the balcony instead. We felt this was a plus! By 4th February 2009, apparently, the new theatre building near the World Café will be finished, so most of the shows will no longer take place outdoors.
The room was almost identical to the one shown in The Thomas Cook brochure (for a ‘De-Luxe Room’). The furnishings were very nice and modern, the bed very comfortable, the bathroom was large, and clean. We had a walk-in shower, but no bath (not a problem, though). Some people have said in reviews that they never use the toiletries provided by hotels, but I do – I found these ones to be very good quality, especially the shower gel. As others have noted, though, face flannels are rarely provided. We had no face flannels left for us for the first few days, and then, after the maid changed, we had some put in the bathroom, but as we had brought our own, we didn’t use them. Three days later, they disappeared, still unused! Towels were plentiful, and changed often. Twice we left notes in Spanish asking for items in particular, and they were supplied.
Restaurants & bars: We are both vegetarian, and, having asked around on various forums before we went, were not very hopeful about finding a great choice of things to eat. However, we were pleasantly surprised by how much was available. The World Café (buffet) was where we ate the most. The breakfast selection was wonderful – 7 or 8 fruit juices to choose from, many types of bread or rolls, fresh fruit (pineapple was gorgeous), omelettes made to order, cereals, yoghurt, pancakes, scrambled egg, French toast, doughnuts, Danish pastries and muffins. Meat-eaters could have bacon, sausage and some unidentifiable stuff, too!! We got in the habit of taking a couple of muffins from breakfast back to our room to eat in the afternoon, as Dominicans don’t seem to have the concept of ‘afternoon tea and cake’ like the English do! The one thing that was a problem at breakfast was that the buffet staff do not understand that not everyone drinks coffee. They would offer us coffee as soon as we sat down, but when we asked for tea, they often looked blankly at us. They’d first bring a saucer of herbal tea sachets. We learnt, then, to ask for ‘Liptons tea, with milk please’, instead. They’d then try to put hot water AND MILK in the cups together, and leave us with a teabag each. The waiter called Jeisy (who works in the Japanese restaurant in the evenings) was the only one who got it right during our two weeks there, and it earned him a tip. We mentioned this issue about tea to Jesus in Guest Services towards the end of our holiday, and he said he would see if he could get them a bit better trained! Lunch at the resort for vegetarians was a bit more limited than for meat-eaters, but not a problem, either. The pizzeria by the main pool had four kinds of freshly cooked pizza each day, and two of these were meat-free. The World Café buffet always had salad, rolls, sometimes a ‘main meal’ which was meat-free. The barbecue stand on the beach, however was a totally no-go area for us, but very popular with those who like meat with their meat. A short way away from the barbecue was the ‘fruit boat’ where fresh (VERY fresh) fruit is cut up for you as you watch. One lunchtime we went to the Seaside Grill, where they had a spaghetti dish (with side salad), which was available without meat if required.
We tried only one of the A La Carte restaurants – the Bordeaux. The staff were rather bemused by the idea that we are vegetarian, but our waiter was very helpful in suggesting what we could have from the menu . He spoke with the chef, and came back to explain that the chef would make us up a dish from the vegetables that they were using that evening for the various dishes available from the usual menu, which worked out great. However, if we had wanted to go there for a second evening, we would have had to have the same thing again. The next evening, we spent some time visiting all of the A La Cartes, to speak with the staff about what each of them MIGHT be able to offer if we were to go there on another night – all of them had the same reply, really – they would make us up a special, but there wasn’t anything specifically ‘vegetarian’ on any menu. What they tended to CALL vegetarian, was really ‘vegetable accompaniments’, to be chosen to go alongside the meat options.