Dreams Dominicus La Romana — Hotel in La Hispaniola

Dreams? Yep, it once was. Once.

Note: We know lots of hotels in the caribe area, so we know what to expect. We have been to RIU, Meliá, la Perla, Catalonia, Sunscape, etc.

For this vacations we choosen Dreams because we had a very Nice experience on the old dreams on bayahibe (now its an Hilton) a few years ago

So we selected a premium package (Prefered club)

The good: the hotel topology, size, the beach, the pools.

The bad:

Staff: not friendly as usual (and tipping)

The preferred beach Area: not very well maintained, bad and broken (some) sunbeds, and with views blocked by balinese sunbeds available for extra cost (90$/ day min) (and we are "premium" paying guests already)

almost the full day music too loud on main pool/beach Area. Even on non activities hours

Constant upselling: staff everyday Over and Over you trying to sell Spa and dinners at the beach, BBQs, etc. Way too much! sometimes we changed to other side, when walking, because we saw one of them comming..

Shows: pretencious but not delivering. Aimming high and failing bad. (The "return to inocence" rencarnation, on the pool, with fire was just sad..)

Prefered "Amenities": the markting material says wonders.. On arrival, they changed our room (by our request). The "Special" Amenities were no were to be seen. 4 days later, when asked about them, at Prefered guest desk, they say they forgot about it ( ...) and would send them right away. Well.. there was a beach bag (ok, a nice one) and the special snacks were a small bottle of Rum and a little box of Pringles

The terrible:

external big groups visitors: on the first 7 days, in like 4 of those, there were very big groups visiting the hotel (100s of people) overwelming the hotel, bars, restaurants, etc, with total and Absolut disrespect for the paying customers from the hotel management. Those would gone also to the "Prefered" reserved bar, beach Area and restaurants, wich is forbiden for regular costumers (those not Prefered club)

and the worst for last: Restaurants. By far the worst experience we ever had in the caribbean area:

main buffet: always very repetitive, lacks lots of basics ( like mixed eggs and fried bacon - in every hotel those are Basic items), strange options like stew and mashed patatoes for breakfast, terrible staff working on eggs and pasta stations, etc.

Terrible bread options (always tasted like old bread). Tables always missing itens, (glasses, silverware, napkings or something)

The preferred restaurant, near the beach: tryed once for breakfast: as its bad, no one goes there, so everything was overcooked, or cold, or with old looks. Just terrible. At dinner it was just ok (wich is bad for a premium restaurant) like we could expect from a regular resort restaurant

The grill: bad options, bad staff, terrible cooking. Tryed once and we will never set foot there again.

Portofino (italian): lacks options but it works, if you need to go there just once, or twice at most

Asian: the show cooking was noisy, not classy, with a chiken Rice, regular, not the thing you would expect. Regular Tables: bad. The sushi (Run from it) entrance was terrible, as were the rest of the dishes we tryed, exception to the chow mein, the was regular, but with too much soy

The "Bordeux" French restaurant. Lets start that the hotel have special dressing requirements for this restaurant. Like dresses for ladies and "dress shoes" for man, shirts with sleevs. Well, it raised our expectations.. we were wrong. Few options, just with "French" names. Just an arrogant pretensious restaurant that simply fails

I explain this way: in RIU, and Sunscape (bayahibe) in Fev 2024 (examples), both lower class and way cheaper than Dreams, the food was many levels up.

Just wondering if its not best to forget the money and move to the side-by-syde Catalonia..

Dreams were good , when managed by AMR. Dont know if the purchage by Hyatt as some influence on actual state of Dreams Dominicus and the other Dreams. Read many another critics, saying dreams was good in the past but but...

We travelled on 19AUG2023 - 26AUG2023. Researched extensively prior to travelling and in the last 50 years, no hurricane landed on this week. Alas, we had Franklin. We were lucky that way. Haha!

Thankfully, we had a couple of days before Franklin arrived and we enjoyed the warm, clear, calm, and turquoise water this side of the Dominican offered.

Hotel wise: ROOM: We were in building 51 and were offered to upgrade to Preferred for approximately $400. We declined as we wanted to know first if it would really be beneficial for us. Our room upon check-in was not as clean as I thought it should be. I told the concierge and had our room cleaned the following day.

We also lacked the basic features like 2 slippers (we had 1), 2 robes (we had 1), and an iron (which in the other hotels were automatically in the room). We did not ask for these as we did not really need it but to me, first impressions last. The moment you open your room, it should give you the "wow" feeling.

Our room was spacious. The AC was working so well. Our beds were comfortable. My son slept all through the night without issues.

POINTS OF IMPROVEMENT: The rooms need a bit of updating. Management really needs to LOOK into each room to see. The trash cans are rusty, the bathroom grout is starting to be moldy / dirty. Soap scum on the shower glass. Paint can be reinforced. The hotel was only built in 2016!

Note that if they offer to fumigate your room, you better accept it. My parents didn't and found 1 cockroach in their room the next day.

