Playa Turquesa — Local services in Higüey

RUINED HOLIDAYS AT PLAYA TURQUESA Let me say, at the beginning, that Playa Turquesa (PT) is a beautiful place, well manicured and, by and large, well maintained. My holiday there was ruined, due to a rental agency, known as CasaMar, that deals with PT. Condo renters at PT have the option of dealing directly with the condo owner or through a rental agency, like CasaMar, like I did. BEWARE ! In March 2013, my wife and I rented a beautiful 2nd floor unit (O202) at PT from CasaMar. The dates were from the 15th February 2014 until the 15th March 2014. No problem so far. When we were picked up at the airport by Lana R., a CasaMar worker, she informed us that there had been a mistake and that the unit chosen was not available any longer. However, we were told that we now had an upgrade (H101), 1st floor oceanview. Upon arrival at the condo in question, we were met by Chris B, another CasaMar employee. He confirmed the mistake but no explanation was given and nothing else available. This was a total disappointment and deception. Old furniture, no decoration, no kitchen appliances (coffee maker, toaster). Compared to what we had rented, this was a total screw-up. Ocean view is not everything, believe me. To make a long story short, we decided to make the best of it and stayed at that condo for the whole month. We were never offered any explanation as to why this happened. I found out that the condo we had chosen initially had been rented to a couple for 1 year, seemingly after we made the deal. The big question is why did CasaMar not inform us of this ? This is close to a year before arrival. My best and only guess is that they did not want to lose money, so they kept this silent, made money from us, the other couple and opted to shove us in this so called upgrade on our arrival. My wife and I would have never accepted to stay in that condo. We feel we were ripped off by CasaMar. To add insult to injury, Lana R. never showed up to pick us up to go to the airport on our departure day. We had to make our own arrangements. Chris B. said, during our stay, that he would do certain things for us, which he never did. Renters beware. We have heard that, due to their poor reputation, CasaMar may be in the process of changing their business name. To us, CasaMar equates unprofessional, unreliable and unscrupulous. In light of this very bad experience, we have opted to spend our money elsewhere on a...

Beware of SEA GRASS...My wife and I have been wanting to take our kids to see the beautiful beaches and waters of the Caribbean. We had never been to the Dominican before so after some research we decided to book a condo at Playa Turquesa via VRBO. Playa Turquesa is in Punta Cana and is known for the spectacular beaches. The room/unit itself was very clean and the pictures were an accurate representation. Soon after our arrival, my wife and I and our 17 year old daughter decided to walk down to the beach. When we got there we all had a sinking feeling as we discovered a beach covered in sea grass. A blanket of this brown seaweed approximately 10-20' by 6-12" deep covered the entire beach as far as we could see in either direction. In some places the Sea grass had been piled up over my head to maybe 8-10' high. Of course with that kind of plant material there was a very non-pleasant odor. This Sea Grass also made swimming in the waters very undesireable... that is if you wanted to walk through the 10-20' to get to the water. After we asked around a bit, we started to learn that the Sea Grass has been a problem in Punta Cana for several months, maybe even at times for several years. Needless to say, the pictures of the beach which the hotels and condos are posting, are NOT current. If you are coming for the beach I would look somewhere else as you will be disappointed. We spent the first entire afternoon of our stay, trying to find another area of DR with a place for us to stay on a clean beach. Luckily, being the off season in DR, we were able to find lodging near Bayahibe. When I notified the rental agency that we would be checking out in the morning, there was of course no offer to refund any of our rental fee. They said," We cannot control Mother Nature." I understand that so I asked them why we were not informed of the ongoing Sea Grass problem when we booked just a few weeks prior to our trip. Of course there was no response to this because they do not want you to know this before you arrive. I decided not to let it ruin our trip but I hope others will not be taken advantage of as we were.

On a side note... If you do want to stay in Punta Cana, be prepared to be bombarded by locals soliciting your business. You can't even take a leisurely walk down the street to diner.

We ended up at Dreams Dominicus near Bayahibe... it was a great trip with a wonderful,...

When reading the reviews before booking I thought all the 1 and 2 stars must’ve just been really picky since there were so many five stars – now I’m wondering what in the world is wrong with the people who gave it five stars! Since these are condos with different management companies etc. that obviously makes up for some of the discrepancy in reviews but even then, there’s no way it could ever be above 3* for the whole complex in general. Before I go through my room issues, for those you do decide to gamble here you need to know a couple of things which were not made clear to me ahead of time.

1. there is an extra charge for electricity, which I’ve never heard of in my life and I’ve stayed all of the world. Seriously they read the meter for your room before and after you leave and charge you for your electricity 2) There’s no charging things to your unit or using a credit card at all for anything other than the booking. I will say the staff food and drinks down on the beach are fantastic but would have been Nice to know before getting the bill that it was all cash only, even when you’re staying there. As for A202 - not well-maintained, in disrepair and more than anything just dirty, clearly not properly cleaned. And hey, maybe give a little dish towel or something in the kitchen and Throw a cheap bar of soap in the bathroom. A luggage rack thing would’ve been nice to, we used the kitchen counter stools. I read another review that complained about IKEA furniture, well trust me that was the highlight of the room. We are switching to a new location and I will update us with how the manager ultimately handle the situation and if we will be out of any money. But want to go ahead and post for anyone considering a place… Just say no! The pictures should pretty much speak...