Presidential Suites Cabarete — Hotel in La Hispaniola

I really wish I could give this more than 2 starts because the location is great and the property has a ton of potential to be an amazing resort. However. There are some fundamental issues many guests have consistently complained about that Lifestyle sees as a customer issue and not a customer service issue. The nickle and diming for services such as housekeeping, replacement towels, a lost key, etc is far from the "luxury" they claim to be. I stayed for a Saturday to Saturday stay - new towels were $9 if you needed extra. The last day when I checked out but my flight wasn't until much later, the front desk kept my license as collateral for a returned towel. Absolutely ridiculous. My room did have some soap provided - it was supposed to be two soap, two body wash, two conditioner, and two shampoo. I only got 1 shampoo so asked for a second and was told I would have to pay for it. I told the desk I would trade the third body wash that was provided and it was a struggle to get them to understand the bathroom was stocked improperly in the first place. It took 3 days to get the extra shampoo after asking 2X each day. Housekeeping will knock on your door every morning so forget about sleeping in unless you put the DND sign on your door handle. As a solo female traveler, I don't feel particularly safe advertising overnight that there is someone in the room so I don't get woken up in the morning. If you answer the door, housekeeing doesn't tell you why they are knocking, waves, says ok ok and walks away. I asked the front desk why this was happening - they claimed it was to "keep inventory" I'm sorry - the rooms aren't harry potter moving staircases. The rooms aren't disappearing, and if housekeeping actually went into the rooms to refresh every couple of days, they might be able to do their "inventory". Very strange. The first morning I was woken up with an 8:30am phone call from Anna from the sales department claiming there was a complimentary breakfast which turned into a sales pitch. This is pure bait and switch behavior and frankly disgusting. Multiple people walked out angry knowing they would be pitched a vacation club membership or upgrade. When the sales person realized I wasn't going to buy in, (I'm a Hilton Grand Vacation member and pay quite a bit for that membership) he left me at the table without telling the wait staff who then tried to get me to pay for the "complimentary breakfast" terrible communication that left me with a bad taste on the very first day. Additionally, the next day when I was waiting in the lobby to book something at the excursion desk, another person tried pushing the breakfast. The pushy sales tactics really cheapen the experience. Its LOUD. The beds are hard. I had a studio which has a mini fridge but no microwave. The restaurant won't heat anything up if you ask. So... cold leftovers for a week. There is stuff constantly breaking all over the property. One day none of the toilets by the pool would flush, the elevator broke, the hot water doesn't work. Be careful because if anything in the room is broken - take a picture upon arrival and let the desk know. They WILL try to charge you for it when you check out. The pool closes at 7 which is crazy early and there are never enough lounge chairs on the beach.

Pros - It's close to everything, the bars and restaurants are awesome down the beach. If you can manage not to get charged for frivolous things it can be a pretty economic vacation.

I'd love to be able to rate this place higher but until management and Lifestyle re-vamps their customer service standards, I wouldn't recommend this place to anybody. There are plenty of well priced locations on the beach as an alternative that won't treat you like an open wallet and a thief at...

Beautiful resort with amazing staff.

Due to the negative news about the DR, the attendance at the resort was down. At one point there was at most seven (7!) people in the pool. I can certainly see the how the negative press is hurting the tourism.

We stayed Saturday to Saturday and traveled with 2 adults, 2 teens. The resort was able to get us connecting rooms, which worked out really well. Check in was easy, and our luggage was promptly brought to our room. Wifi was expensive at $50 USD per device per week, and there was a charge to use our safe of $20 USD for the week. Seems like those items should have been included, but I guess they need to make an extra buck. The internet worked well in our room and was actually fairly quick. Once activated in our room though, our Wifi only worked in our room. It didn't work anywhere else in the resort. I'm assuming that was just me and I didn't complain about it.

Rooms were beautiful, clean and well kept. Our king-sized bed was as hard as the floor. Our hide-a-bed was actually more comfortable. Speaking to our neighbor, their mattress was soft. No idea how there could be such a difference in mattresses. The A/C worked well, and we had no trouble with our rooms.

