Our hotel in the Dominican Republic - Rio Palace Punta Cana!

Written: 20 february 2019
Travel time: 17 — 30 january 2019
Who does the author recommend the hotel to?: For a relaxing holiday; For business travel; For recreation with friends, for young people
Your rating of this hotel:
10.0
from 10
Hotel ratings by criteria:
Rooms: 10.0
Service: 10.0
Cleanliness: 10.0
Food: 10.0
Amenities: 10.0
Answering another typical question from friends, colleagues and others who met after the arrival, seeing my tanned physiognomy - “Where did you go? Which hotel? Liked? ” I involuntarily to the duty officer “I liked it! ” added - Yes, I liked it so much that I can’t write a normal review, it turns out not a description of services and useful observations, but a salute of laudatory epithets - OH COOL! AH GREAT! WOW HEALTHY!
So, I’ll tell you, Dear citizens, who are looking for the harmony of package adventures between the price of a voucher and the objectivity of reviews and getting used to the crept in the thought of the need to fork out a little - you are not mistaken, you are here - in the Dominican Republic, in Rio Palace Punta Cana !! ! 5*+/HV-1.

You can stop reading my review. Buy a ticket, go and taste all the delights in reality. Most, as a rule, quickly get bored with reviews longer than a page, and the paradox with the description of the flight is especially touching.

In someone else’s review, you quickly skip it under the pretext of “again 25”, and once on board, as if bewitched, you again film the take-off, landing, yourself beloved against the background of the porthole and the bird of happiness brought for a snack in the boat food kit.

The previous trip to the sea was back in November 2017 at the nearby RIU BAMBU 5 * hotel, which gave us the full enjoyment of the charm of a Dominican beach holiday and allowed us to create differentiated impressions about other RIU hotels during our walks.
Plans for the next vacation were built from the acceptance of "Rio Wambu" as a conditional standard and the desire to be fascinated by the Dominican Republic from other angles through the prism of the services of other hotels. And so, when the dates were finally and irrevocably fixed, the circle of the search for a place was narrowed and outlined, and the hand was raised to put an end to it, I saw a strangeness.
The price in the standard Rio Punta Cana is only a few thousand rubles higher than the price in Bamba, which is not normal. The Palace Punta Cana hotel is objectively of a higher level, the maximum rating and the price tag is usually 30 percent more expensive. From my thoughts, a toad woke up in me and I heard a whisper: “Take it, take it, freebie! » But during the preparations and searches, the Punta Cana Palace did not fall into the field of our plans, we were not drawn to the pompous interiors with colonnades, with tanned granite in the wall cladding and carved cast-iron chandeliers we saw last year. Still, I had to lower my hand, call my wife, consider another option for a trip, especially since I had information about the renovations carried over by the hotel in the eighteenth year. We went to the hotel website and began to look at the photos, and we realized that the renovations were a success and pulled us, like bees on honey, quickly, without delay, to pay for the tour.
So let's go.

The miracle of the Azur airline, a miracle has not ceased to be calling, with its business class, from the memory of the words of the song B. G. “Well, ordinary things. We are with you ...(deceived) ”, therefore, by a joint decision, it was decided not to regret the extra payment spent, because in Vnukovo we had dinner in the business hall, and since alcohol, except for beer, turned out to be paid, we took a shower, and the clean ones in the minibus drove to the handsome 777-300ER painted with sunglasses and sunbathing bears on the beach. The stewardesses are smiling from ear to ear, so helpful - maybe another glass of cognac? do you want juice? take an apple one too, serve breakfast or still sleep? There are no multimedia entertainments, except for flight tracking, in principle, the “furniture” is very tired, my massage in the chair worked properly for my wife only partially, when I tried to turn off the screen brightness, the monitor glowed according to unpredictable logic, and my wife’s even cooler, started blinking .
But the benefit of the seat regularly laid out in a horizontal position and in flight we had a great sleep. We took off on schedule at 00-05, it was dark outside, we arrived at about 6 in the morning, it was still dark outside. The La-Romana airport terminal is small, on the right is the arrival hall, on the left is the departure hall, in the middle there is a push and a stall. One of our giants parked on the airfield and several business jets somewhere in the distance. We get off the plane, we go along the “fly away” hall, people are looking at us from behind the glass, Slavic faces, but black-black and sad-sad eyes. I thought then, here it is the future, in two weeks, and we will sit here like sad donkeys. After the formalities, we went to the buses, there are packages of water by the buses, the guides offer to drink, take bottles as much as you want, respect to Aneks-tour. While the people were going to the bus, dawn broke and we arrived at the hotel at 9 o'clock local time for breakfast, outwardly worn, but cheerful in spirit.
We enter the hotel and are a little numb, the renovations were really successful, photographs cannot convey all the sensations in volume. Vintage furniture, vintage lamps, chandeliers, paintings on the walls are combined with modern sofas and table lamps, fresh-fashioned colors inspire lightness, and a few interior details painted in gold leaf give solidity. We put the suitcases of the bag in the sump, the porter rings our hands with bracelets and admonishes us to come after 15-00 for the keys to the room and sends us to have breakfast.
Entering the restaurant, the first thing you see is 7-8 jugs filled by the chef with juices squeezed from fruits, vegetables and even greens lying behind the counter. We try a glass, oh yes it is delicious, we take another glass and go to the table.

