Cleaning in the room is symbolic, although bed linen and towels were changed daily, drinks at the bar, coffee were replenished daily. Bed linen is damp. The cuisine in the restaurant is mediocre, the declared seafood was only on January 6th.
Attempts to settle the issue of accommodation, even with a hotel guide at the reception, were unsuccessful. And only after an angry review of the hotel was posted on TripAdvisor on January 5, the administration apologized and moved us to the neighboring Majestiс Elegance hotel. But that's another story, a review of this hotel separately. The second part of the holiday went well. Separate words of gratitude to the hotel guide Alexander: for his help in solving the problems that have arisen and for the wonderful excursions.
I do not recommend using the services of Anex Tour. The flight is terrible (Azur Air Ukraine). There is very little space on the plane, it is uncomfortable, some passengers flew standing up out of hopelessness, some slept on the floor in the aisles near the exits, the flight attendants do not care, the toilets are dirty, often there is even no paper. It seems that their main task is to board, disembark, feed and that's it. What deserves respect is the skill of the pilots (takeoff, landing, flight).
- room. for 10 days of rest they changed the room 3 times, because. in the first No. 1210 - it was really not cleaned, everywhere there was dust, mold, the repair was "killed". The next #2327 turned out to be a dream compared to the previous one, but only in comparison! and towards the end, we were allowed "late check-out" for 40 ye with the condition of moving to No. 1113, it was not a room, but a SHED! ! stench, humidity and the most remarkable thing is the view from the terrace of the current renovation of the neighboring hotel (I'm not kidding - it's real! Dust is a pillar, it's impossible to breathe, construction equipment is 10 meters away - everything is in the best traditions of the genre). Tip - if you dare to relax in Majestic - demand a number that starts with 2 (these are rooms overlooking the pool, not a construction site), the second digit indicates the floor (the higher, the less humidity and does not stink).
- Beach. good because it's own. Lots of loungers. The quality of beach cleaning is difficult to assess, because. no cleaning). Cigarette butts are lying right in the sand and, apparently, they don’t bother anyone but me. The sea is the sea))) wonderful and wonderful!
- food. varied, the choice is wide, but not everything is delicious) Be prepared for the fact that in the minibar you will find cola, the expiration date of which will expire tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, and for breakfast you will eat sausages from yesterday's dinner, only toasted. I do not advise you to take salads, they are prepared from stale products. Fresh juices are a good choice. Seafood - you can get on those that have been thawed more than once (I'm not talking about fresh, they are not).
- service. there is no room cleaning (as for a 5 star hotel). The bed was never changed (really! even after my call they didn't bother! ). Shampoo and conditioner must be requested. all the time they gave 10 shower gels (how rich... , apparently))).
The hotel, apparently, was good about 5 years ago. Now she does not even pull 3 *.
Why we chose May, because the price reduction is 40% and this is just the beginning of the rainy period.
The temperature was +29, the ocean +28. Not the weather, but a fairy tale.
Docking in Paris 4 hours. Just bypassed all the shops, and it's time to fly out.
I really liked the plane. Video (English), music, radio, games, usb output. Fly 8.5 hours. (to Paris 3.5 hours).
Arrived immediately drenched in heat, humidity, the skin became sticky....
The money was changed at the airport. Why they did this, they did not fully understand.
Everywhere they accept dollars, except for the grocery store. The store rate is higher.
The flight is certainly long and difficult, but the more I fly, the easier I endure.
Majestic stands on the edge so our hotel was the last one. Settled in quickly. We asked for a room closer to the ocean and overlooking the pool.
The room (2242 or 2442) pleased me with its size, the balcony was pleasantly surprised by the extreme view of the ocean.
There was a bottle of champagne in the room.
We were three adults - there were 2 bathrobes and slippers too (then brought).
The hotel is small. But we had enough of it. Very green and beautiful.
The beach is amazing. We thought it was the best of all. Wide band. The beds are spaced apart.
The weather was pleasing - out of 12 days, only 2 times it rained in the evening.
