Dreams Cap Cana Resort & Spa — Attraction in Higüey

I wish I could rate the hotel 3.5, instead of a 4. Overall good but there is a lot of changes still needed from more of a top down level. Too many inconsistencies for a 5 star resort. My husband stayed at a Sandals during our last trip and that felt like a 5 star experience. I know Hyatt recently took over this resort and it was clear improvements were being made. In a year, this resort will likely be comparable to Sandals. ||You will not be disappointed by staff interactions. The staff are what you expect at a 5 star resort. Everyone was very kind, friendly and welcoming. Luis, our concierge was exceptional. Natalie at the Italian restaurant made our first meal there awesome. Manulka at the buffet was amazing and provided top notch service. Jose, from the entertainment helped us participate in a cocktail making class because the app said it was taking place that day but it turned out it was an error in the app and it had taken place the day before. We splurged on a massage and Angelica provided the best massage of my life. Ask for her at the spa and your expectations will be exceeded. ||Miqueay (spelling is likely wrong, sorry) at the front desk assisted us when our room toilet kept leaking and absolutely did what he could to make it as right as humanly possible in that moment and he was very kind. Our toilet leak was horrible on our last day. It leaked all the way to the shower and we had to use all our towels to try and contain it. There were bits toilet paper and hair around the toilet at this point, which was after housekeeping cleaned our room. I don’t know if they saw this or not. I was in denial but it was actually leaking all week. I saw smaller amounts of water daily that I attributed to using the toilet after swimming or showering. It seems stupid looking back on it that I didn’t realize it was the toilet leaking until it was extreme. This shouldn’t be an issue at a 5 star resort. We notified the resort of the issue when it was very apparent the last day right before we went to dinner. We were told it would be resolved. After dinner, we checked the status of our room and was told they couldn’t enter because our do not disturb sign was on. My husband turned it off before dinner, knowing we needed help with the toilet. So my, husband rushes to our room to let maintenance in. At this point, we beyond frustrated. Even if the toilet was “fixed”, I was so worried it would start leaking again overnight. Worse, that floor was filthy and not only did the toilet need fixing, the floor needed to be cleaned and sanitized. It was around 8pm that we were offered a different room. I had to run to the room and start packing. I had to repack when we finally made it to our new room. It was very stressful and a horrible end of the stay. We missed the opportunity to spend more time with the people we met there and we live far apart. The gentleman that helped us to the room was very nice. He took us to a room on the 5th floor that wasn’t ready for visitors. We were then upgraded to a swim out but the resort clearly didn’t want to start with an upgrade. We literally had less then 12 hours left of our stay and weren’t able to enjoy the upgrade. I’m still thinking about the toilet situation and the fact that it was an issue, I’d rate the room a one star. My husband saw maintenance working on the toilet and they were just running putty at the base of the toilet. I’m guessing it was previously fixed the same way and that someone knew it was an issue. I don’t blame maintenance as they were likely doing what the resort instructed them to do in these matters. ||Most of the food was good to excellent. There were only a couple of meal flops. The Italian, Asian pan and buffet were great. The premier Al a cart restaurant for lunch was great too. Lot’s of food variety and great drinks. I give food a 4.5. Not a 5 because one meal was completely cold and there was poor service. We only got 2 menus (4 of us eating together) and the drinks took forever for a couple of meals. The bartenders were great and the preferred lounge bar was my favorite.||There are a lot of pools to enjoy but the beach, while pretty from afar, was not swimmable. It was brown and mucky. I’m not convinced it was anything the resort had control over and based on past reviews, they have done a lot of work to it. Again, it is pretty and there is a lot of beach/space. There were always towels and places to sit. The pools get a 5 star. ||There were lots of inconsistencies in the room. We were missing a lot of toiletries, snacks and wine from our room, including the tote bag that preferred guests get. Luis, our concierge did request the tote bag for us that appeared in our room day 2. We didn’t know we were missing toiletries until we were moved to another room due to the toilet issue. We requested an extra blanket multiple times with multiple people and kept getting told it would be coming. We finally got the extra blanket after my husband stayed up until 11pm waiting for it. The last time he spoke to the desk about it, he was told they delivered it and handed it off to him. Not sure who got that blanket but it wasn’t us. He said he called 5 times and even tried to retract the request because it was so late. The blanket had some crusty spots on it but I decided not to think about it and to just be grateful for it. I was in vacation mode and just let it go. My husband gets really hot and I get cold while sleeping. When we had to move rooms, I realized I no longer had an extra blanket. We were reassured it would be in our room for us and we never got it. The mini bar wasn’t restocked regularly, although when I left a note after the first couple of days, it was. From then forward, we always got plenty of water. Housekeeping didn’t clean our room the first day and so we requested towels and toilet paper the following day. It wasn’t a big deal we didn’t get housekeeping the first day but it was frustrating when we didn’t get our towels and toilet paper timely after we requested it. We got some towels when my extra blanket was delivered but no toilet paper. Housekeeping otherwise was good and I’m confident they work very hard.||A 3.5 rating seems fair. Staff, drinks snd most food was excellent. Luis couldn’t have done any better- he’s a standout. The toilet situation was unacceptable and the room...

