This was our fourth trip to this property, so we were not expecting any surprises. WRONG! There were some, and unfortunately they were not all positive. However, despite some disappointments, there were no show stoppers.

The hotel lists itself as a 5 star hotel. There is no way it can be considered that. Last year I rated it a solid 4 star. This year, it has slipped a little on my rating scale, but it still maintains 4 stars (barely). The hotel is starting to show signs of lots of use and some tender loving care will need to be applied.

To make a long story short, the hotel is still good value for the money. We had a great time. We met a lot of nice people, both from my 'Meet & Greet' list from Debbie's and others we met via the "Hi, where are you from?" route. Hey, once you start meeting people, you start getting introduced to their friends as well, and it all snowballs (excuse the expression).

FOOD / RESTAURANTS

There were no real issues with the food; it was pretty basic, but quite acceptable and with the exception of lunches, there was lots of variety from day to day. For breakfast, there was bacon and sausage daily, cold meats and cheeses, cereals and yogurt, the omelet station, usually some kind of potatoe, fruits, toast, buns, juice bar. For lunch, it was about the same each day, but there was sufficient choices on a daily basis (various salad fixings, pizza, burgers, ham&cheeses sandwiches, grilled meats and fish, lasagnas, veggies, crepes, fruit ....). For dinners, in addition to soups and the hot tray selections, there was a carvery station each night. I recorded the nightly entree's as follows: roast chicken, roast beef, roast pork, grouper, cinnamon ham, beef leg, roast chicken, salmon wellington, pork roast, red snapper, roast chicken, beef, ham, Iberian grouper. As usual, the beef was the typical Dominican variety. I got several slices that were quite tender (surprise), but when I returned for another helping, it was like shoe leather.

The bar and bar staff were excellent. A simple "gracias", a smile and the appropriate lubricant assured us of pretty good service most of the time.

Reservations are required for all of the specialty restaurants. You were allowed one guaranteed reservation per week, made in advance, and you were free to try for as many 'same day' reservations as you wanted, so long as it was available. For the buffet restaurants, you normally just walked in. This year, occasionally there was a short a line-up at the door. As they explained it, the reason for this is that they wanted to ensure that your table was cleaned and made up before you got to it.

We ate it all (meat, eggs, salads, mayonnaise, potato salad, pasta, ice cream, etc , etc, etc) and never had any serious tummy problems at all. Overindulgence doesn't count! There was lots of choice! As normal for the DR, the beef was a little chewey, but with good flavour.

DRESS CODE

With the exception of the no 'skimpy' clothing rule, the buffet restaurants were pretty casual. Shorts appeared to be tolerated. Nicer clothes were expected in the specialty restaurants.

PUBLIC AREAS

The public areas were in good condition, and the grounds were well maintained. The staff we met were friendly and more than obliging. Our room had a few minor issues, mostly due to previous guests, but it was also more than acceptable.

The weather this year left a little to be desired. It was much more unsettled than is usual for this season. Can't blame the hotel for that. During our two week stay we had two full days of rain, plus about 9 days of cloud/showers/sun mixture and 3 days of barely a cloud in the sky.

Would we return? One word, YES (caps intended)

SKYSERVICE

First on my list is Skyservice, the airline everyone seems to love to hate. This time, both flights were quite enjoyable, except for the legroom. That's a given! Leaving Toronto, we left the gate five minutes AHEAD of schedule. However, they had to de-ice the plane, so that delayed us a bit. The meal was actually edible and we arrived in Punta Cana on schedule. On the return trip, there had been a major storm in Toronto, so the flight from Toronto was delayed by about 45 minutes, so our departure was rolled back by the same amount. The lunch served on the return flight was perhaps the best I've had on Skyservice in the last few years. Still a letdown from the hotel food, but not bad all the same. The flight was very smooth and we arrived just about on time.

SUNQUEST

Second on my list is Sunquest. No issues here either. The onsite representative was quite good and gave a reasonable orientation meeting. He was also at the desk and available at the times he said he would be.

THE HOTEL

Third on my list is the hotel itself. OK, there is an advantage to being a repeat guest. In this case, it was our 4th trip, so there shouldn't have been any big surprises. WRONG! There were a few! Last year they had discontinued the charcoal broiled chicken and hamburger BBQ on the beach. I talked to management about this and they were going to look into it. That didn't work! This year, the BBQ's were no longer even in the storage area, so I would have to assume that this feature is ancient history, never to return. Also disappointing was the fact that breakfast was no longer being served on the balcony outside the buffet restaurant.