The day was planned in seconds....
At 7, I went to the reception - free Wi-Fi worked well only in the morning, the girls went to the beach... By 8.30 we met in the canteen for breakfast. Breakfast as usual and everywhere. Pleased with fresh banana and pineapple. I am a tomato and omelet lover. I don't need anything else. Various cheeses - parmesan, brie, philadelphia, roquefort, blue. Everything is very delicious. For those who took a walk, in the morning there was a bottle of vodka and a decanter of tomato juice.
Then we went to the beach.... Mask, fins - free of charge. The fish came to dinner. So I swam along the buoy....and then sunbathing... 16spf oil - I did not burn. 30 I think with my head.
At 11 am, games and competitions began, a couple of times there were Miss Beach and Mr. It was really fun.
The contingent is Americans, Canadians in the majority.
by 12 on the beach they were making paella with lobsters, shrimps and mussels.
We spent almost the whole day on the beach. Because it was not hot at all and a pleasant breeze was blowing from the ocean. By six it was getting chilly as the wind picked up.
On the right along the beach in 30-40 min. there is a market. They sell coffee, rum, cigars, paintings, souvenirs.
I bought a painting for 80 dollars, I wanted 150. More ordinary 20-30 dollars.
Every evening we went to a new restaurant. Signed up. There is a Russian-speaking girl in the lobby. Booked with her at any time.
I liked the most Italian in elegance.
In the evening there is live music outside from 7 to 9. Many people are dancing. And just sitting and listening with pinot calada is very relaxing.
from 9 began some kind of show in the theater. Went once and didn't like it.
From 11 or 12 disco. The music is more American. Sometimes it was just Latin.
From the noticed drinks - baileys, red label, gin gordons.
We went on a tour of Altos Chavon and Saona. Didn't like the organization. At Saona, only 1 hour is allocated. For 165 dollars, I think the tour is empty. Just pictures, nothing else.
We went to the store - the transfer is free. Coffee $4 Rum 12 dollars Bought a mango! Delicious. Sold individually. 80 cents 1 piece.
Impression - delight! Rest is 100% real
Everything was amazing. And of course I want to come back.
(I forgot about one more funny moment - there is a jacuzzi in the room without a partition, a shower and a toilet behind a glass door - there is no overlap on top. All the sounds in the room - this can confuse someone)
The hotel is very good, no complaints. It is small in terms of territory, and the Dominican Republic has many hotels with simply space territory. But, as for Majestica, compact, very green and well-groomed territory is its plus. As well as a beautiful, cozy beach with white sand and a warm ocean. All the hotels there are located along the coast and walking along this very coast of Bavaro is one of the main entertainments there. Having walked more than one kilometer there and looked at many beaches, I can say my opinion - Majestica beach is one of the best.
The room is huge, with a jacuzzi, a balcony, champagne, it fully disposes to a very romantic, absolutely comfortable stay.
In general, it is worth noting that this hotel, in my opinion, is very suitable for young people, romantic couples there - 95%. Evening entertainment in the form of live music, cold champagne, lobsters, stunning sunsets, a humid, slightly viscous climate - all this is very conducive to complete relaxation alone with a loved one. Wedding ceremonies were held every day on the beach. The decoration and holding of these very ceremonies is very good and really beautiful, but, in my opinion, one of the minuses is that while the newlyweds solemnly and tenderly look into each other's eyes, they are also stared at by another hundred vacationers, sprawled in various positions on sunbeds : -), for which it is in the form of entertainment on the beach. In other words, there is no element of privacy.
Food is a solid four. I really liked the fish restaurant, I advise.
Excursions are very expensive (130 - 250 US dollars), but to be in the Dominican Republic and not see the incredibly turquoise Caribbean Sea and the homeland of Columbus, in my opinion, is pretty stupid. Santo Domingo was a pleasant surprise, a rather beautiful colorful city in the style of old colonial Spain (at least the part where tourists are taken : -)) Otherwise, the same poverty as in many similar countries.
