First the good: very clean and spotless. Only 15 minutes from airport. Complex is stunning. Beaches stunning.

I booked this holiday for my girlfriend's 40th birthday and are 21 years together. It rained for the first 6 days. Once you get wet you can't get warm. The air con is set to cold and you can't alter it.

The food was bad and freezing cold with flys all over the food. All we ate was toast, tea/coffee, cereal and yoghurt - so much for All Inclusive. We ate at 2 restaurants on site but had to give 72 hours notice to book them. These were ok (hot food).

Drinks were bad, watered down and you get a cup if you are German, Canadian or American and if you get a pint the cup is plastic. We went to the bar only one person serving (400 people) and told no cups so no drink unless you find and wash one.

This is the 2nd time I have visted this hotel although it was the beach side 2 years ago.
Great value for the money (approx

We read the reviews on this hotel and resort before going and thought that everybody couldnt be wrong??. Mmmm well we found out different.

Hotel is clean and all rooms cleaned every day with fresh soft towels and bedding changed.But the only negative comments is the noise from 9am to 8pm every day with the staff shouting with pool games around the pool and then also on the beach.

It is butlins in the sun and like club 18/30. If you want a relaxing holiday then steer very clear of this hotel.It is the largest complex we have ever stayed in and is a definite never again.

Food is the same every day, apart from eggs at breakfast you can have goat stew with broccoli and cauliflower with boiled spuds thats for breakfast??

Then the same for lunch and again at dinner apart from chicken thighs and rice,or pasta. Lunch time you can use the snack places but they never wipe a table in between people leaving it for the next, just flip off the mess with a serviete,not very clean in them places.

Drinks are plentiful as much as you can drink but no fear of a drunken night on the all iclusive its so weak its untrue, different when you go to the cash bars though ! Most couples have had enough after 1 week. But thats only our report on the resort. But be aware. No peace here for you. Going outside was safe and we just had to get out of there at times.

BUT then you get pestered from shop owners to go in to their shops to the extent that you just then dont even want to go out again!!

To top that the hotel have the stall holders in the hotel grounds about 3-4 times a week and so then you are pestered as you try to casulaly relax for a walk or get to bar to bar they are on at you.

This was not an enjoyable place to go to and we for one would not recomend it if its a peaceful tranquill time you are after, I wish we had never gone.

well after a long flight you have to fill in an immigration form which seems to take ages and then pay 10 dollars to get in the country. Don't bother with the porters at the airport the coaches are only ten feet away. It's fifteen minutes from the airport.

At hotel check-in went smoothly. If you're not completely happy with your room ask for a change. The food is very bland and the same day in day out. Not enough bars and the beer and cocktails are very weak and the toilets are ten minutes away from the bar.

Also keep a watch on your belongings, your clothes they disappear. They have stalls 3 or 4 times aweek so you get harassed going to the bar. When it rains there is no shelter so you end up staying in your room and there is no fridge which you miss. It's no fun drinking warm water.

Just arrived back from our two weks holiday,and what a fantastic time we had. Hotel was spot on even thou we were in a third world country,we stay in room 2316 on third, floor clean towels every day, all sand brushed and mopped out, 80 tv channels not that you wanted to watch them. food at all the restrauts was spot on, find time to book the ones were you have to wear long trousers book 2days in advanced. location was great get a taxi and some of the other beaches well worth it but loved ours for all the water sports, ie snorkle canoe all free every day for one hour. seed boats, bannana boats, all good in price.
hotel staff were all kind and always had a smile on there face and fell over to help you.
now for the best bit, enterainment day and night the kiko team are the best i've entertainers out of all the places i,ve been if you want to join in you can if not they the still make you smile.
would i go back i would love to go back right now miss it

We visited the hotel as a young, teenage couple on our 1st holiday together. We booked a late deal for our 1st anniversary together and wanted to go quite cheap, paying just

Wow, what a fantastic hotel. We went here for one week as part of a wedding party. Hotel was clean, towels changed everyday and swept and mopped every day to. Food was good, didnt try anything local, stuck to what i knew but it was still nice. Location was ok. Didnt really go out of complex apart from one excursion andto use internet cafe. The staff were friendly and helpful if you needed anything. Entertainment staff were fab!! Very frendly and always came to see how you were. The shows on the night time were fantastic, best ive seen. Very entertaining!
Went to ocean world on excursion, would reccomend it! It was fab, did the dolphin encounter. It was great!
Would we go back?? - yes, would book to go tomorrow!

Just returned from Casa Marina Reef and had a great time.

Ok, down to the nitty gritty. First the bad points:-

1) There is nowhere "comfortable" to go when it rains. There are a few seats around the reef bar and beach bar which can be pulled under the roof of the bars, but the site really needs somewhere with a bar, seats and tables which is under cover when raining. You can sit in the amphitheatre if you like, but there is no bar (except after 9 pm) or tables inside, and the bars are a fair way away if you do want a drink.

2) The rooms are in long blocks and you can hear everything going on outside in the coridoors. This isn't too bad during the day, but at night it got to be a real pain when people were coming back to the rooms at all times during the night. I was woken up on many occasions as I am a bit of a light sleeper.

