We celebrated our honeymoon at Oxygen for 8 nights during the last week in December. As many of the reviews state here – it is a lovely place to spend a honeymoon. It is quiet (no kids or large parties), the setting is gorgeous and the service is top-notch. The pool area is amazing – comfortable chairs surround an idyllic infinity pool that overlooks the coastline. As soon as you sit down, the attentive staff brings you cucumber water and are happy to bring cocktails or even lunch to you while you are lounging poolside. Some of my favorite memories are of floating in the pool and watching toucans in the lush trees with the sounds of howler monkeys in the distance – it really was out of this world. We spent many days just lying by the pool, swimming, eating and reading – exactly what a vacation is supposed to be. We really debated about whether or not to rent a car because, though we wanted the freedom to come and go as we pleased, we were a little nervous about what we had read about the treacherous drive up the mountain. In the end we are really glad that we chose not to. Since it rained quite a bit while we were there (which we were not expecting for late December!) we were very glad that we relied on taxis to transport us. Having been New Yorkers for...We celebrated our honeymoon at Oxygen for 8 nights during the last week in December. As many of the reviews state here – it is a lovely place to spend a honeymoon. It is quiet (no kids or large parties), the setting is gorgeous and the service is top-notch.
The pool area is amazing – comfortable chairs surround an idyllic infinity pool that overlooks the coastline. As soon as you sit down, the attentive staff brings you cucumber water and are happy to bring cocktails or even lunch to you while you are lounging poolside. Some of my favorite memories are of floating in the pool and watching toucans in the lush trees with the sounds of howler monkeys in the distance – it really was out of this world. We spent many days just lying by the pool, swimming, eating and reading – exactly what a vacation is supposed to be.
We really debated about whether or not to rent a car because, though we wanted the freedom to come and go as we pleased, we were a little nervous about what we had read about the treacherous drive up the mountain. In the end we are really glad that we chose not to. Since it rained quite a bit while we were there (which we were not expecting for late December!) we were very glad that we relied on taxis to transport us. Having been New Yorkers for many many years, we were not expert drivers, especially in rough terrain. And the mountain is STEEP. And slippery. Do note that is cost $10 each way to just to get up and down the mountain. That means if you are doing any tours from Domincal or want to eat in Ojachel, you have to pay about $70 r/t just for transport. In the end, we think it was less expensive for us to use taxis since we ended up spending a few days just hanging around Oxygen. Plus, the piece of mind of not having to drive was worth every penny. That said, if you are used to driving a 4x4, the drive up the mountain is probably not too bad.
We ate most of our meals at Oxygen and we found the food to be mostly hits with a few misses. The good news is that the hits were out of this world. We had some really fabulous dinners. The ingredients were fresh and simple but the way that they were combined were inventive and delicious. We especially enjoyed the unique homemade soups and salads. We love long dinners so the 4 course meals were a real treat. Plus we found that it gave us time to talk to guests at neighboring tables and have some interesting and lively conversations. The one thing I was a little bummed about was the lack of seafood. Out of the 8 nights we stayed there, they only served seafood as the main course once but served chicken 3 times (plus twice at lunch). I guess, being on the coast, I expected much more seafood.
The other restaurants we ate at in the area were La Fogata (pizza) and Citrus. Both were great.
The villas themselves were lovely, incredibly clean and very cozy. The glass walls were awesome and created amazing light. We loved the open design and the bed was more than comfortable. I know that there are also a lot of complaints on this site about the bathroom/shower but we did not have any issues with either. I was also scared that there were going to be bugs in the room due to the remote jungle location, but I’m happy to report that we didn’t find any bugs in the room.
But probably the biggest overall disappointment of our stay at Oxygen was the location of our villa. One of the reasons I chose Oxygen’s remote location was for the view – especially since we knew we were going to be spending a lot of time in our villa. I had requested an ocean view (specifically villa #3) but we were assigned villa #8 which was on the edge of the road and did not really have a view. If you stood up at a certain angle, you could catch a glimpse of the ocean but while sitting on the porch, there was no view. I told the staff of my disappointment and requested to be moved to one of the villas with a full ocean view (especially since the first 2 nights the air conditioning was broken) but I kept being told that they were full… To the staff’s credit, they worked hard to fix the air con in a timely fashion and they trimmed the hedges to try to give the villa a better view (which did not work) but we were never moved. I totally understand that they were 100% full but we kept seeing people check out of the ocean view villas and new people check in to them so I’m not sure why our request could not be accommodated for at least a portion of our 8 night stay. Though I was a bit disappointed since I was expecting a full ocean view it did not by any means ruin our stay in the villas.
By the end of our stay we felt like we were leaving our second home and saying goodbye to the staff was like leaving old friends. Overall we really loved Oxygen and would definitely recommend it for a romantic getaway.More