Summarizing all of the above and my emotions, I can say one thing - go, you will not regret it. You really need to see the Dominican Republic at least once with your own eyes, and the level of service there, the beauty of nature and the uniqueness of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean will only help you get the most out of your long-awaited vacation.
Have a good holiday everyone!
Flight
AirFrance Kyiv-Paris - Punta Cana. In Paris, when moving from terminal to terminal, you only need to travel by internal bus. There is no walkway from terminal 2B to terminal 2C! At the entrance to the departure terminal, you again need to go through air security - so Kiev duty-free alcohol will not be allowed through. The flight was delayed. Seats in French Boeings are very uncomfortable - the Arabs are much better, so it seemed difficult for us to fly. Travel time is about 7 hours. The rest of the service is good. On the way back, the plane lands for refueling in Santo Domingo - for some reason, many do not know this. Everyone gets off the plane and after 2 hours they go back to their seats according to the Boardingpass. The flight was delayed by 2 hours. Upon arrival in Paris, the delay was 50 minutes. Paris-Kyiv boarding passes are issued in Punta Cana and, given the delay, we were given them for the next day's flight (the interval between flights in Paris is 55 minutes). Upon arrival in Paris, the Kyiv flight had not yet departed, but AirFrance refused to put all Puntocan residents there due to the completion of the landing - as a result, as compensation for the 20 hour wait, we received a hotel near the airport with dinner (24 euros per person) and breakfast at the expense of the airline and registration of transit Schengen visas and flight in business class to Kyiv. Attention! According to the international rules of air carriers, if the flight is delayed for more than 4 hours, the airline is obliged to provide you with a hotel for rest, food and other little things like tf calls...
Hotel
The hotel corresponds to everything stated about it. This hotel is the BEST on the coast for your money! Do not regret overpaying $ 300-400 more - you will get much more advantages for yourself. Percent 60-80 tourists from the States or Canada. For us, this is just a plus. We lived in building 1. It turned out that the rooms had to be changed 3 times (due to the location) - all without problems. If you want to live closer to the sea, ask for rooms from about 30 to 50 in any building - there are 1-3 minutes to the sea and 3-5 minutes to the main restaurant. If you want to live with a view of the garden and a neighboring hotel - this is the first building, with a view of the pool - the second. Rooms from 1 to 10 in the second building are noisy - on the street in the bar until 23 music. Food is beyond praise - for every taste and smell. In the morning, those who want champagne - brut and vodka. Regarding the slowness of the Dominicans, well, the French will have more brakes. They run, try, smile and everything from the heart. Of the a la carte were in all but the Mexican-Dominican. You need to pre-register only in French and for the show in Japanese. A Russian-speaking representative of the hotel, sitting next to the reception, will help with this and much more. We were in French 2 times, we liked it so much, at the show in Japanese one, we thought it would be more interesting, and we didn’t like sushi for our taste. In the fish and grill - excellent, they work every other day. The main restaurant hosts themed dinners: there were several times Spanish and Dominican. They make beach parties according to the weather. From cocktails, they mainly took mojito, cuba libra and santa libra, and of course, mama juana. The rest are very sweet for our taste. There is Internet in the rooms, but we connected via Wi-Fi - there is a weak network near the reception: 1 hour = $ 3. The beach is beautiful: the evil Haitian gardeners clean it every day. Sun loungers in abundance for every taste. The sea is beautiful, everything is according to the advertisement about the Bounty. You can (and should) feed the hungry local fish with rolls, I even saw a small stingray at the bottom. After the excitement, it brings Sargasso seaweed ashore - very beautiful. Once it took out 2 long-swimming coconuts overgrown with shells-flowers. After a 10-day stay, a treat from the hotel is brought to the room: a bottle of wine or champagne and some snacks. 3-4 times the key card from the room was buggy, but for us these are trifles. Every evening the hotel offers some kind of animation, but we went to bed early and got up early, maybe because of the time difference. We went once to the show named after M. Jackson - very beautiful. I really liked how they wish happy birthday (of course, by pre-order) The whole staff of the main restaurant with a happy birthday for the whole hall comes up to the birthday man and gives a cake, and then takes a picture with him - very fun and contagious.
