The hotel is Dominican owned. The executive manager is Italian, and we could see his touches almost everywhere. There are a surprising number of women on the executive staff. Bravo!

It's still 'only' a 3 and a half star hotel and the rooms are a little dated but OK. They are in the middle of extensive renovations, and I believe that the A and D wings have been completed. We were in B wing and it was the best room we have had to date. It was clean and there was lots of hot water. It took a while to get it though. We were at the far end of the wing and it was a 'little' distance to the hot water tank. The room was comfortable and everything worked. We even got wash cloths (a rarity in the DR). The bathroom was equipped with a hair dryer and had a wicker basket with shampoos, conditioners and a sewing kit. The mattress on the bed was new, very thick and very comfortable. I usually pride myself on leaving with the room in better shape than when I arrived. This year I couldn't find anything to fix!

The biggest improvement was the a la carte dining rooms, both the Brazilian and Italian ones. As I said before, the new manager is Italian. He took one look at the Italian restaurant and stated that there were going to be big changes. There were, and it was worth it. The food and service were excellent. The only problem is that it's small and fills up rapidly. If you haven't made a reservation by 7:15 am, it's probably best to forget it. We also found the Brazilian restaurant to be improved. They have added a fish course this year. Yummy! On the down side, the buffet seemed to be a peg lower than last year, but still good. The selection seemed a little smaller than in previous years. In the mornings, bacon was served about once every second or third day, but ran out about 8:30 am. Sausages were available every day. The best part about breakfast was the omelette and fried egg station. Hector serves up a mean omelette.

As far as the food goes, there were two disappointments. The beach club used to have an on-site chicken BBQ, and the chicken that came off of this was possibly the best chicken I've ever eaten. Unfortunately, the BBQ broke down, was fixed at great expense, and then broke again after about two months. They removed it! The hotel tried to make up for this with chicken wings and BBQ chicken done in the hotel restaurant. This was good, but didn't hold a candle to the fresh chicken. The second disappointment was the house wine. It was terrible this year (very watery, bad aftertaste, sometimes with a head from the CO2 dispenser pump). I have been assured that the situation will be rectified. We were not expecting extraordinary wine, just a reasonable table wine.

CHECK-IN: Check in was fast, reasonably efficient and friendly. Our room wasn't quite ready, but they said it would only be 5 minutes. Turned out to be 3 beers worth! Due to our flight times, we just missed lunch, but the pizza bar was open so we had pizza and beer. Not too shabby!

GENERAL: It's still a three star resort, so we were not expecting anything fancy. The Royale section consists of hotel rooms arranged in 4 blocks (A, B, C and D) while the Tropicale section consists of multi unit villas. No marble floors or walls, but "standard" Caribbean construction (stuccoed concrete block, terra cotta tile floors, ceramic tile in the bathroom).

THE ROOMS: The hotel rooms are basic, but OK. Most rooms, say 80 per cent, have balconies or terraces. If it's an issue for you, yes you 'can' get a balcony, but you have to be persistent. On a previous trip to another 4 star hotel, all the rooms had balconies; they were rarely used. In our case, we like the balcony and we like being out in the fresh air, so .....

This time, we got a room with two queen size beds, a bedside table between them, a phone, a large balcony, a bureau with large drawers, satellite TV and two large closets. The bed mattress was nearly brand new and very comfortable.

There was already a jug of bottled water in the room. You DON'T drink the tap water; for that matter, we didn't even use the tap water to brush our teeth. When the jug was empty, you were supposed to take it to any bar to be refilled. The maid did this for us this year. Maybe this was because of the daily tips we left :-)

The room had recently been repainted, say within the last two months or so and was very clean. The air-conditioning was on when we checked in and the room was like a meat locker. As usual, we turned it off immediately and opened all the windows since it really wasn't necessary. The room remained very comfortable over the entire two week period. My travel alarm has a built in temperature sensor and the room varied between 21 and 25 degrees Celsius the whole time.

