We had a great time enjoying beautiful weather and warm ocean water. Neighboring restaurants are good, food is fresh. We especially enjoyed grilled fish at Soles restaurant.
The house was clean and well equipped, however the extra bed in the living room had a broken frame therefore was not functional. The small table under the TV fall completely apart when we wanted to move it few inches - it was put together by our maid the next day.
Our maid did not speak a single word of English so communication was difficult, but she daily cleaned the house and did the laundry, which was a big plus.
Jose, our driver was very pleasant, and was a huge help since he did speak English.
I need to point out several things that surprised us. First, we had a terrible time communicating at restaurants because almost nobody speaks English. It was very strange considering the country heavily relays on tourism.
Second, service at the restaurants is beyond slow. We waited for over an hour (on average!) for our meals to be delivered.
We took a trip to Saona island which was a day wasted. The island is packed with tourists being delivered by motor boats and catamarans blasting music and filling air with gasoline stench.The trip took over 3 hours one way.
Our beach was beautiful. White sand and palm trees. There is seaweed, and it is not being cleaned as it is in front of resort hotels, so one needs to be prepared for this. The beach is not a private beach, but we had access to lounge chairs that were given to us daily by some kind of beach attendant who had a key to a huge chain that was wrapped around lounge chairs. Most of the days the beach was pretty quiet, but one or twice groups of 30-45 local teenagers came and, understandingly, loud music was blasting and there were screams of laughter etc. Again, we understood this since it is not a private beach. Relaxing on the beach on such days, however, was not possible.
There are local vendors of sorts walking on the beach trying to sell their services, from massages, boat rides, parasailing etc. etc. We were approached every day during our 13 days of stay, at least three times a day. We got used to this, but it might be annoying to some people.
Overall, we had a wonderful time. We enjoyed a great, whole day trip to Santo Domingo. Jose took us to see several places there to sightsee and was an excellent guide.
We recommend the place for people like us who don’t like all inclusive resorts or hotels. Thank you