Iberostar Selection Hacienda Dominicus — Hotel in La Hispaniola

We give it 9.6 out of 10.||Beach extremely clean, lot's of sun loungers and plenty of room between them for privacy. Variety of drinks available at the Lighthouse on the beach. You can even take the drinks in the sea as plastic re-usable cups!||The sea was crystal clear, beautiful. With your head above the water you will be able to see each other's feet! Caribbean sea was like a hot bath, you can get into the water instantly! Even at 8pm it was extremely warm. ||You can see fish in the sea at two locations, one as you get into the water on the far left, and another a bit further in. There was plenty of fish there but not a huge variety from what we saw, but we still really enjoyed it.||Buffet food always 10/10 big variety to choose from. Service is always fast and your waiter will take good care of you. You can even get sparkling wine at breakfast! Fruits here were incredibly fresh and juicy. No matter which time you arrive everything is always fully stocked up and ready to eat.||We went to 3 different al Carte, Italian- steakhouse, Japanese and Mexican. We enjoyed Japanese the most, the chef cooks in front of you and it's very entertaining! Food and service was 10/10 for the Japanese and steakhouse. ||Sadly our experience at the Mexican wasn't so good we give it 1/5. Whilst waiting to enter we noticed Spanish speaking couples sitting there had drinks but we were not offered any. When the waiter came to invite us in despite us arriving before another Spanish speaking couple they were invited in first, seated first, and served their food first. This was poor service by the waiter. When we sat down we were immediately offered the expensive wine menu and not told about any house wine.||You will find a huge variety of alcohol at this resort, cocktails, rum, beer and many more! The lighthouse bar and the pool bar were our favourites!||The hotel itself and the grounds were beautiful! It was a joy to walk around the resort each and every day. The place was kept very tidy and the gardens have been well looked after. The vibe of this hotel was very Dominican and fun!||There was a variety of evening entertainment every night including live shows, music and dancing. One night a Michael Jackson act performed, if you have the chance to see him whilst you are there do NOT miss him! He was absolutely amazing!||So why do we give this hotel 9.6 instead of 10? We have a few recommendations for improvement as follows: ||1) During our 7 night stay we saw on two occasions third party vendors come to the resort and stay for what seemed like hours. They were very pushy and made it uncomfortable to walk around the hotel as you couldn't really avoid them due to them setting up in multiple popular walkways around the hotel. It would be better to have them in one area only so that if guests do not want to be bothered by them we can simply walk another way. As there are local markets very close to the resort I think it's best that vendors do not come on-site.||2) Sargassum was present on our beach for two days during our stay. Whilst we appreciate so much the hotel cleaned the beach we found the workers to be extremely slow. Workers were talking way too much and moving so slow.||3) Some tables were not sitting flat on the floor which resulted in the table moving a lot whilst eating. We appreciate the staff did their best to fix this by placing paper underneath however the issue persisted. We hope this issue can be fixed before someone spills a drink.||4) It's advertised on the resort as "free kayak" near the pool area and on the hotel official website however when you go to enquire about this at the diving centre non motorized water sports are "free" but you must pay 20 dollars first. The price is actually fair as it's a one-time payment and you can use 1 hour per day I believe however we did not like being mis-led and lied to like that. Please change how this is advertised asap.||Tips:|Bring USD ONLY on this holiday. Everyone prefers to be tipped in USD and even the local markets and at the airport the prices are in USD. ||If you don't speak Spanish make sure that you fully understand what your concierge is saying to avoid any misunderstandings and miscommunications.|| If the hotel offers you a free gift such as free dinner on the beach or massage(as we are getting married next month or for some people might be any other special occasion ) you will need to allocate at least half an hour of your time to listen about the hotel chains other resorts whilst eating breakfast with the hotel staff. This wasn't specified prior to us accepting the gift so we ended up cancelling after as we did not want to have breakfast with the hotel staff as this made us uncomfortable.||You can negotiate a lot with the local vendors in price. Make sure to get a fair price!||We got bitten on this holiday more then any other we have been on. Please bring whatever you need to avoid bites. We think they were ants.||Please don't leave food on the sun loungers!!! It will attract ants and the peacocks will eat the food which is unhealthy for them. ||You can find artwork in the

TL;DR; Items missing from room Drilling, grinding, hammering from the renovation work Poor drinks and cocktails selection Average food Laughable evening entertainment Tired rooms

For those that want a bit more detail and background I'll expand on the above. First off items going missing from the room. We had Apple airpods go missing from the room whilst we were at breakfast. We raised this with the hotel and even provided tracking details showing the airpods were taken off hotel grounds using Apple's tracking facility. They then proceeded to spend two days searching the rooms and other areas of the hotel 'investigating what happened'. This cumulated in an investigation report saying that the items were lost! You will see if you look at other reviews this is a common occurrence. It usually happens a day or two before you are due to leave, 2 days before in our case. Its obviously an issue but one they don't want to advertise and wanted to cover up.

There is significant building working going on in the hotel. Grinding, drilling, banging from early morning to early evening. Breakfast you have to be careful where you sit as you can't hear the person next to you. The work also renders large parts of the hotel pool unusable. We had no communication about this work prior to arrival, nor was it mentioned when booking in.