This year, neither of the main buffet restaurants were open to serve lunch. This was presumeably due to the low occupancy rate. All lunches were served at the beach buffet restaurants, and even the one on the Tropicale side of the resort had limited hours.

Amazingly, although there is a pretty high staff turnover due to the remote location of the hotel and the work schedule, there were quite a few that we recognized from previous years. A lot of the staff also remember you from previous visits, and we were very well taken care of.

Yes, you do get what you pay for, but you also have to be careful not to pay for more than what you need or want. In our case, we were more than satisfied. We don't need top shelf liquors. Presidente beer and Brugal (or Barcello) rum do the trick.

Of interest to the handicapped, wheelchair access seemed pretty good and there were substantial grab bars in the tub. There was no elevator in our building, but some other buildings did. I heard stories that some were not functional, so that might limit you to a ground floor room. Just like last year, I discreetly asked several people in wheelchairs and none indicated that they were having any access issues.

This is a nice property and you would have to look pretty hard to find any major issues. You can find them if you look. This was echoed by most of the people I talked to. I had a long 'Meet & Greet' list of people from Debbies, plus we met a ton of other guests. A lot of new people now know about Debbies, so I'm expecting a few new members to join the forum.

The hotel is not perfect, but it suited our needs. Unless you are very picky, you should be able to have a good vacation here.

The beach and pool is nice and the food/bar service is acceptable. It's sometimes a little slow, but I'm on vacation and not in a hurry. As I said, the food is basic, but good, maybe different from what you are used to, but good. Some kind of food is available almost 24 hours a day (not the advertised 24 hours), and there are a few gaps, say between 4am and 7am for example. The grounds are lovely and both the pool and beach areas are well maintained. The ocean had been a little rough, so the sand has been stirred up and snorkeling was poor to say the least! It did start to settle out after a few calm days, but then another front went through and it got all stirred up again.

Over the two week period we had mostly yellow or red flag days on the beach. There were only about two green flag days. One day the wind was so strong that you got your legs sandblasted.

Sirenis is literally in the middle of nowhere. It's about an hour and 15 minutes from the airport. The road is vastly improved over previous years, but it's not there yet!

There is nothing much else around. Secrets is about a 20 minute walk in one direction and the new Sunscape Beach resort is about a 35 minute (brisk) walk in the other direction. This isolation may or may not be an issue for you. Personally, we liked walking the pristine beach near the hotel. This may end soon as there are 3 new hotels being built in the immediate area. The road seemed vastly improved over the 'very' pot-holey road from last year. This year it was a bit of an adventure as the bus had a flat tire enroute to the hotel. After a little tire-kicking the driver elected to continue to a tire shop at a low speed. Turns out there was a little restaurant/bar next to the tire shop; I'm assuming the prices all doubled when the owner saw the load of gringos get off the bus. To my surprise, the tour company (Coco Tours) somehow rustled up a replacement bus in 10 minutes, so the luggage was transferred and we were off again.

The hotel is very easy to find your way around. The restaurants and bars are all concentrated at each end of the central walkway with the accomodations in between. The main walkway is ceramic tile. With the exception of the white and blue trim tiles, the tiles used are NOT very slippery when wet. The trim tile is another story. There are some rooms in the main building, but most are in the residence buildings between the lobby and the beach. At the lobby end of the walkway, there are two bars, two buffet restaurants and three of the specialty restaurants. The remaining specialty ones are at the beach in the evenings. There are 7 a-la-cartes included in the AI package (Mediterranean, Chinese, Vegetarian, Italian, TexMex, Steakhouse, Creperie). There is also the gourmet restaurant on the Cocotal side. This one restaurant is the only one not included in the AI package. It's an additional $25US per person. The service and ambience was excellent.

So, you end up with lots of choices. Personally, we preferred the buffet because it was good and you could try a little of things you weren't sure of and lots of the others. We ate mostly at the buffet or the gourmet restaurant (once this year). Our friends ate at the specialty restaurants and reported that they were mostly good, but sometimes they disagreed even though they ate at the same table and the same restaurant. Other groups either liked or disliked the Chinese, Mexican etc. Guess it depends on what you ordered and what you were expecting. My information is all second hand, so I can't comment.

In rain, there is no "totally" covered walkway to the restaurants. By taking the back way, you can reach the main lobby via a dry path, with the exception of the last 100 ft or so. This is possible from all the buildings except those closest to the beach. Add another 100 ft. for these buildings.