Preferred Club: On our late afternoon arrival we accepted an offer to upgrade to Preferred Club with a room in building 1 with sea view. We were not given the guided walk-around that others had and the butler who we were told would introduce himself the next morning never materialised (when we asked the receptionist in the preferred lobby bar about something he expressed surprise that we did not have a butler but he didn't follow it up and as we weren't that bothered about having a butler anyway we let the matter drop). We received one bottle of wine in our room for our entire stay and our room snacks were often not replenished and the nightly turn-down service stopped after a week. On our last full day the chamber maids turned up just after we'd got back from breakfast and we were not quite ready to leave for the beach so they said they would come back later but we returned at 5.30pm to find that the room had still not been made up (being our last full day we were more concerned with starting to pack so we didn't bother to contact housekeeping). We were disappointed that unlike our previous visits to a Dreams resort the Preference Club only had a lobby bar which did not serve coffee and had hardly any pastries/snacks. The Preferred Club pool had noisy music from it's makeshift bar/waiter station so when we were not on the beach we used the adjacent non-Preferred Club pool which was quieter and almost empty. Preferred Club a la carte breakfast and lunch could be taken in the Mediterranean restaurant but after trying one breakfast there we much preferred the excellent Mesa buffet restaurant. Various buttons on our TV remote control stopped working and (having no butler) I told the reception desk about it whilst we waiting to go on a tour but was told to dial 0 from the room when I came back and someone would come and see to it; after returning I dialled 0 but after more than 6 minutes there was still no answer so I went back to reception who then sent someone to see to it (they also advised me not to dial 0 but gave me two reception numbers instead).||Restaurants: The Mesa buffet restaurant was excellent but much to our disappointment it was only open on the Saturday evening we arrived; thereafter it was only open for breakfast and lunch including during the much busier Ironman 70.3 weekend. Of the five speciality restaurants only two were open on any one evening along with the Coral Keg sports bar/restaurant and with the exception of the one meal we had in the Steakhouse restaurant all the other speciality restaurants were very hit and miss; we also found most of them to be very noisy. Sometimes there were long waits for tables despite some of the restaurants being only part full. During the busier Ironman 70.3 weekend waits were especially long (due to the Steakhouse's popularity and it's queues on previous days we had left it until 9.00pm to visit only to be told that there was a 45 minute wait and when we then went to the Mediterranean restaurant (being the only other speciality restaurant open) there was also a 45 minute wait (although barely half full, numbers were limited to what the chefs/kitchen could cope with) and when we did get a table my partner's Orange Duck Confit was very disappointing. In the Asian restaurant my partner's Pad Thai lacked Thai flavours and tasted burnt. At the Caribbean restaurant we both ordered Cream Pumpkin soup but the slice of garlic crisp bread which accompanied my partner's bowl had a burnt hole in the middle and when turned over it was completely black (mine was black on only half of one side) and when I showed these to the head waiter he apologised and brought replacements; I then ordered a Rum Pudding ('Flambéed bananas and nutmeg whipped cream') and when I queried with the waitress who brought it that it was clearly something else she said that it had 'banana flavouring' (it didn't). On our first visit to the Italian restaurant my calamari starter was very good but the house speciality catch of the day was overcooked and unfortunately had a strong taste similar to mackerel and it would have been better had it not been zero carbohydrate (admittedly there was no carbohydrate mentioned on the menu). On our next visit (after a 30 minute wait for a table) my calamari starter came with twice the number of rings but unlike the first time they were completely overcooked (rubber tyres) and were inedible. We did however enjoy the lunchtime paella which was cooked and served up next to the main pool bar once a week (food was also prepared here on other days but we didn't try it) and as previously stated the buffet restaurant was excellent – if only it had also been open in the evenings.||Beach: The beach was a quiet and peaceful escape from the loud music and noise of the main pool areas although a dumper truck did leave a huge pile of sand one morning which was then levelled off by a bulldozer and on Sunday the finish line, viewing stand and raised VIP area for the Ironman 70.3 race were located in the area between the hotel and beach front with the commentary loudspeakers located on the beach next to the Bali beds where they were almost loud enough to burst the eardrums of anyone still there. The Bali Beds in the small Preferred Club area were lined up at an angle to the sea but those on the adjacent section of beach were lined up facing the sea so the front row had an uninterrupted view and received the same beach waiter service so we preferred them. All but one of the front row Bali Beds had a sun parasol to provide additional shade and one morning an American couple next to us who had the one bed without a parasol stole ours whilst we weren't there (the trail of the parasol's dragged base showing in the sand provided clear evidence of who'd taken it). ||Staff: Almost without exception the front of house staff were very friendly and attentive (most of the gardeners also smiled and said hello). However, special mention should go to Jonathan the barman in the Coral Keg who when we went in to ask for a glass of brandy to have with our late night coffee at the adjacent Coco Cafe introduced us to Torres 10 year brandy and then went above and beyond in sourcing a couple of glasses of it for us from somewhere else whenever the Coral Keg...