Drink selections and cocktails for a 5* hotel are poor to and the table service is hit and miss unless you tip. Asking for off-menu cocktails only gets you a funny look and a no-no only menu.

Food can be described as adequate. The evening food is generally unlabelled so you’re not sure what your eating and temperature is often cold. We visited three of the four specialist restaurants during our time there, which I can only describe as disappointing. The theatre of the Japanese is entertaining but less said about the food the better. The Steakhouse was more sinew that stake and whilst the taste of the Mexican was good the seats are uncomfortable so you enjoy the food.

Entertainment most nights was unintentionally funny with the majority of nights involving resident entertainers running and jumping around a stage in front of a pre-canned set of songs. Instead of enjoying an early evening drink whilst digesting your evening meal you were constantly cajoled by staff to get up and dance. On the rare occasion you manage to dodge the invites, very often get caught up in large families dragging seats across the bar or vaulting over the pushchair car parks. Not very conducive to a relaxing 5* holiday.

The rooms. I mentioned earlier that there is extensive renovation going on. I can see why. The rooms are basic for a 5* to say the least. The minibar had a very poor selection in comparison to other hotels we’ve stayed in and on the rare occasion we dipped into the minibar it took several days to restock. The bathroom was acceptable but items like coffee maker and PlayStation were either missing parts or just not there. Add into that old noisy aircon and you will have a fair picture of what is install.

Finally, and this has been mentioned several times by different reviewers is the invite to Iberostar Select. This involves you have to sit through breakfast making small talk with a sales representative whilst they flatter you with overly-embellished and at time embarrassing compliments. This is only the start. To cut a long story short be very careful what you sign up for. We had a sales manager jot down savings of 70% on our current holiday but when asked to evidence the saving they couldn’t justify it. It may prove a good deal if you stick to Iberostar hotels only but for the 33000 they profess to offer discounts on I would advise caution. We took a couple of holidays we have planned and they were significantly more expensive. Beware!

Overall a disappointing experience and one that left us with a negative view of Iberostar and in particular the dismissive attitude of their...

Not a Guest-Oriented Resort - Don't waste your money.

The food is bland (good quality) but completely unappetizing, definitely not 5 star caliber, not even 3 star caliber. Much of the food was repurposed from the previous meal which often produced even more unappetizing food. The restaurants are small (do not seat more than 50 people), they do not cater to children at all, and the food is simply regurgitated from the buffet to "appear" French, Japanese, and Mexican. The restaurant staff are not trained as professional waitstaff (men are served before women, plates are pulled out from under you while you're still eating, drink orders are often forgotten, and they do not know their menu). Disappointing. The staff is mediocre, very few people speak English, we were met with turned backs more times than I can count when I would ask a question. Instead of trying to understand me they would just turn away and leave. This was at reception, guest services and even at the restaurants. The non-existent Star Camp for kids was the biggest disappointment and false advertising of all. Most days it was completely closed, no one spoke English (not even the bare minimum). The activities, when they had them, were 30 min maybe 1x to 2x a day and we never knew where the activities were. The schedule (which we had to fight with the hotel to get) was incorrect, the APP which was supposed to be the best resource for when things occur, was incorrect as well. We would show up for activities, as scheduled on the app, and there would be no one there. We would go to guest services and they would tell us the activity was cancelled or that they moved the location. But by the time we would get there, it would be over. Many times they just cancelled the activities altogether and the Kids Activities manager would tell us to take our kids to play video games (this was offensive to me). We never once were able to go inside the small enclosure that is supposed to be Star Camp - every single time we came there (morning, afternoon, early evening) - it was closed. Part of the reason we booked this place was for the Star Camp program. Room service, which is advertised as 24hrs a day, was not reachable - not even once. Every time we tried, the phone would ring and then beep as if the line were dead. The water fountain broke (which is the source of drinking water) and I could not reach room service or the front desk from the room. I had to walk up to reception. That is not acceptable for a 5 star hotel. The resort is not family oriented at all - no coloring paper for the kids at the restaurants, no kids camp or activities, no one explained where we could see the advertised coral reef (again the staff just turned their backs and walked away when they did not understand us), nothing at all. Thank God for the pool and beach, otherwise there was nothing geared towards kids. The COVID tests were a fiasco. As advertised when we purchased, our tests were included with our package. When we got the the resort the only thing they did tell us upon check-in (besides lost towel cards costing $10) was that the COVID tests were $35/person. The next day the Amstar rep said they were free. When we arrived for our COVID appointment (with 3 small children and an injured mother) we ended up waiting an hour and a half! What was the point of making an appointment if they did not even keep it. Then when we finally got to the testing part, the clinician argued with us in broken English that we needed to pay first. We explained that it was included, she argued with us more and more, until I finally told her to just take the test and we would call the manager to explain that the tests were included. There was hassle and disrespect at every turn.

If you're looking for luxury, relaxation, and an ambience of catering towards the guest - choose something else where your money will be wanted and you will get a...