El Cocotal

All guests must register with the Casa de Campo Concierge office, and for a small daily fee ($30 per adult per night & $15 per child per night), are granted access to resort areas and amenities. Casa de Campo Resort facilities and amenities include golf courses ($), the fitness centre ($), racquet center ($), restaurants ($) and bars ($). Contact Rental Escapes for more information about pricing.

Cross the vaulted stone bridge into El Cocotal and the water garden runs beneath you. Ten bedrooms sleep twenty across two acres of grounds in Vista Chavón, with an included cook handling all the meals. The fit: a family reunion or a friend group of twenty who came for everyone in one place with room to spread out, three or four families together for the week, or a private event with the dining room set for twenty at one table.

Mornings start at the colonnaded terrace with coffee, the infinity pool facing Dye Fore on one side and the Caribbean on the other. The jungle courtyard sits in the middle of the floor plan, open to the sky with vines climbing the stone walls. The two-acre lawn behind the villa carries the soccer match in the morning and the long table set under string lights at night. The dining room seats twenty at one table for the formal evening. The gazebo with the built-in BBQ runs the casual side of the trip.

El Cocotal sits in Vista Chavón, the quietest neighbourhood of the resort. Altos de Chavón is a short walk from the villa, the artisan village above the Chavón River with cobblestone streets and a stone church. Dye Fore is the same kind of walk for the cliffside round. Teeth of the Dog — ranked the Caribbean's top course by the World Golf Awards — is a short cart ride up the road. Minitas Beach is a short ride the other way for the beach day. Book El Cocotal when the trip is everyone under one roof for the week, not a string of smaller villas spread across the resort.