We barely had time to put glasses of juice, the waiter comes up and first in Spanish, and guessing our zero level of knowledge of his native language with a hand gesture depicting a landing plane clarifies our status as fresh arrivals. After our nods, two more glasses appear on the table and champagne is poured into them from the cotton of an open bottle. Let's start breakfast, since there is a choice, which can be eloquently described only by listing dishes prepared from eggs: poached eggs, poached eggs in tomato-vegetable sauce, portioned fried eggs with non-spread liquid yolk, scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs with onions, scrambled eggs with onions and fried sausage, scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs with onions, boiled eggs, bread fried in an egg, pancakes fried in an egg, a separate table where you are fried eggs with your chosen ingredients, here you can ask the chef, he will give you a raw egg.
What can we say about the other two types of porridge, sausages, sausages, red fish and jamon, delicious cheeses, including those with mold, too, black red caviar and, of course, overseas eggplant. The caviar is unusual, the eggs are not large and saltier than ours, but on a bun with butter, the taste of a sandwich with caviar turns out to be natural, the waiter continually replenishes empty glasses and soon we heard the second pop of the champagne cork, and after the third, we had to ask the waiter to slow down a bit.
In a state of euphoria, not from a warm welcome, but rather from two bottles of champagne, we return to the reception. The suitcases of the fellow travelers who arrived with us disappeared, leaving ours proudly standing alone. Having settled further on the sofa, we began to lay out things, intending to dig out beach toilets, and then a man comes up to us.
From his not strict, but different from the surrounding costume, we conclude that this is probably the administrator. In the purest Spanish, sounding like salsa or bachata mixed with champagne bubbles in our head, the señ or is persistently interested, juggling a walkie-talkie: “What are you doing here? ". In the purest gibberish, I explained that the purpose of our actions was to take off the demonic clothes covered with road dust, pull on swimming shorts and head, or rather, RUN HEADLESSLY to happiness, which manifested itself in this part of the globe in the form of an azure ocean, white sand, coconut palms and all inclusive bars serving Hi-End coffee and Mamajuana. Slightly rounding his eyes and scratching his head with an antenna, the native chief again asked us in the purest Spanish not to dematerialize for another moment and headed towards the reception. Before a moment had passed, the receptionist beckoned us and handed over the keys to the room.

The successful architectural and planning solution of the hotel allowed us to accurately navigate the area by evening, and in order to find a room on our own, the porter just had to indicate which way to go. Having swept the floor in the elevator and walked a little on foot along the open corridors with forged carved railings, we ended up in the room. They looked around and went out to the balcony. Nothing spectacular to see. When buying a tour, two room options were available for booking, standard, overlooking the outer perimeter of the hotel and for +16 t. rooms overlooking the inner avenue with fountains. Our reservation is standard, and as it should be, our eyes were taken by the reception of Rio Bambu and its backyard with trucks unloading, but the smell from all the dishes cooked for breakfast in Rio Bambu was a surprise at once.
And my wife definitely did not like this smell, she was not going to sit in the room from the balcony to look, of course, but all things will smell and how will I walk after the dress? Try a passport with such ironclad arguments, nothing can be done, we are no strangers, let's go change the number. Anticipating such surprises in other standard rooms, we agree to pay extra and ask for a room for the fountains, but there are no available rooms, they offer a room by the pools, with a direct view of the ocean. Oh, and how much does it cost? Like Biblioglobus offered such numbers for +70t. R. and in the end, having bargained for $325, we go to room 1057, which became our home in the Dominican Republic for two weeks.