Even though it is a large resort, it is very easy to find your way around. Each building (two or three stories) is clearly marked with an identifying letter, but you do have to know which side since the letters are duplicated. All the public areas are concentrated at either end of the main walkway. Public washrooms are also located here. Warning: In the public washrooms, on the beach, on the Cocotal side, the lights are on timers, which start from the last time they were turned on, so things might get dark in the middle of.... You might know where 'your' parts are, but it got pretty dark when the lights went out. In the lady's side, there is a reset switch in each stall (assuming you can find it in the dark). In the men's, you are out of luck.

The central portion is nicely landscaped between the residential buildings. There are fishponds, fountains, a bridge over the pool and meticulously groomed specimens of exotic plants. Note that I said fishponds. They are not fountains. There's algae on the bottom of these by design. The fish need it. I didn't notice any smells. Anything they would add to kill the algae would probably kill the fish too. There are pink flamingos (the missing fourth one has been replaced), geese and ducks. At night, the lighting is well done. The pool lighting was very subdued.

The beach and pool are terrific. The pool meanders free form for a long distance. There are two swim up bars in the pool. At the beach, there are lots of palm trees and powder sand (darker, not pure white, but nice). With the exception of the banana boat (sometimes called a torpedo) there are no motorized watersports due to the reef a short distance off-shore, but windsurfers, hobie cats and ocean kayaks were readily available when the ocean conditions were suitable. Like previous years, there was a lot of beach lounge and umbrella "reserving" early in the morning. We don't want to play that game, so we had some minor problems finding some ourselves later in the day. By the end of the trip, we were sorely tempted to join in this "game". It's annoying to traverse the beach looking for a chair you would like, but it has been reserved with a towel on it, and nobody has been near it for hours.

There are also miles of undeveloped beach to each side of the property. To the left (facing the ocean), the next resort was Secrets Excellence, about a 15 minute walk. Great for early morning or afternoon walks. To the right, the next resort is Sunscape The Beach. It's about a 30 minute brisk walk.

The activities at the pool and beach are terrific. They have a great activity staff -- lots of fun every day for those who want to partake. For the first week we were there, the clientele mix was mostly Canadian, British, French and a scattering of Americans, Germans and Italians. The second week there seemed to be a lot more French. No issues; aside from a little aloofness, everyone got along pretty well

There were a lot of "rug rats", but the kid's club was in full action and kept them busy and out of the way. When they were around, most seemed very well behaved.

We had no language problems with the front desk, waiters or bartenders. Their English is basic and they seemed keen to practice. The grounds keepers and maids didn't speak much English, but we had no real problems communicating with them either. Between their English, my pidgeon Spanish and hand signals we got by.

This year, we were in the Cocotal section again. The room was large, clean and reasonably well maintained. There were some minor issues with the room, mainly related to damage done by previous guests. The maid service was excellent. The only problems were that we seemed to be in the right place at the wrong time. Three light bulbs had to be replaced during our stay. There were also two defective wall light switches, but they were failed in the on position and the lights controlled all had individual switches.

There seemed to be some problems with the water. It was shut off frequently while work was being performed. Originally, we must have been close to the hot water tank since we had hot water almost immediately after turning on the tap. After one maintenance session, it took a lot longer to get hot water, but after that there was lots.

The room included two queen beds, two bedside night tables, a desk, a table and two chairs, satellite TV, and a mini bar restocked daily with pop and water (no beer or liquor). There was a large storage area that consisted of a full-length closet that covered an entire wall and an in-room safe that was securely bolted to the wall. The closet was interesting. Three doors on two tracks, so you had to be careful to avoid collisions.

Towels were changed daily. As usual with most hotels in the DR, face cloths were NOT provided. The sheets were the best quality we have seen at any of the hotels we have stayed in the DR up to now.

The door lock is electronic and controlled by a card that looks like a credit card with a magnetic strip. The other advantage here is that two cards are normally issued, one to keep the power on and the other for the door. The hotel is very conscious of energy use. To get the power and air conditioning to work, you have to insert your room key card into a slot in the wall. It is keyed to the mag strip as well, so any old card won't do. When you leave the room and remove the card, there is a timed delay before the power goes off. With the power off, nothing functioned, not even the hall light and ceiling fan. Since we wanted two doorkeys, they issued a third one. We turned off everything except the ceiling fan when we were not in the room. We only used the air condioning twice. It seemed a little anemic.

