Dreams Dominicus La Romana

Quick over view Beautiful hotel which is kept very clean, great beach with minimal seaweed and calm seas. Guests are generally quiet and respectful with a decent buffet and ok a al carte restaurants. Staff work tirelessly but hotel is let down by poor service sadly which is infuriatingly frustrating. Hotel Set in beautiful bay with lots of greenery is relatively modern. It’s spotlessly clean and gardens are well maintained. Not too big but big enough to make you feel like you aren’t living in people’s pockets Pools The pools are nice and spacious although the cabanas do distract from this in my opinion. Preferred pool on dreams side is a hidden gem while the preferred in secrets seems a little pointless. Secrets infinity pools with the views are the best although they do fight the fitness classes turning up the music whereas we’d have liked it just turned off until the fitness classes are over. Food We only used the secrets buffet choosing to eat a la carte on an evening. The buffet is very good. Most of it is cooked/served to you to ensure hygiene standards. As for the a la carte restaurants we had excellent meals right through to having to send food back due to it being raw on more than one occasion…… Service This is where the hotel really lets its self down. Firstly we keep or room very tidy but it wasn’t cleaned to great standards. We could see it had been mopped and cleaned but there were stains which when rubbed came off the floor from previous guests and our mini bar was only restocked if we tipped the cleaner and for the day we did we saw a marked difference to how the floor/rug had been cleaned. We ended up just taking drinks back from the bar and restocking the fridge our self. As for other service, the coffee shops and bars were fine however the secrets infinity pool bar was literally drink roulette. It was quite amusing at first but I want what I as for not just random stuff I didn’t. Also you could see their annoyance as the 3rd person asked for a Miami vise and having to make it yet again. We often saw them say they didn’t have ingredients just to send simple drinks out to clear the bar before doing cocktails that required more work. The ladies doing bed service were excellent and always got drinks correct. As for drinks in the restaurants, well simply good luck unless it’s wine, often your drink came half way through your main! The exception been pan Asian. We just ended up taking drinks in and ordering another as soon as we got there it took that long. Then there is the do one job and not 5 badly which turns out to be an absolute joke. Water person comes over and offers water, yes please, oh look no cups. They go tell the glass person, eventually a glass comes, eventually water person notices and eventually you get a drink usually at the end of breakfast or lunch. Same with cutlery. Is it that difficult to provide basic service well yes it seemingly is. We even saw an empty plate dropped in the middle of a restaurant walk way into 3 large pieces. It wasn’t picked up, they radioed someone, who came and put a char on it, who then radioed a cleaner who picked 3 pieces up which took nearly 45 minutes!! Absolute madness!! Room Basic and functional although there was no shaver socket which is odd. Some of the draws and doors could have done with a little attention but we were hardly in it so didn’t bother us. Bed was comfortable and pillows are soft so if you like a hard pillow you may have to ask for one. Entertainment Get rid of Debbie!! The fitness classes were really good to start with, always busy and fun. Then Debbie turned up! Why let a guest run classes!!! People literally walked out, at times classes went from 20 to 30 to 2 or 3. Touch the floor….. yeah great Debbie we are in a pool chest deep……. 4 steps left, 4 steps right, yeah Debbie we are in the sea we can’t run left or right like you on the beach! Then there was her husband messing about with the music! You could see the life being sucked out of the entertainment team! Thankfully she left after a week and things got back to normal, class sizes grew and the staff started enjoying themselves again. Don’t let guests run the fitness classes!!! Arts and craft classes are usually full, you register by the dreams beech towel station but be there early. It’s usually full by 9am Evening entertainment is better than most and passes the 45mins or so they are on. Waterpark Not too much to do but it does keep you entertained, two rubber ring slides, two without as well as a lazy river and a section for little ones. Towels are provided and there is a food van for food and refreshments as well as a decent number of beds. Gym Small but functional and clean and tidy but can get busy. Spa Definitely worth a visit if it’s your thing, no one comes round and tries to sell you packages so you have to go and sort it yourself self as it should be!

Hector was very pleasant and friendly sevice and the buffet

Secrets is a fantastic hotel with a stunning setting on the beach. The beach itself is beautiful with turquoise blue water, white sand and no seaweed! The resort itself is immaculately clean. The restaurants are all to quality offering the opportunity to try a different cuisine every night. Even the 'buffet' which i normally dislike is excellent with the chance to choose fresh meat or seafood and have it cooked for you while you wait. The Preferred club is also well worth it with a private pool/ pool bar, separate beach area, lunchtime restaurants and a lovely air conditioned inside bar with snacks and fantastic professionally made cocktails. The rooms are very comfortable with daily stocked mini bar incl Pringles and MandM's! We had an issue with noise coming from the a/c which they immediately tried to fix but the problem did keep recurring. The sports bar is a great place to finish the evening, open until 2am serving great cocktails in a lively atmosphere. With the regards the staff, they are all incredibly welcoming and friendly. We didn't get the names of everyone however thank you to Junior and Adolfina in the Preferred bar, Kaisler in Preferred and The Sports bar, Olga, Raul, Wendy and Francia in the Preferred swim up bar/ pool area and Diorcka in the Preferred beach area. They were all so friendly, knew what you wanted to drink and made the holiday even more special. Overall the resort is fairly quiet but I'd highly recommend it and it's probably the best AlI incl resort we've been to ( with the exceptional of The Grand at Moon Palace, but nothing could compare to that!) Thank you to everyone at Secrets / Dreams

Excellent lunch service from Vileisy, Noemi & Hector- really attentive but not intrusively so, a happy balance from the happy team.

Olga, Raul and Luis at the Preferred Swim Up Bar were incredible and very attentive. Their service were fantastic! The bartender Junior at the Preferred Bar was also awesome and we enjoyed his enthusiasm and theatrical performance while making cocktails. Food was pretty good as well - best meals were the Hibachi and Coastal lunch at Dreams side.