FOOD: Being non-preferred, the restaurants we were allowed in are all located near the beach area. Building 51 is by the entrance so there is about a 5-10 minute walk to the restaurants. For my ageing parents, they were not a fan but for me, I liked the distance as I burned a bit of calories before and after each meal.

Like the other all-inclusives I have been to, the food will be repetitive which I personally did not mind. I always found something I liked to eat.

POINTS OF IMPROVEMENT: A lot of times, the food tend to be too salty for our liking. Additionally, they have good meats like goat and lamb but this resort must not have any pressure cooker at all as the meat is not tender. I hope the hotel invests in those.

AMENITIES: There is a gym which we did not use. The pools are big enough for everyone.

POINTS OF IMPROVEMENT: More shade is needed in the beach area. In other hotels, the palapas is for everyone. In this resort, palapas is for preferred only.

We were naturally early risers so we had no issue getting a spot but for others, if you get up at 9 am, you would have a hard time for sure.

STAFF: Everyone we met were friendly. Most spoke Spanish but we did not mind as there is Google Translate. We did not have an issue with this at all.

SHOUTOUT TO WORLD CAFÉ STAFF: the guy who goes around offering Mama Juana (sorry I forgot your name) , Ricardo, Victor, and Wandy. They always took care of us 100%. I asked Ricardo to do a surprise cake for my mom's 60th birthday and these guys brought 300% of their energy! Will forever be thankful for them.

ENTERTAINMENT: These guys are so energetic! Loved joining their zumba class in the mornings. In the evenings, we loved the circus one. We did not get to watch a lot because of storm Franklin and they also started late at 9:30.

Overall, this resort is great but can improve . They really have a great opportunity here of not just having a great beach but a wonderful resort experience too for their guests especially in the rooms. In the Punta Cana side where we've been to in the past, the hotels bring their A game (especially in the rooms) cause they know the beach isn't that great. I feel like here, they let go of putting a bit of effort in the resort side cause they know their beach is way better. Why...

Do airlines allow for the weight of Botox in their calculations.

After a long flight packed with enough Botox to a make a snake look pouty. Most women on board had lips like a pantomime duck we have just returned from a two week stay at the Dreams Dominicus resort. We have always stayed at dreams hotels when on this Island and I am not sure where this one ranks. Some things are brilliant others not so. Let me explain which will make it obvious to the staff who the author is.

My wife has a gluten and lactose intolerance and needs food preparing accordingly.

At the world cafe breakfast buffet, she was promised specially prepared pancakes but on 3 of the first 5 mornings they never arrived. I brought it to their attention on the first two occasions it happened, but nothing improved despite apologies and assurances. After three failures I really let them know and after a meeting with the manager and catering director things improved massively and for the first time in years, she stayed healthy all holiday. The re-occurring problem was only really in the World Cafe which also suffered from poorly equipped tables and very hit and miss coffee service. We were never allocated a table that had everything we needed by way of cutlery and crockery or condiments and there appears to be a national shortage of teaspoons. Some mornings you would be ignored by the coffee server and on others there was enough to bathe in

All the Al-a- carte restaurants were fabulous with great food, and they all managed my wife's needs amazingly, however the drink service was either excellent or hopeless depending on the waiter.

Our room was huge and well maintained but not with a particularly good outlook overlooking the dissecting road. It was replenished daily without issues.

The bars were all fine with decent service. The Rendezvous bar waiters were incredibly good as was service around the relax pool. All had superior quality spirits on offer.

There are three pools which all are all fine if a little on the shallow side, but we eventually gravitated to the relax pool as the sun loungers were much better quality though on some days it did attract parents and their little cherubs/bundles of joy/screaming brats. Delete as appropriate.

The beach was a disappointment. The loungers are crammed together so you need to get on with the neighbours. It also slopes steeply into the sea. Easy to get in the water but a climb to get out.  The sea is good but with nothing much to look at if snorkelling.

This Dreams is the least English speaking one I have been to but with a bit of effort at rudimentary at Spanish on our part it was fine. This is understandable as most guests were from south and Central America with the remainder from USA, Canada, Europe including a smattering of us Brits.

Speaking of guests, here are some interesting facts you may not have known

Argentinians are genuinely nice and do not really need the Falklands back. Other South and Central Americans are lovely people. In the USA there is no word for please or thank you. They have never been taught how to use a knife when eating. They have no volume control. Canadians are okay, the French version are not. Germans are nicer than expected. British are British.

Overall, I would rate this Dreams at somewhere between three and four stars. With large improvements to the World Cafe and a prod of some staff it could be over four stars but will never achieve five due to the beach area.

I would really like to thank the eventual service provided to ensuring my wife stayed healthy especially the hotel manager Manuel and the Al-a –Carte staff.

Finally, this hotel makes a big deal of being eco-friendly but fails miserably on the decent toilet roll test. Buy thicker stuff and you will use an...