Dollars in the cash register, keys in an envelope
The luggage is thrown on the floor, in a glass of rum.
But first of all, trust me!
We fix, from the balcony the view on the film,
As if in the distance we see the spaceport.
The room is cozy and spacious, structurally divided into three zones, the floor is on two levels, in the entrance area there is a wardrobe, a bathroom, a refrigerator stuffed to capacity with soft drinks and beer, a coffee maker and a dispenser (booze accumulator) above the refrigerator. The next zone is a double bed 2x2, a trestle bed to put suitcases or, after gaining impressions in the evening, throw off clothes before going to bed, there is an LCD TV on the floor of the wall, moving deeper into the room towards the balcony, we go down a couple of steps lower to the second level, there is a sofa with a coffee table, a chest of drawers and a large abstract picture hangs above it, again there is no mirror. So dear ladies, do permanent makeup in advance. The designer is either a knockout beauty in nude style by birth, who is unaware of the need for a woman to look in the mirror when applying makeup, or a non-standard person who does not need makeup.

Of course, there is a mirror in the room, it just hangs in the corner of the bedroom next to the trestle bed, who needs it there? We faced a similar disregard for functionality in Bamba, so we didn’t bother anymore. On the floor, the tiles are sensitively cold, thanks to Russian Railways and the Azur business for giving out slippers to passengers, they turned out to be a pleasant help, since it is not pleasant to walk on the cold floor when returning from the beach in wet shales in the evening. In the evening, after flipping through a cloud of channels, I also found the Russian ones, but when I saw everyone except myself, V. R. Solovyov, who was not satisfied, and then A. Malakhov, who, with all his inherent intelligence, proved to the participants in the program that acne on their bottom they have from the fact that they themselves live like pimples on someone's bottom, and with all my deep respect for the aforementioned presenters, against the backdrop of Punta Cana, they seemed to be guests of a crazy hospital from Vysotsky's song, so the TV was turned off decisively and no longer turned on at all.
The remote control as it was put there and lay there until departure.
And rushed days of rest continuous Saturdays and Sundays. After a couple of days, the meaning of the word, hunger, completely flies out of the head, I don’t remember it even upon arrival home, after all, +7 kg on the scales. And how could it be otherwise? Gastronomic ecstasy is easily obtained already in the main restaurant. It would take a long time to list all these claws, colorful shells, soups, sauces, gravy, roasted ducks, lamb and beef legs on the a la carte table, and besides, the menus in a la carte restaurants are not skillfully served repetitions of dishes from the buffet. At the grill we dined on Caribbean lobster with creamy citrus butter, next time 350 thunderous New York steak, at Fusion we ate roasted lobster with rice and shrimp.
We also went to a Spanish restaurant where we really liked the roast and cheeks of an Iberian pig with sweet potato puree and glazed onions, served in an extravagant plate in the form of an inverted sombrero. On weekdays, free tables in a la carte were immediately available. On weekends, when a significant number of the population of neighboring countries arrives, there may not be a table right away, then the hostess writes you down in a notebook and asks you to come in 30 minutes. another quality drink presented in the “wine list” of all inclusive bars. Moreover, if you are not stingy sometimes leave a dollar as a thank you, high-quality alcohol will automatically be poured into prepared cocktails.
The bar is perhaps the only place where a tip was appropriate.

The “Dolphinarium” was not far away, and by noon we were already back. Entering the door from afar, in unison, an exclamation of amazement saw our room, decorated with colorful balloons, a folded ikebana of swan towels, seated on the bed like a heart, surrounded by donated bottles of wine and a porcelain doll. There was also a greeting card from the hotel. Understanding from the approving voices from the corridor, heard in response to our reaction, that the maid who was standing nearby had created this splendor, I went out to thank her and backed up my gratitude with a few dollars. In the future, figurines from towels, petals, and flowers were constantly replaced in the room, which prompted us to put a couple more dollars on the chest of drawers, but the money remained untouched.
The helpfulness of the staff deserves special mention.
A glass at lunch or dinner does not have time to empty, you can’t get bored on a sunbed by the pool or on the beach, the waiters come up with a frequency bordering on importunity and ask what drink to bring? On the second day after arrival, when I did not yet realize that all inclusive in the hotel was such an ALL INCLUSIVE, I lay down in the farthest corner from the pool to wait for my wife to return from an introductory run through the nearest souvenir shops. The waiter has already approached several times and I decided to ward him off. Asked for Champagne!! ! And he continued to doze, naively counting on getting rid of the pester. It was a pity there was no one to photograph my bulging eyes when he brought me a bucket of ice and a bottle of champagne on ice. While I was sending photos and a description of what happened to relatives to friends on Wats App, the waiter came and asked if everything was all right? But that's not all, where are the glasses? what should I drink from? Ai moment and brought me a glass.
And when the wife came, he brought the second one. And to our surprise, we did not have to pay extra for the service.
Appeared in the network of RIU and innovations. At the road connecting the hotel receptions, not far from the water park, an arena was built, in which day and evening thematic discos "Riu Pool Party" are held. And between the hotels, the water park and the arena, Tuk-tuks now go. The Pool party itself impresses with a costumed carnival show with group dances of animators and waiters pouring liqueurs from bottles or from vessels stylized as machine guns into the mouths of the rest. In the arena itself, there are three all-inclusive bars and two swimming pools.