The pool bars really shine. The food at the pool bars is excellent, and the service was great. The food at the pool bars was substantially better than expected. We questioned whether there was booze in the drinks as they were weak, but that's fine with us. The buffet was just ok, it was what we expected buffet food to be or maybe a little less. The Italian restaurant was great with the food being served piping hot and fresh. We were not entitled to try the "members only" restaurant.

I'd give the beach 3 out of 5 stars. We enjoyed countless hours in the ocean and walking up and down the beach, but it's not the nicest beach we've seen. The folks peddling their trinkets gets tired fast. After a while we tended to stay by the pool as we weren't harassed there for massages, bracelets, necklaces, cigars and yes, Viagra.

The downfalls: the traffic noise. OMG, the traffic noise. Don't plan on sleeping much depending on where you are in the resort. We had an ocean view, but we were looking over the main street of Caberete to see it. The dump trucks, motorcycles without mufflers, bass-boasted stereos, and even the security guards directing traffic and using whistles prevents any sort of sleep, ever. If you're on the ocean side of the highway (Imperial Suites) I bet you'd be ok, and if you're on the non-ocean side of the highway (Presidential Suites), try to get a room in the buildings that are located off the road. Even sitting at that Patashow pool bar, the sound of the traffic reverberates through the "arch way" beside reception and can still be deafening. We went in low season, I can't imagine how loud it gets when there's actual traffic. Speaking of traffic -- you have two ways to get from one side of the street to the other. One is across a foot bridge on the 3rd floor, and the other is via security guard on the ground floor. They're both equally as efficient, but the road seemed more convenient than the bridge.

So, overall it's a beautiful resort with fantastic staff located in a poor location. Based solely on the 24/7 traffic noise, I don't think...

We love Cabarete! Presidential Suites in Cabarete was the perfect place for my family to stay. The location is excellent. The buildings are right in central Cabarete, which means you are right on or across the street from the beach. We stayed across the street, and the pools are fabulous. My kids and I thoroughly enjoyed pool hopping throughout the week. There are lots of comfy cabanas, chairs, and lounges around all the pool areas. The pools were kept pretty clean with staff tending to them every morning. There is also a pool right on the beach. I spent lots of time gazing at the ocean while lounging in the very warm pool water! Priceless! There is a bar and restaurant right there, but we didn't spend much time there. It was a little pricy compared to what you can get if you walk a few minutes down the street or beach...lots of restaurants right on the beach where you could get a few rounds of drinks for the price of one at the resort. ||The rooms are great; you are not living in complete luxury (at least on the pool side), but they are very spacious with great balconies, tile floors, and lots of closet space. The beds were firm, which I prefer, and the air conditioning worked extremely well; at times we were cold in room (which I love), but there are remote controls for each unit (in each room!) There was a full kitchen stocked with the essentials for cooking, including coffee maker and blender. Now we know to bring a travel size dish soap, hand soap, and sponge. The showers were great, but they didn't have full doors, and a slow drain led to overflowing onto the bathroom floor every night. We just piled our towels there as we showered, and they were replaced daily. (I had read another review here about there being a charge for towels...we came through RCI - had to pay a 50 a day resort fee which covered towels and room cleaning, I guess.) Wifi signal worked well. ||The staff was very friendly. Security stood watch at the entrance, and they would often act as crossing guards when we would cross the BUSY street to the beach. Isaac was so sweet at check in and check out, and because we were there with RCI, we have to give the highest compliments to Anna and Gary. RCI has perks like water, coffee, juice for kids at bar, ice and Anna and Gary were so friendly and kind. We felt truly cared for, and if we needed anything, Anna and Gary were there for us. We look forward to coordinating with them on our next trip to visit sister resort in Puerto Plata.||We will be coming back to this lovely property (possibly next year). For travelers on a budget, you can really experience great culture, food, drinks, and entertainment for reasonable prices in Cabarete, and this is a wonderful place to make your home base, as it is super close to grocery (Janets has anything you need), pharmacy, charming Cabarete beach, probably walking distance to 30 restaurants (at least), and a reasonable driving distance from super fun adventures, like Ocean World in Puerto Plata, Monkey Jungle in Sosua, the luscious shores of Playa Grande and Playa Caleton. || I am praying that Presidential Suites sticks with RCI... we will...