We found it very interesting that most people ask for an oceanview room and a balcony, surprisingly few actually use that balcony.

ENTERTAINMENT There was something going on in the lobby every night. The schedule was:

Monday - live music (5 piece band, 3 guitars, drums, singer, mostly soft rock)

Tuesday - Dominican night

Wednesday - same as Monday

Thursday - Karaoke

Friday - Piano Bar (2 musicians and a singer)

Saturday - same as Friday

Sunday - same as Friday

The piano bar (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) was excellent entertaining.

Most of the entertainment is repeats of other years. They ran on a two week cycle and included Michael Jackson, Magic, Comedy, Mr Sirenis, International Dance, Arabian Nights, Mixed ..... As a result, we only made it to a few of the shows, but the ones we did attend were very well choreographed. One that was really interesting was called 'Water & Fire' and was staged in the pool at night instead of the theater. Very nice. All the shows started at 10 pm and were over by 11 pm. The disco opens after the shows are over. Drinks are not included in the AI package, but admission to the disco is. The sports bar has pool tables, ping pong, foosball etc. There used to be an internet cafe here, but it's all in the lobby area now.

TIPPING

We tipped daily to ensure that the person providing the service got taken care of. Since this hotel is out of the way, the staff work 12 days, then get 3 days off. During the 12 days, most live on site, then they go home. If you are going to hold off your tipping until the end of your trip, you have to account for this schedule. Note that in general there is NO tipping pool, but I suspect some of the waiters work together by mutual agreement. Other than that, the money goes to whoever picks it up and it is not shared. We also tried to find reasons to give stuff to groundskeepers and behind the scenes people. Also you should note that if you are going to donate anything to your maid or a waiter (shoes, hats, whatever), it should be accompanied by a signed note stating that you are giving the item(s) to them. Otherwise, they can't take it off the property.

WHAT WE LIKED

- Virtually everything (food, room, facilities).

- There are no time share / vacation club salesmen.

- There are no vendors on the beach (at least until you leave the property)

- This year, they played lots of Dominican music on the sound system distributed throughout the grounds (there were speakers along the main walkway, the restaurants and the lobby)

WHAT WE DIDN'T LIKE

- There is only water and pop in the mini-bars. There is no beer. A few bottles of Presidente would be nice.

- The prices in the on-site shops are very high. There were a LOT less shops than last year as well. There's a message here!

- The bars closed a little too early. Midnight! We heard a lot of complaints about this (every trip to the hotel actually). After midnight, the only bar open is in the disco and the drinks are not included. For the few people that go to the disco, I wonder why the hotel bothers to charge. It's an irritant for those that stay up late, and they tend to remember things like this when they book their next trip.

- At lunch, the main buffet was not open this year. Lunch was only served in the beach restaurants. Interestingly enough, the sign on the door said that they were open for lunch.

- At dinner, the only seating was inside. We would have preferred an outside option but this area was not open in the evening. Candles on the table would also be nice. Our favourite 3.5 star hotel provides this!

- There was no outside seating at breakfast this year. Major bummer!

- There are too many tour helicopters buzzing the beach. It's a novelty for the first few days, then it starts to get annoying.

- I still miss the beach chicken / burger charcoal BBQ.

- They sprayed extensively for mosquitos this year, but the little blighters are pretty hardy, and were very much in evidence this year.

- They don't provide face cloths. This is not unusual for the DR. My suggestion is to bring your own. Get some cheapies at the dollar store and just leave them there when you come home.

CAVEATS (minor)

- The patio doors are self locking. There is no outside handle. If you aren't careful you could lock yourself out of the room. This didn't happen to us, but I can see the possibilities.

- Watch out for the timers on the lights in the public area washrooms.

- There is some coral in the swimming area (north end of the beach). You might stub your toe.

- The salt and pepper clump up pretty well due to the humidity.

SUMMARY

Great place. Nice property. Good food, service and accommodations. A few warts, but nothing is perfect. We would go back without hesitation. Not a great place for singles looking to be part of a couple, at least not during the weeks we were there. But, it is a great place to meet people and chat. Overall, we liked it. We recommend it.

SLIDE SHOW (with sound)

see http://www.bobfromcanada.com/

The slide show requires the photodex presenter application which is a free download from Photodex.com There is a link provided.

EMAIL: robertdungan2002x@yahoo.ca (antispam - remove the x)