My husband and I went to this hotel as part of a small tour group and had purchased the all-inclusive option. This hotel is listed as a 4-star resort but I would be hard pressed to even give it 2-stars. It was once an apartment building that was converted over to hotel units and each have at least 2 bedrooms, 2 washrooms, a kitchenette, living/dining area and balcony overlooking the ocean.
Our room was on the 2nd floor and the first thing we did was check to see if everything was working. We plugged in the refrigerator, checked the taps and found that no water would come out of one of them and there was no hot water in the sinks, only luke warm and cold. There was hot and cold running water in the kitchenette. We complained about the water and were told we would be offered a new room either later that day or the next day. That night I did not sleep well because the air conditioning unit in the bedroom was located at floor level directly beside the head of the bed. When the air conditioner was turned on, I would get a blast of cold air running across my upper body and was unable to deflect the air flow away from myself. There are 2 showers in each room which is fortunate because one wasn’t working. The other shower turned cold very quickly though and there weren’t many people at the hotel at this point.
The next afternoon we moved to another room on the 3rd floor. It looked nicer than the 1st room we had been given but looks can be deceiving. When we tried to have a shower there was only a trickle of water coming out of one of the showers. When we tried the other shower the pipes began shuddering and banging very loudly like something was going to burst. The only way we could use the shower was to turn it on full blast so it would hit you like a fire hydrant. If you tried to turn the water down, the shuddering and clanging began again. While we were sitting around the pool that day, someone was hammering and using what sounded like a jack-hammer in one of the apartments for well over an hour. When we complained, we were told that they would be finished soon. That afternoon I plugged my camcorder in to recharge and left it on the counter in the kitchenette. After supper we had to remove it because there were ants running along the back of the counter. We did not have any food in the room because we purchased the all-inclusive option.
By 4 a.m. I was starting to feel quite ill with travellers diarrhea. I was the only person in the group to get sick and also the only person to ask for cold milk to drink. I spent the next 12-hours running back and forth to the washroom. Fortunately there were 2 toilets because the one closest to the bedroom was taking 30 minutes to fill up again after it was flushed. There was an annoying trickle that could be heard from it the entire time it was filling up. I had been in Mexico with my husband since January 31st and had not been sick at all....until now! I had to kill an ant that was in bed with me and felt something biting me in the back but felt so ill I told my husband I just wasn’t up to requesting another room change. One of the hotel managers sent an employee out to the pharmacy in the morning to get me some medication, but my day was ruined and also spoiled my husband’s trip. To top that off, in the afternoon they began pounding again with hammers and jackhammers in the room next to ours. We had to call the manager up to our room to get him to put a stop to it. It was so bad I thought they were going to break right through the wall.
When we awoke the following day (the day we were leaving) we found we had been bitten all over. It was a relief to be leaving this hotel and we couldn’t wait to get home to have a decent shower and wash all our clothes.
The hotel rooms have no nightstands beside the beds. There are closets in the bedrooms and some have dressers but they are unusable because the drawers will not open and/or close. Two ladies in our group that were sharing a room told me the doors to their bedrooms would not close. There are no coffee makers or tea kettles in the rooms, no Kleenex, no clothes hangers, no hairdryers and no screens on any of the windows. In fact when we asked for a room with window screens we were told there weren’t any. We wiped the plastic chairs on the balcony with a towel and it was black when we were finished. There were no washcloths in the 2nd room we were given and the towels in one of the bathrooms wreaked of strong perfume. The food selection was very limited and there is only one restaurant. We were supposed to have Hi-speed internet and it wasn’t working until the morning we left. There is a hot tub that isn’t heated (except by the sun) and only 2 or 3 of the jets are operational.
This hotel needs to be shut down for a month (or however long it takes)so they can make the necessary repairs to the plumbing and whatever else needs fixing. I would not recommend this hotel to anyone.
On a final note the staff were excellent but from our personal experience, the building itself is a noisy bug infested disaster in dire need of a major overhaul.
Oshawa, Ontario, Canada

Next door to the Hotel La Posada (great breakfasts) and the harbor, the Marina Puerto Dorado is an OK choice especially for families with children (roomy). Its a converted condo complex, so, most units have 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a living room. Views are great from the third floor, however, the bottom floor puts you closer to the pool and you won't have to trek up & down the stairs with your comings & goings. Thr price is right also, about $75 a night without the all-inclusive option (excluding Xmas & New Year's week). As a family we got into taking the local buses places, about 50 cents apiece, children under 3 were free. We enjoyed our stay; the longer we were there the more we got into the swing of things. There are some good little family restaurants in the immediate area along with little markets (5 minute walk max.). The major restaurants are a 5 to 10 minute cab drive away - the cabs are cheap. Great fresh fruit sold on the beach.