Me and my mom went on a mother daughter trip to dreams cap cana for 6 nights and got home yesterday. While we did have a great trip together, there were multiple times where we were questioning if we chose the right resort. We stayed at another Dreams in Mexico a few years ago and had a much better experience. The first day we arrived, we spent our time at the family pool, which was very loud. I am not complaining about it, but if you want a relaxing time with less kids, I would suggest the preferred pool which is where we spent the rest of our days. When choosing prefered, they tell you all these perks you get, which you really dont. At the prefered pool, and prefered bar they do not ask for your room number or anything to confirm that you are actually prefered. There were people walking over to the prefered pool bar (top shelf liquor since you are "prefered") and take it with them to other pools. At the prefered pool I would like to mention Johan, Cristopher, and Erismendy, who were great. They were always checking on us, asking if we needed anything, and if a bed opened up they would move our stuff for us. Most of the people at this resort are hard workers and provide great service. Also our butler, Luis, who would come see us twice a day, ask if we needed anything for our room, and find out what we would like to do for dinner and make our reservation. Now the food, MAKE SURE IT IS COOKED!!! THE FOOD IS TERRIBLE!! At the prefered pool, they come around to see if you would like anything to eat. There are minimal options and is also hard to get there attention to actually order something. My moms burger was extremely pink on the inside and was definitely mystery meat. You could see the pieces of it mixed together when biting into it. Room service also takes extremely long, and make sure thats cooked to! Again, the burger was not cooked. Our favorite meal was the steakhouse, however it was very loud in the restaurant where we were seated in the back surrounded by larger parties of people screaming over each other. Mac n Cheese was grainy and cold. We had to scream to talk. The steak had a lot of fat on it, but was good. The buffet breakfast is your best option, and Naftaly is great! For lunch and dinner, the buffet does not have much variety. The food is also cold and pancakes are not fully cooked on the inside. One night we went to the barbecue outside, where my sausage was not cooked. It seems like they are just rushing to get the food out. I also believe this place is understaffed, and they really need to teach their workers better english. Something I was VERY taken back by was one night when we getting ready for dinner and there was a knock on the door. Not even a second goes by and a man opens the door!! The do not disturb sign was on to. All he said was "sorry" and shut the door. I am only 18, and luckily I had a robe on. You also need to ask for robes and slippers. Do not mind asking the front desk or putting in a request on the app, as it is not answered. Your best bet is contacting your butler if you need anything cause these people are not good for anything. They tell you the snacks get replenished, but they don't. You need to catch them in the hallway and ask for it. If you are a family, good luck with the bathroom situation as there is no privacy for showering or getting dressed. Where the toilet is has a door, and motion sensor light that goes off in seconds, so your going to the bathroom in the pitch black. Our room had a strong smell of bleach which did not subside for at least 3 days. It is nice to know it is clean but we were waking up with headaches daily. The entertainment was better some nights than others, the magic show sucked, and circus show was alright. We also had massages at the spa. The activities by the pool done by Coca-Cola were super fun and we would look forward to it daily. The guy who goes around the pools gives you one price, and when you get there it is totally different. While we had a great stay, I would take these factors into account if these things are...