Villa Esperanza

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.

Walk down to the bottom of the back lawn with a wedge in your hand, and you're standing on your own par 3 — Villa Esperanza has a private practice hole on the property, and the first round of the day is over before breakfast. The villa sits in Vistamar on an estate-sized plot, with the family back at the main house still surfacing slowly. Seven bedrooms sleep fourteen, with an included cook handling all the meals.

The villa is built for a big group that wants to spread out without losing each other. The main pool is large enough that the kids never have to ask for a turn, with two thatched palapas keeping a stretch of the loungers in shade. Out on the covered alfresco terrace there's room for fourteen at one table without anyone moving the furniture. Someone's slipped off to the primary suite's outdoor hot tub by late afternoon, the cousins are in the pool, and a quiet round on the par 3 takes about ten minutes if no one's in front of you — the kind of thing that doesn't happen anywhere else at Casa de Campo. Come sundown the catering kitchen handles the prep behind the scenes, and dinner lands without anyone in the family on cleanup.

Minitas Beach is a short cart ride away, and the Marina sits a few minutes further on. Teeth of the Dog, ranked the Caribbean's top course by the World Golf Awards, is a longer cart ride or a quick drive when the family wants the real championship round. Villa Esperanza is the villa to book when one half of the family came for golf and the other half came for the cousins.