Dreams Dominicus La Romana

The hotel property is nice, staff are eager to help, friendly and polite. The beach is great, so are the pools. However, even though the upkeep and look of the resort are fairly good, the place is definitely not a five-star property.

In general, we did not enjoy the food for most meals. It lacked flavour. Buffet items were constantly mis-labelled throughout our 5-day stay, at all meals. Some of those were very obvious (a dessert labelled as 'grilled vegetables'), while for some dishes it was hard to decipher what it contained (everyone is not familiar with every cuisine, and a basic description of whether an item was beef, pork, fish, etc would be helpful). We did bring this to the notice of the customer experience agent and the F&B manager, but didn't notice any change on subsequent days. The buffet restaurant World Cafe did not pay attention to food safety and didn't maintain the cold-chain - things like ham and cold-cuts were out too long, and developed a funky taste. We were asked about food allergies, but preferences were not generally taken into consideration - there were hardly any hot dishes with vegetables, vegan or gluten-free options - there were just either grilled or sauteed peppers, the same raw veggies and dressings in the salad bar on repeat for almost every meal, and a couple of very sad-looking, almost dryish, gluten-free bread options.

Food at Himitsu was absolutely terrible on Dec 25. There were absolutely no Thai flavours whatsoever in the Thai curry, and everything was very salty. We found this very disappointing after waiting an hour to get a table.

The resort must take into consideration CULTURAL preferences wrt food too, rather than just allergies (i.e. people may have religious or cultural restrictions on consumption of beef or pork). Better labelling of food items and a few more hot vegetable/vegetarian/vegan dishes would make it easier for people to choose, and would go a long way in bringing repeat guests.

Also, the bar menu mentioned whiskey sour as one of the drinks on offer, but one of the bartenders in the bar right by one of the pools did not know what I was referring to when I requested one.

On the positive side, the chocolate desserts and coffee were consistently very good all throughout the F&B outlets. Food at Portofino was decent - while I wouldn't classify it as great Italian cuisine, it was reasonably tasty. The tomato soup and bread served at the table were great! Portofino though lacked variety in the menu - a few additional choices would be welcome if people chose to eat at the same restaurant multiple times during a week's stay.

Their towel service was very badly-managed too. From Dec 25 to Dec 30, we managed to obtain towels on the first try only once. For the rest of the days, every time we went to the counter, we were asked to come back 'after half an hour', and even then there were no clean towels available, to the point where we just used our own towels that we had got from home. We saw this happen to a few other guests as well. For a beach resort which calls itself a five-star property, this is absolutely unacceptable. They are fully aware of occupancy levels at any given time, therefore must ensure sufficient clean towels are always available during pool hours.

Overall, even though the beach was fantastic, we wouldn't visit this resort again since it was not good value for money. [Details]

Wonderful resort with excellent restaurants and food. Excellent and clean pools. Nightly entertainment. Hard working staff. Ocean excellent. [Details]

We needed a trip after a long time of no vacations. this place is amazing. Its family oriented and nice if you have kids. we stayed as normal people and not preferred. We still have a great experience. The staff were very friendly and accommodating. We had no issues with our room everything worked fine for us.
The resort was clean and well taken care of. The entertainment team was AMAZING. I have been to other resorts and this blew me away.
The food at the buffet was amazing. I also enjoyed the coffee shop.
Beach was also good. There was a few rocks in the water so bring water shoes. [Details]

Wonderful beach and vacation [Details]

Many good points would recommend this resort for families more than for couples. Restaurants and pools are very family oriented. Clean and maintained. The entertainment staff keep everyone busy and the servers are on top of beverages. There is even food (snacks) served in the afternoon by the chefs - pizza, pastries, and fruit. Nice touch!
Room service was OK. Cleaned the room and made bed. Didn't always replace all the towels and facecloths. The was also no complimentary snacks in the rooms (nuts, plain chips) etc. These are just minor details. [Details]

Great Service especially if you upgrade to Preferred Club. [Details]

We loved our vacation here. Beautiful and relaxing. [Details]

Beautiful, quiet, relaxing, fairly small resort [Details]