3) The flight was not good at all. We flew with Thomas Cook and, even though the plane was brand new, we were packed in like sardines - 9 people across in 3 groups of 3 seats and my knees were touching the seat in front of me even when I was sat right back in my seat. Not impressed at all. On the way back there were more than 40 seats whose TV screens did not work (luckily mine wasn't one of them, although my wife's was) so it was a pretty boring flight for them. My wife managed to plug into my headphone socket as well as me and she watched my screen so she wasn't too bad.

These are about the only bad points I can think of. Now for the good stuff :o)

LOCATION - Great. Right on the beach with a great view over Sosua Bay. Only a stone's throw away from the town centre.

CHECK-IN - Very efficient and helpful front desk staff. The only "problem" was that they would not allow us to have 2 room keys. In the end it didn't really matter though as when we were apart and wanted to get into the room, we just had to ask for a temporary key which let us in. These only worked once but did the job.

ROOMS - Functional, no great luxury, but fine for what we needed.

FOOD - Good. Not a massive choice but we always found something suitable and it was always good. Speciality restaurants were very good.

POOLS - Excellent. Not too crowded, we always managed to find a couple of sunbeds regardless of what time we went there. The main daily entertainment was around the Marina Reef pool. If you want a quieter pool, go to one of the 2 Marina Beach pools. Only bad point was that we had one of our towels "stolen" from around the pool area (as did several other people) so had to replace it.

BEACH - Very good but the waves were quite strong as the beach is a bit steep. There are the typical beach sports there, volleyball etc, and it is very clean.

BARS - Good. Never really had to wait more than a few minutes for a drink. The Reef bar was usually busier than the Beach bar. Could do with more chairs and tables though (minor point)

CLEANLINESS - Good. The complex was usually spotless. Room cleaning was normally good, but was a bit hit and miss on a couple of occasions. Grounds were always spotless.

ENTERTAINMENT - Good. Daytime entertainment was varied and always good fun. The entertainment staff worked very hard. Evening entertainment was mainly dance oriented, but with other forms as well. Even though I am not really a dance "fan", I must admit that some of the shows were very impressive. A lot of light heartedness was also present and the staff really seemed to enjoy what they were doing.

STAFF - Very friendly in the main. Always willing to pass the time of day and most seemed quite happy doing what they were doing. Always willing to have a laugh and a joke with you.

RESORT - Sosua is ok apart from the smell of exhaust fumes. There are hundreds of small motor bikes used as moto-taxis and they are up and down all day. As in all the Caribbean places I have been, the shop owners hassle you to go into their shop. This is normal behaviour for them and the Sosuan ones were ok if you politely refused, they didn't hassle you too much (apart from the odd one). Internet cafes are the cheapest place for phone calls and internet access, LOADS cheaper than the hotel.

WEATHER - Not fantastic, but didn't really spoil anything. I don't know if it was normal or abnormal weather, but we had a fair bit of rain. Not continuous, but regular. It normally only ever used to rain for about 20 minutes, except in the evening when it went on for longer, but sometimes it was 3 or 4 times throughout the day and was quite heavy. We normally go to the Caribbean during rainy reason in October and we don't have as much rain as we got here. We didn't have any problems at all with mosquitoes either, which was great.

TRIPS - We did 3 trips in total, 2 with Thomas Cook (same price as Mel Tours) and one with the taxi company outside the hotel.

Dominican Discovery - This was the Mega trucks and was worth every penny. We had great fun and laughed from start to finish. Very highly recommended. If you do one trip, then do this one. (Beware, if you have a bad back then I would think twice. It IS quite bumpy)

Ocean World - Ok, I have my own opinion about this place. If you are going to go there and do the dolphin encounters etc then great, you will really enjoy it and it will be highly memorable. If you are only going for the general admission (as we did) then I would not bother going. We saw all the park and shows within a few hours and then were kicking our heels for the next 5 hours waiting for the coach to arrive. There isn't really a lot to do there and there are only so many times you can watch the dolphin encounter, as nice as they are:o)

Taxi trip into Puerto Plata - we enjoyed this one. 50 USD for a taxi full of people was quite good value. We visited the rum factory, larimar and amber museum, cigar making, shopping, the fort, the T-shirt factory. We would have done the cablecar but it was quite cloudy at the top of the mountain so we didn't go up in the end.


OVERALL - We had a great time here and thoroughly enjoyed our 2 weeks holiday. If you ARE looking to go to the North of the Island then I would definitely recommend this resort.

The hotel was lovely and clean rooms cleaned every day. Could always find something to eat, food lovely.

Hotel staff very friendly always laughing lots of entertainment through the day ay night entertainment was based around a lot of dancing and singing.

Could do with a fridge in room and maybe a kettle.

All in all had a great holiday, beautiful weather but would not go again not due to hotel just to area outside.

The hotel was excellant! I've been there once before and I loved it then so I revisited the hotel again and the staff were amazing.

You had the whole entertainment and the shows at night and the bar tenders were always happy and cheerful. The reception always helped and gave out information that you needed. The staff were always happy to help.

The hotel food was really nice depending on what you liked and where you went to eat.

The rooms were cleaned every day.