Не то, что ожидали Not what was expected

I stayed with my husband at the end of March. Basically, they wanted to live in a bungalow, in a large and cheerful hotel, therefore they chose GRAND PALLADIUM BAVARO 5 *.
I won’t talk about the flight - everyone has different carriers anyway.

We got to the hotel in the evening, around eight. Issued quite quickly, the porter was cheerful.
I note - drunk guest workers built the hotel, not a single flat road, except for two serving ones. Paths paved with red stones stray so that it is virtually impossible to find the right house without a "susanin" - even on maps that are every hundred meters, it's hard to understand - and half of the bungalows are not marked. Plus, they don't really light up. And since the houses are also the same, with a difference only in the statues at the entrance, you can walk past the one you need three times without finding it.
On a cheerful porter, all the joy of the arrival ended.

Settled on the first floor, and the room was terrible.

The shower did not work, the hose was simply torn off, the drain in the bathroom was clogged. When turned on, the electric kettle spat boiling water and gave out brown water - most likely someone thought of warming up the cooled coffee. The safe didn't work and the fridge didn't close. But the air conditioner worked, thanks. In the dark and in frustrated feelings, we went to dinner, but got a little lost. In general, somewhere on the third day you already orient yourself well, but in the dark I could turn the wrong way for another week.
After eating, we stomped to the reception, where we were promised to fix everything. Yes, do not change the number, but fix it. Here I would like to note the broad soul of the Dominicans. Reading reviews about this country, I always liked how they spoke about these eternally dancing, cheerful, friendly people. So far, I have associated only Sri Lankans with such a description - smiling but unobtrusive good-natured people who will always help. The reality about the Dominicans turned out to be much more prosaic.
They don't have their heads in the clouds, and they don't smile when you go to a meeting. They are just lazy. If you interfere with their rest, communicate with the staff, if you ask them to do the work that they do not want to do, but must, they will look dissatisfied for a long time duuumaaat and for a long time neckeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! And this applies to everyone - the boys at the reception, bartenders, waiters, cleaners, etc.

They changed our room only the next day, but there was no kettle in the new room. Well, okay, we thought, the main thing here it is - rest. But...

Due to a meeting with the guide and a change of room, we got to the beach around ten. This is not Turkey, we thought naive, there is no need to take sunbeds at seven in the morning. But in fact, at ten there was not a single free sunbed on the beach, as well as umbrellas. I had to lie down on towels in the shade of a palm tree. And the shadow from the palm tree is very insidious, here it is, and it is no longer there, move two meters.

In general, the biggest disadvantage of this hotel is the ill-conceived infrastructure and bottlenecks. Few sunbeds. Even fewer umbrellas. But our people do not lose heart, and climb under the already occupied umbrellas. And it is ours. A married couple with three young children once sat down with us, and then they snorted that my husband dared to smoke close to their children. Well, okay, that's their problem. We, taking into account the joys of the first day, occupied sunbeds at half past seven - they fell just at sunrise and the cleaners. Somewhere around seven, the sunbeds closest to the bars and toilets were occupied, at eight there were no more free ones. And yes, this is not Turkey, your things without supervision can go into the pockets of enterprising Haitians.

There are four toilets on the beach. All. For all 4 hotels, for 4 thousand people, there are 4 toilets, three cabins each, in which they clean for an hour four times a day. Outcome - queues. Alternative - run half a kilometer to the number or the sea)))
There are about 5 showers on the beach.
While the showers are flattery, they are actually a faucet pole. The result is a queue. There is only one bartender in the bar. The result is a queue. At breakfast one pancake master. Burritos at one dinner in an ordinary restaurant became the final, complete collapse of deliberation and finito la vacation comedy - there were 3 people in line, each took two burritos, and when 40 minutes later the line approached me, I was very happy with the girl who, at a speed snails filled the cakes with three ingredients. And yes, the burrito was cold.

Although the food is the only thing that really pleased. Fresh fresh juices for breakfast - carom, pineapple, banana, lime with celery, multivitamins. Two racks of omelettes, one of pancakes.
Various meats - beef, chicken, turkey, pork. But there are few fish. There were king prawns only once in two weeks. No crabs, lobsters, mussels.
Fruits are familiar - apples, bananas, pineapples, tangerines, mangoes, oranges, pomegranates, peaches, but there were also unusual ones - passion fruit, guava, carom, papaya) There was always rice, potatoes, there was a separate rack for spaghetti.
Each table has a card, green on one side and red on the other. Come and turn it over with the red side, which means that the table is occupied.
All drinks are brought by waiters.

During lunch, the main restaurants do not work - restaurants on the beach work. We found two of them. And the queues for food in them are constant, regardless of the time of visit. But the gazpacho is delicious.


A la carte restaurants are also good. Since we rested for a long time, we went to almost every one. I really liked the restaurant with the Show Chef, although we stood in line for an hour, Spanish, in a meat restaurant they wear different types of meat until you put a red sign that you are full. But here the dress code is no shorts and pareos.

In the bars, pina colada made from "snow", cubalibra is chic, mojito is a bit sweet ...
And mamahuana is generally lovely, but it’s better not to take it home, it’s not the same in stores as in bars.
The Sports Bar is open around the clock, there is pizza, two types of salads, burritas, tacos, chips, nuggets. You can eat, but you don't have to.

The hotel itself is huge. We even went to the so-called closed part, THE ROYAL SUITES 5*. Nobody drove us out of there. Their beach is fenced from the side of the hotel - there are other sunbeds.
The SPA zone turned out to be very pleasant, there is a long pool with different types of hydromassage. The break is not very convenient, from 13 to 15. Also a rather pleasant place is Bar Hemingway, they don’t smoke there, there are tables for card games, and in the evenings the guy plays the piano. But it's only open in the evening.
It is better not to go to the gym, the smell of burnt rubber and old simulators are not encouraging. We sometimes heard animation, but did not see it.

Due to the large size of the hotel, a train goes there. And although they say that the train runs every 15 minutes, we did not notice this.
We didn’t ride even once - I didn’t want to stand in line.

A separate paragraph to the ocean. How much I have heard about golden beaches and blue water. Nice color, yes. But near the shore the water is muddy - the sand rises. And you can’t sail further, thirty meters away there are buoys, for which it is forbidden to swim because of lovers of scooters and windsurfing.


Somewhere in the middle of the vacation, my husband and I decided that if we don’t spoil our vacation ourselves, no one will. And they began to turn a blind eye to the cons, and just relax. But I will tell anyone who is going to this hotel - this hotel is not worth the money they charge for it. The staff is lazy and rude, rooms with broken plumbing and a centimeter layer of dust on the closet, the beach is cramped and not equipped for such a number of hotel visitors. And you can eat delicious food at home in restaurants, much cheaper.

Pros - food, spa area, Hemingway bar. Three unfortunate flamingos. Turtles.
Cons - Queues, staff, "get up on vacation at seven, borrow sunbeds" game, rooms, infrastructure, yes thousands of them! ! !