“Not Bad but Not Great - overall maybe Just ... just Average”
Looking at the reviews of the past 2-3 weeks I found some which I agreed with and some which seem odd to me (too positive), therefore I decided to write my own and maybe help somebody in making a choice of whether to go or not.
We have been fortunate enough to travel quite extensively all over the world and have some benchmarks to compare to, but maybe on the other hand this is to a certain degree unfortunate - in that we will always find somewhere where the food is better or the weather was better and so on. Hence I have tried to keep my opinion as impartial as possible and hope that I have succeed to do so in this review.
We returned - my wife and I - from a full two weeks at Riu Merengue in end of January.
A cell phone charger was stolen out of the luggage that came out of the conveyor so the arrival to Puerto Plata airport was not picture perfect. I guess this gave us a heads up.
Second warning - tap water: we were told by the local tour rep on the way to the hotel to avoid even flushing teeth in the tap water, so be careful / warned.
The check-in was fine - no issues even in the middle of the night. Nothing fancy but efficient.
The room we were shown to had it's air con damaged (the man who accompanied us to the room admitted that he could not turn it on) but becuase this was the middle of the night, we agreed that somebody would come in the morning to check and fix it. Needless to say, this did not happen, even though we called the reception several times and told them in person about this. It was not so important to us however, because the outside temperatures did not really require the air conditioning at all. I actually managed to turn it on a couple of times by myself during the stay (by slightly whacking the thermostat which did the job....). When it did work you could not really tell the difference, so maybe it is not very efficient anyway? It may be an issue when temperatures are high in the summer so be aware of this.
The rooms are a bit worn and dated. The beds are not very comfortable (two twins put together to form something larger but they tend to move apart, so forget about being close to the other person unless you share one bed). The bathroom has also seen it's golden age some time ago, but it worked. Since we did not spend too much time in the rooms or bathroom then these issue were not so important but remember the good times of these are in the past.
The environments of this hotel are very good - for this I would give the hotel very good ratings. The grounds are well tended to, it's very picturesque, well maintained. The beech is wide and you can easily find a spot. We liked also the side beech in the afternoon where there are no chairs nor any hotel service, this part is shaded from the constant winds, the water is calmer and all in all it seemed nicer there. However around 4-5 pm most fine days there were some short wedding ceremonies held there so keep that in mind. The sand is brownish and rough. You need shoes to go into the water because of the rocks and corals and strong currents which sweep you off your feet. The pools are ok, but again seemed slightly used.
The restaurants are ok but nothing special. The food is generally edible but repetetive, so you have to be very carefull and choose what you take. The first week is fine, the second week you start looking around for something new but it's not there, so you simply tend to eat less.... The speciality restaurants are nothing special - they are situated in same outside open bar next to the beach, share a common buffet, so the only course which is specific for that thematic restaurant is the main course. For the Steak House I would recommend the beef fillet which is pretty good, skip the rest. In the Italian part - go for the same: the beef fillet, skip the rest. Therefore if you go there only once to each it will be sufficient. The wines are quite bad. I strongly recommend to avoid them.
Drinks - all local stuff (even if you saw them pouring out of a brand name bottle this was not the original stuff inside the bottle). The local rum should be therefore good but it did not seem to be very good. Maybe their supplier of this rum is some local cheap distillery, but the taste was not very good. It all seemed to taste more/less the same. Out of all the drinks the only ones that I would say are ok, even good are: Mojito, Caipirihna (not made with Cachacha but something local but still drinkable) and Margarita - with an accent on the Mojito. I think most guests in the hotels realized this fact, because several times during these two weeks you couldn't get any Mojito's anywhere in all three hotels in the afternoon becuase they were out of the mint leaves.... The beer was basically tasteless, the wine - forget it totally. The soft drinks all very sweet and taste the same regardless what you took.
Entertainment - I would skip it. I appreciate the efforts of the staff, but I think they should rethink their program, maybe do less live shows each day but improve the quality, whilst giving more live bands and local merengue, bachcata and salsa music to which to dance to on the floors.
The weather there at this time was quite good - temperatures were perfect (around 26-28 deg C day and 22-23 at night). Maybe we had a larger then normal rainfall (it rained 6 out of the 14 days we were there) but for the most part it was not very heavy. It only poured for two days flooding some parts of the hotel grounds. I came back tanned brown after these two weeks even though I don't lie all day long on the beech chairs anyway, so for fair skinned people this is perfect and you don't need more.
The seas were very choppy and rough and this is normal here. Therefore it is not easy (maybe just possible but difficult and risky) to snorkel. Besides this, the sea water is unclear, visibility no more then 1,5 m (about 5 feet) and not much to see anyway. We went scuba diving, but this proved also very extreme (suffice to say that all felt bad getting to the dive site, some did not dive a second time, even the dive master felt a bit sick) but this is the norm here because this is the open Atlantic and not the Carribean. I would not recommend diving here - not much to see.
The attractions of the areas are abundant (the island is beautiful) but not accesible because the trip offers are very few and choices limited to "safari in truck or quad in countryside" - some variation of this theme in 5-6 different trips offered, or "beautiful islands" and 4-5 different variations of this. We went to the Paradise Island trip - nothing fancy, but if you are lucky, have good weather and not too big crowds that day, then trip is relaxing and a welcome break from hotel monotony. The second was the VIP Samana tour also known as El Limon, or Whale watching, or Bacardi Island - it's all more/less the same. Full day trip, a bit expensive (130 USD per person) but you see a couple of things condensed into one trip. Unfortunately for some reason we did not go whale watching even though the season is oficially opened since 15th January (we went the 21st) instead spent 3 hours on Cayo Levantando (Bacardi Island) which is just another tropical island and beech (seen a couple of nicer island already in my life so was not thrilled, but for somebody who has not yet been to one it's a nice place to see). Everybody whom you speak to discourages you to try to travel alone and after our first and second heads up we tended to agree (at the ends of the hotel beeches you have great big signs in four languages saying that you are crossing this point at your own risk and responsibility - something we have never seen anywhere else so far in the world...)
Conclusion: this hotel is ok for a no thrills, relaxing, mind numbing holiday of 1 week. The second week seems to drag on. Don't expect very high standards of food or drinks, but if you are carefull you will find something edible and drinkable and might not suffer if you regularly keep your hands clean. Don't expect any special attractions and you will be ok here.
Happy holidays
Jarek
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
