The first thing everyone needs to know is that the various Face Book and social media sites connected with this hotel are all run by hotel staff or people with an interest for getting people to stay at this hotel. Having spoken to other guests while there we found negative and English language reviews were not being uploaded. We are experienced travellers and can honestly say we did not expect it to be as bad as it was. We did try to use some Spanish language– just GCSE level.
Arrival… zero out of 10- We travelled as 4 adults, booking 2 rooms but not Sun Club. On arrival reception, were only interested in upgrading us to a shared family room which we turned down, they then said the mini bar is stocked on arrival (beer, cola, fanta, sprite, water) but only with water after that – we advised them that we had all inclusive which stated a well-stocked mini bar for the duration, they said that was only for Sun Club we requested to speak to a manager and they said No! and sent us to the concierge desk. The 2 men at this desk also refused to listen and get a manager just saying to check our terms and conditions on our booking information – which we did and found it stated a ‘well stocked mini bar for the duration,’ we were tired and gave up and went to our rooms at this point. It is very frustrating that HYATT/ Sunscape Dominicus feel they can change the terms when the feel like it. We did tip $2 per day and write notes to house keeping so our fridge was kept stocked up in the end.
Rooms…10 out of 10 -The corridors were clean and apartment blocks well labelled. The rooms were clean and well decorated – blocks 3 and 5 third floors. Good showers and 2 double beds (although one in our room only had 3 legs so rocked a bit?!) with room to move around- air con, fridge, safe, coffee pot, drawers and wardrobe, iron, hair dryer, outside balcony area. The toilet was a tight squeeze but ok and all was clean, no problem getting beds and towels changed. Housekeeping were a bit hit and miss to start with but improved as stay progressed and even topped up our fridge with more than water.
Pool and Sunbeds…7 out of 10- I did get up early to go sit for ‘my quiet time’ by the pool at 7am, there were plenty of sunbeds until about 10am but those with shade were gone by 9am. I took anti-bac wipes daily to wipe the sunbeds and sometimes had to clear away dirty plates and glasses from the evening before. The pool was mostly clean but some days there was a scum on the surface and hair around the entrances but mostly it was Ok. The pool boys did their best to clear away debris blown from the bar roof that constantly landed in the pool. The pool never smelt of chlorine but some of our swim wear did turn a bit yellow over the 10 day stay – I recommend you take a travel sink plug and some washing powder and rinse swim wear daily. – the ‘Sip and Dip Bar’ was terrible, they prioritised Spanish speakers and ignore English looking guests even if you were the only person waiting to be served, they also never put alcohol in your cocktails unless you specifically requested it. The entertainment people again tended to ignore you unless there were no other Spanish speakers or Hispanic looking people around and all announcements were given in Spanish, French, Italian but NEVER English. Various parties took place from 4pm daily around the pool but the organising was terrible and because they never made any announcements in English we never really knew what was going on
Beach/sea….7 out of 10 – lots of sunbeds all cramped together and not enough shade – you will need to get up early for a sun shade here! Yes, there are rocks in the sea but the hotel can’t change this natural sea defence – take water shoes and the area to the left of the pier, in-front of the white gazebo has less rocks, if you are worried go in the sea on calm days or earlier in the morning.
We snorkel a lot and saw some amazing fish and rays. The corals have been bashed by guests standing on them but we saw porcupine puffer fish, angel fish, parrot fish, eagle rays, barracuda, squirrel fish and more. Its worth standing on the pier at night to see the rays swimming under the pier.
There were also vendors on the beach, mainly photographers with a monkey, a couple of blue Macaws and a Iguana, the men trawled the beach for over 4 hours, never visibly giving shade or water to the animals and when they left walking back along the beach what looked like a hotel manager appeared from the restaurant on the pier to collect his commission before the vendors left – all I can say is… ‘SHAME on you HYATT for allowing this cruel practice to happen on your property!!!’
Restaurants…10 out of 10 - Windows, Coco Cafe and Pizza place – Windows is the main buffet restaurant and we had breakfast and lunch here , excellent bread and if you want bacon for breakfast just ask the egg/omelette man or someone near the kitchen entrance. Salad excellent for lunch. Also Ice cream in here, behind the kid’s buffet. The pizza place did the best pizzas and we returned to this restaurant 3 times. The Coco café was good for hot chocolate, coffee, dough-nuts and ice cream.
The other restaurants …3 out of 10 overall – the best of these was the Da Mario only because it had a good salad bar but the pasta was OK, The Tierra on was ok but portion sizes amongst our party were so different- very inconsistent. The Teppanyaki show dinner had to be booked – very disappointing, the food was very good but the show was just someone bashing his utensils on the hot plate, no flame throwing or smoking onion rings or show cooking at all, as we have experienced in other places. The Chopsticks sit-down Chinese was just the Dominican version of salty Chinese food – nothing special. The Tiki Taco again very inconsistent with portion sizes and gave us the wrong meals - all the waiting staff are very friendly and happy people.
Other bars… 0 out of 10… the Tortuga on the beach was for Sun Club only but Sun Club wasn’t in this area so the staff just sat doing nothing all day – Hyatt needs to make this a bar for everyone and move sun club bar to the pier. The coffee bar on the beach was staffed by people who didn’t know how to make coffee. The Coconuts beach bar was OK but you needed to be very clear if you wanted alcohol in your cocktails. Self-serve water was available at most of the bars and we took big cups with lids to fill up at these stations. On several occasions we found ourselves getting a plate of chips from the snack wagon after our evening dinner! We didn’t do Bluewater Grill as it was same as daytime BBQ which we tried once and meat was so tuff we had to leave it.
Sun Club – not worth it… your pool is surrounded by Sunscape buildings on 2 sides and a building site on another so the pool was in the shade for most of the day, the sun club beach was quite empty of guests probably because the entrance into the sea here was very rocky. We spoke to many people who also agreed $30 per person per night was not worth it for the Sun Club experience – also this is no longer an adult only option as the hotel say they want to be promoted as a family hotel?
Over-all we negotiated the systems and had an ok time, we will not return to this hotel and will think twice about booking any HYATT hotel in future. Most of the staff were friendly and helpful but over-all too many changes from our original booking and inconsistencies throughout our stay. Our advice is go armed with knowledge from independent sites, expect rocks in the sea and to be ignored if you look English/European.
Make sure you do a trip to Saona Island – we booked this with Katerina Caribe who we contacted on WhatsApp before leaving the UK – well worth every penny – brilliant day
CA