As I said, it was clean. The room was cleaned and the towels changed daily. The bed linens were changed several times per week. Both were a better quality than last year.

When shut up for a while, the room seemed a little musty, especially in the dead air space by the closed door, but this cleared within minutes when the window was opened. Remember, this is the tropics, so the humidity is a little high. I didn't spot any mildew, and I looked.

THE GROUNDS: Fun Royale / Fun Tropicale is a very nice and well maintained resort. There are three swimming pools. These are the activity pool (read NOISY, but not as noisy as last year), the quiet 'adult only' pool and one reserved for children. They appeared clean and well maintained. There was a small army of grounds-keepers that were constantly raking, pruning and cleaning. This year, topless sunbathing was very common at the pools and the beach. Speaking of the beach, it's nice, but not spectacular. There's a "bit of coral" in the sea in front of the beach club, but a short walk in either direction leads to hazard free swimming. You don't have to swim in the hotel's area since the entire beach is public. However, if you go too far, it's a long walk back to the bar! It was an easy 6 minute walk to the beach from the hotel (I timed it) and if you didn't want to walk, there was a frequent shuttle service. Something like a Caribbean hay ride. We took it a few times just for the ride.

The activities at the pool are terrific with a great activity staff. This year, with the exception of the beach party/bonfire, there didn't seem to be any organized beach activities. Beach volleyball was a pick-up, do it yourself operation. At the activity pool, there's usually something going on from 10 am to 5 pm, lots of fun every day. Other activities with the all-inclusive package include horseback riding, mini golf (7 holes ???), shuffleboard, ping pong, Spanish lessons, cocktail lessons, darts, pool basketball, water polo, water aerobics, bingo, etc etc etc.

The hotel also arranged casino trips, disco trips and inexpensive tours to Puerto Plata. Depending on the venue, this sometimes included drinks and transportation both ways. For the casinos and discos, transportation was one way and you found your own way back when you were ready to come home. I guess if the casino was nice to you, you took a cab; otherwise you walked :)

There was entertainment each night (outdoor stage) which varied between dance shows and some audience participation. The shows mostly consisted of dancing and lip sync to recorded music, which some people would consider cheesy, but the dancers were pretty good and put a lot of effort into it. One night, during the ice breaker session, they had a gentleman who turned out to be a guest at another hotel and obviously had been an entertainer in the past. He put on a half hour set of singing (blues, old standards) and he was excellent. We thoroghly enjoyed this. Otherwise, the shows were pretty much the same as last year, so we usually found something else to do. From what we saw, most of the audience seemed to enjoy the performances.

The food, facilities and public areas were all good. The main dining room (buffet) was very attractive. It gave you a choice of three eating areas. The first area was inside, but open to the air on three sides, the second area was also closed in with a translucent ceiling, and the third was outside with tables under umbrellas. These overlooked the golf course and one of the ponds. The tables were candlelit at night. Very attractive. We didn't even see this feature at the 4 and 5 star hotels we have stayed at.

The hostess "Ana" was still there this year. She was very friendly and outgoing, and invariably greeted you with a large smile. The food and beverage manager "Francisco" was also very friendly. He is the kind required. If the waiters got hung-up or behind, he was right there helping out to make sure everything went smoothly. The entire operation seemed to be a well oiled, low stress, happy working environment for the staff.

FOOD: The Italian and Brazilian restaurants were vastly improved over last year. The buffet was off a touch, but still quite good. The food was excellent, plain but not fancy. They did a pretty good job of avoiding repetition. During our stay, we had various kinds of fish, roast pork, pork chops, chicken, ham, roast beef, roast whole turkey and various types of stews. My wife especially enjoyed the cooked to order pasta dishes. This year the chef was the same. He won the award as the best chef on the north coast last year; let's see if he can repeat this feat! We frequently saw him inspecting the buffet serving area and the beach bar servery at lunch time (almost daily).

They had theme nights (Dominican, Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Chef's special, etc).