Excursions
We bought Santo Domingo ($135 per person) and Catalinita VIP ($165 per person). Prices for all tour operators, including English-speaking ones, are approximately the same. "Santo Domingo" made an ambiguous impression - a very long road - 3 hours one way and the city itself, despite the center, as a UNESCO heritage, did not make a special impression. On the way to the city they are taken to a cave. The cave itself is very beautiful, but we, as Crimeans, were not very interested + loss of time. In the city we visit the palace of Columbus, the residence for the Spanish king, the first church of America and the lighthouse of Columbus (as someone from the crowd said, “it is very similar to an elevator in our city”). If it were not for the knowledgeable guide Irina (thanks again! ) - it would be completely boring, even for this money.
The group was supposed to be up to 20 people, we were 25…VIP? Of course, the excursion is much more exciting after Santo Domingo, here is the city of artists, and starfish, and mangroves, and the border of the Caribbean and the Atlantic, and a speedboat, but... For those who have been to Thailand, all this may seem pale.
Souvenirs, shopping
There is no shopping here! In Higuey (this is the center of the province, not far from Punta Cana) there are both clothes and shoes - according to the locals, sneakers, branded shoes are about $ 50, American T-shirts are about 40, but the guides don’t bring them there and it’s far and expensive to get there. There are souvenirs in the hotel, behind the hotel and in Columbus plaza. Everything is traditional for the country: mama juana, rum (for comparison, a 12 year old in a hotel $35, behind a hotel $28, in Columbus $20), coffee ($2-6), cocoa ($3-4), cigars ($1 -80$), T-shirts ($5-15), paintings ($50-170). It is better to buy alcohol and cigars in Columbus plaza - they are brought there during all excursions 2 times: guides and the meeting party have their own percentage of purchases. But we bought 2 paintings in the center of Santo Domingo for $50. And we want to recommend that before wandering around Columbus plaza in Santo Domingo, take a walk along the pedestrian street: there you can bargain and there is a chain Orange. Unfortunately, we managed to run there only for batteries (4 Duracell = $ 4) in other places 2 pcs = $ 8... We also chose the hotel, a 5-minute walk the market seems to be exclusively about Russian speakers - everything is the same as in hotel, but in a much larger assortment and you can bargain - small souvenirs, it seems, are better to buy there, but things are utter consumer goods. Do not buy cigars and souvenirs on the beach - everything is cheaper in the market. Moreover, Sveta made afro braids for half a head, and so in a hotel spa it costs $ 35, and $ 20 on the market.
Results
Vacation was a success! This is the main thing. On the plus side:
- beautiful sea and beach
- food and service in the hotel
In the cons:
- not very interesting and expensive excursions (especially for those who have visited other countries)
- lack of life outside the hotel
With questions, please, We will answer with pleasure!
Third world country. It's hard to find civilization here.
The airport - the first thing that surprised me was the walking distance from the plane to the terminal 200 meters. you with all things have to drag around the platform.
The second thing that angered me was when the customs took away the products (cheese and sausage) bought and sealed in the DutyFree of Paris. As it turned out, food cannot be imported into the Dominican Republic.
The Dominican people are very slow and not obligatory. If you asked for something, 90% of them will forget about your request. With 3-4 times you will be able to interrogate what you want. They very successfully attribute their negligence to slowness and optionality. This applies to absolutely everything - hotels, excursions, etc.
We arrived at the Majestic Colony 5 * hotel, unfortunately we didn’t choose the hotel much, according to reviews on the Internet, the hotel and the country should have been a fairy tale. In reality, it turned out to be the opposite.
The hotel is not 5 *, but rather 3 * and that is not the best. The room was chosen junior suit, as it turned out it was a regular standard room. The furniture in the hotel dates back to the time of Columbus. The bed is hard, sleeping with a bad back is not pleasant. They put a mattress pad on the bed for us to make it softer, but for this they pushed 2 beds together, because. for one bed the cape is large, and for two it is small.