One pool in the center of the structure with a depth above the knee is designed for dance pool dances, into which foam from two under-roof foam generators enters, the second pool is located higher, waist-deep combined with a bar, there are tables, you can watch the dance pool and the opposite stage with podiums on danced by artists during a costume show. Discos of various themes are held several times a week from three to seven and from eight to eleven, we went to the Jungle party, danced and had fun until we dropped.
In addition to the newfangled disco, they also took part in animation, studied Latin dances, floundered in Aqua aerobics, and participated in the games of the animation sports day. The result was five first places, for which they did not give gold medals, but gave out four 150 thunder bottles of Mamajuana and a dark blue bandana with the inscription RIU. In fairness, I confess that my merit is not great, I only won darts once.
The rest is all my wife is an athlete, a Komsomol member and just a beauty! It was very intriguing to watch the sports competitions periodically held in the pool, once they put a polyethylene foam path on the water the length of the pool floor, you had to run along it, falling through, then swim on the board from the surf to the opposite side, then run back, drink a glass of beer along the way and reaching the shower column to dance an erotic dance. Another time they arranged kayak races around the pool, back and forth, the girls competed among themselves and among themselves men. Having determined the winner by the usual race, the organizers tied the kayaks with the stern and forced the men to compete who would drag whom. There were screams and laughter from the fans!
During such entertainment, we learned that many Chileans, Argentines rest in the hotel, there are Dominicans, French, Germans, Dutch and Canadians, there are Spaniards and Poles, there are many of ours and there are Ukrainians. There are many Americans, but they did not participate in the animation, they sit and drink in the pool bar for days on end. If you pass by, you wave your hand to them, they will bawl greetings in response, you go back, they will bawl greetings to you already without reminders.

The flight to the motherland was postponed twice. The first time the good news came in the midst of a holiday, we fly away not at 13-30 after breakfast, but at 20-30, and we will also have time to have lunch. Then, through the online scoreboard, it completely turned out that our plane would take off from Moscow only in the evening and arrive in La-Romana in the morning of the next day indicated in the ticket.
Therefore, the bus took us after lunch from the hotel and took us to the Occidental Caribe 4 * hotel, located next to the Riu Republica 5 * in the province of La Altagracia, which we originally wanted to get into, wanting not to see algae at all. The ocean here is completely transparent, there is not even a hint of algae along the coast, the waves are rolling - a classic surf. True, there were no algae in Riu either. So a little straw, rather crumbled from palm trees. The tractor for cleaning the beach rode empty in the morning. At Occidental, we were given a room with an ocean view, put on another bracelet and managed to visit another hotel. At night we were taken to the airport, there were forty-three sad donkeys on the bus.

And it all ends, ends, ends
The platform and lanterns barely sway ...
Eyes say goodbye, study for a long time,
And so everything is clear - do not say words.
We will bend, but we probably will not bend,
Hidden blades will not rust in their scabbards;
And someday we'll go back somewhere
And we will be with you guys again.
And finally, the weather.

There are a number of jokes on duty about the weather. Commanders of planes returning from resorts in winter on their return flight before landing like to insert “The weather is good minus so many degrees, snow. ”
In a telephone conversation with the house vacationers in the winter in the south to the question “We have a minus, how is the weather for you? ”, they answer “what is the weather? »
Two days in the middle of the holiday, nature showed itself a little. A squally wind blew and subsided, there was a short downpour blessing the vacationers with multiple rainbows and the sun appeared again, the remaining 12 days were cloudless.
Translated automatically from Russian. View original