Wine was available by the glass. Each night at dinner there were two casks (red and white) and you simply helped yourself to what you wanted. The wine was different this year, and as I noted, was not very good. This was a big disappointment.

Personally, we liked the food better here than at some of the four star resorts we have stayed at on other trips to the DR.

BEACH CLUB: This can best be described as rustic. It's very much like a summer cottage. The beach club served lunch daily. There were fish, burgers, hot dogs and chicken every day. Plus each day they also had a selection of one or two of shish-ka-bobs, steak, pork chops, liver or something else on the grill. This was served with salads, fresh fruit, french fries. Worthy of note is that the food serving area was COMPLETELY scrubbed down daily. Oh, and after a comment I made last year, Presidente beer is now served at all the bars. It's the primo local beer, doesn't cost any (or much) more, and I'm surprised they were serving the other stuff. Whatever, it's now the "good stuff".

SPECIALTY RESTAURANTS: The two specialty dining restaurants (reservations required, no extra charge) consisted of an Italian and a Brazilian restaurant. The Italian one was inside, closed off and air-conditioned. It was excellent this year. As usual, the Brazilian restaurant was a meat eater's delight. Everything was cooked over a charcoal broiler. You get a little of everything (chicken, sausage, pork chop, roast pork, ham, liver, roast beef, fish and yes BBQ pineapple) all carved off of a sword onto your plate. It added up to a LOT of meat. Go there hungry! Vegetarians, go somewhere else! We went there twice during the two week period.

Oh yes, in case you got 'hungry' during the afternoon, there was a pizza place that served quite good pizza. It was different from what you get at home, but good. Note that you didn't get to order what you wanted; they made pretty much what they wanted and you took whatever slice looked appetizing to you. And, there was also a late night 'disco' snack (burgers, hot dogs, salad, fruit, grilled meat).

MISC (in no particular order): This year, there was quite a mix of nationalities. We ran into mostly Canadians, Quebecois, British, plus a few Germans, and a few Americans.

It's still a very friendly hotel. There are a lot of 'Holas' from the staff. We had no real language problems with the front desk, waiters or bartenders. In fact, I got the distinct impression that they were trying to practice their English. The grounds keepers and maids didn't speak much English, but we had no real problems communicating with them either. In a pinch, sign language works well!

The currency exchange on site is run by a real bank. The exchange rates were as good as you could get in town.

At breakfast, for the most part, the fruit juice wasn't real juice. But if you went back to the juice/fruit bar, there was usually at least one dispenser of real juice.

Prices in the hotel shops were quite reasonable by hotel shop standards. For example, a 6 pack of Presidente was 240 pesos, whick works out to about $1CDN for a beer. A little more than in town. I bought a T-shirt for 200 pesos and a replacement pair of sandals for 250 pesos. They blew out within a few days, but did the job. Too bad, they were pretty comfortable too.

WHAT WE LIKED: Virtually everything (except the wine, as noted). A few 'warts', but no real complaints. It's a nice place and good value for the money, unless you are really fussy. The food is pretty good. It's nothing gourmet, but there are lots of choices. I never left the restaurant hungry!

WHAT WE DIDN'T LIKE: For starters, having to come home! There was not as much bacon at breakfast as in prior years, but the sausage was good. The Dominicans usually do a pretty good job on pork products. Their beef is a little chewy, but with good flavour. This year, we got served chewy pork on a few occasions too.

Would we go back? Yes, I'm already planning my next trip.

QUESTIONS: email robertdungan2002x@yahoo.ca

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ADDENDUM: One of the comments received said that they had a real problem with mosquitoes. We didn't have a whole lot of problems (not to say that there were NO problems), but they can be really obnoxious after a rain. They are very small, tiny compared to our Ontario monsters, but they can leave a real welt. A good repellent is a must. If you don't need it, OK, but if you do and you don't have it ......

The comment also indicated that they had some stomach problems, but I can't see any references to similar problems in the reviews I looked at. With all the booze and sun, we had a small case of the 'Puerto Plata Trots', but it did not interefere with any activities.

Bob 2004/05/18