The hotel has an all-inclusive food system - the same as in Turkey. A bracelet of a certain color is hung on your hand (the attitude of the staff towards you depends on this). But Turkey does not end there.
The hotel turned out to be overcrowded: 60% Canadians, 20% Americans, the rest are Europeans, not many of us.
The territory of the hotel is very large, but there is not enough space + illiterate layout. To get towels, you need to walk 200 meters in one direction, and it turns out that there are no towels, they are over. So you go 3-4 times a day for towels. When you want to hand over towels, there may not be coupons.
Sun beds - if you managed to get a towel, then finding a free sunbed at 9 am is a rarity. The audacity of Canadians is greater than the Germans in Turkey, the same people occupy sunbeds both on the beach and near the pool. There are free sun beds, but they are usually broken. Plastic beds without additional mattresses as in Turkey.
Swimming pool - there are two of them: one for children (0.47m), the second "adult" (1.15m), both are not heated. Diving into such a pool from the side is not possible. Swimming in bad weather is cold.
The beach is good sand, but the Dominicans only remove large rubbish (plastic cups) and the one that is visible. A pile of small debris: cigarette butts, plastic straws, pushpins, broken glass, a lot of things can be found in the sand. On the beach there are umbrellas covered with palm branches, + palm trees create shade, but there are not enough umbrellas or palm trees to hide from the sun, you have to lie very close to each other.
There were 3 showers on the beach that did not work for 7 days.
Food - at first it seemed that the food was good, but in 14 days they got tired of their kitchen. Unfortunately the performance of the waiters is terrible. You ask to bring drinks, they forget about them, you wait 5-10-15 minutes, you remind them of drinks, everything is useless. The only thing they do quickly is I clean the dishes, I didn’t have time to go for dessert, your table was cleaned and new people were put there. They clean up so quickly and not carefully that they managed to throw a silver baby spoon into the trash, which they never found. There are not enough high chairs for the whole dining room 5-6 chairs. In recent days, they have become so insolent that they took the highchair right from under the child.
Cleaning of the territory takes place in the morning: they wash the floors with a product, after which the floor becomes slippery, like ice. A sign that the floor is wet is placed on one side - usually at the beginning of the corridor, but you go from the other end. Me, wife and child fell.
There were supposed to be slippers in the room, but they weren't there when we arrived. We asked for 7 days to bring slippers to us, when they were brought they turned out to be very slippery and it was dangerous to walk in them.
Internet - costs $10 per day, plus another $10 deposit for an Internet cable. The 30 cm cable is no longer available.
SPA - we went to the Turkish sauna, the hammam was barely warm, we decided to go to the Finnish sauna, but even there the temperature did not rise above 75 degrees.
Tipping at the hotel was basically not given, there was nothing to give. They forgot to bring us champagne (alc. 6%) upon arrival, they brought it to friends. Drinks in bars are diluted with water before your eyes. Although we do not use, it was clearly visible. Suddenly, you may run out of mint, but for a Canadian in a minute, it will be found.
There are no lifeguards on the beaches and pools. For small children in the pool, no one is watching at all. There is nothing for children to do there. The babysitting service costs $15/hour, but they did not dare to entrust the child. Even if you write a complaint about the staff, then all the staff will ignore you, we know. wrote a complaint on the penultimate day.
Impressions about the Dominican Republic are negative, was it worth it to fly with a child for 17 hours with transfers in order to get a quality of service worse than Turkey, no. My friends and I, with whom we rested, have not been resting in Turkey and Egypt for a long time. the level of service is very low. Now the Dominican Republic has been added to their list. True, if you really want to see the Dominican Republic and you are not afraid of their slowness, choose hotels where not all inclusive, and cost more than $ 300-400 per day / double room. Our cost for the hotel alone was ~$220 per night/double room. At such prices, you can relax both in Europe and in Asia, because. flights are cheaper.