Sunscape Dominicus La Romana

We went to this all inclusive hotel with an open mind as there were mixed reviews. We went on 27th June and returned back to the UK on 5 July. Lets start of with the good stuff. The entertainment was very good both for families and children, the energy put into the shows by the staff was fantastic - my bestie was Martha (Synthia) she was spot on. The rooms were average I would say Holiday Inn Express/Premier Inn standard, there are no locks on the bathroom or shower doors and you can see your silhouette through the frosted glass. The rooms need upgrading as there was stains on the mattresses, chipped painting, chipped floor and wall tiles dust on the units. The mini bar in the room was good. My boys told reception that it was my birthday so they said they would arrange something - I got a plate with 2 whole apples and a banana and a bottle of champagne! Something...better than nothing. When you check in they try and get you to upgrade to VIP facilities but really there's nothing more than a small swimming pool shared and a VIP desk - the upgraded rooms are not that brilliant. There is a huge variety of food - however it lacks flavour/taste which is a shame. In the buffet restaurant most of the sweet food and other food was covered with tiny flies which was very off putting. We tried most of the restaurants whilst we were there and I must say the Chop Stick was my favourite as the food was fresh, presented well and tasty. My least favourite was the Pizza restaurant, which it took ages to order the food and when it came it was wrong and there was more dough than filling. The Mexican restaurant was also a favourite along with Tapanyaki. A lot of the staff were rude and if they found out you could not speak Spanish they really went out of there way to be rude and ignorant. There were other staff that made an effort and were friendly. We had two elderly people with us that needed wheelchairs as there was a lot of walking to do to get from one place to another, however the hotel is not very wheelchair friendly. At guest services I rate Catherine she was amazing, any problems we had she got them solved, anything we needed she did her best to accommodate us. We did not want to go on the excursions offered by the hotel itself, however we wanted to see what the Dominican Republic way of life was in its natural state. Catherine without hesitation arranged this for us and ensured that all our needs were met including taking the wheelchairs out of the hotel which was not allowed. She even went out of her way to get me mango's that I wanted to bring back to the UK as the hotel staff who worked in the restaurant were very unwilling to accommodate us with any mango's even though they were in season and we were willing to pay for them. Rude attitude. There were hardly any pool side activities ie aqua aerobics, pool games etc. Two of the individual jacuzzi's were out of use whilst we were there. The beach was nice with white sand and beautiful sea blue water. Overall I would of given it a four star if all the above were improved but as it stands 3.5 is as far as I would go.

We had a great stay but some things prevent me from giving 5 stars. First the positives: -Beautiful well-kept grounds, excellent, friendly, hardworking staff (especially our maid Maria, servers in Coco Cafe and bartender in Sun Club lounge), good quality food in Sun Club areas and all restaurants, great pool and beach (again in Sunclub) - very busy in standard areas, good entertainment -Cons - we arrived on Friday night and agreed to upgrade to Sun Club. The person who sorted this showed us the Sun Club lounge and restaurant and that was it. Our first day, we were dismayed that we had paid all this money to have access to a beach packed with sunbeds that could have been anywhere and not a free sunbed in sight by the main pool. The next day, by chance, we passed the Sun Club pool and beach sign which nobody had showed us so started to make use of these facilities. It wasn't until 1 week into our 10 day hol that we discovered that Da Mario Italian restaurant doubled as a Kaleidoscope Buffet which was a breakfast buffet for Sun Club - again nobody told us!! There is an app (that I found out about from reviews, not because the hotel told us) which is helpful for restaurant info and for booking Teppanyaki grill experience. Clearly my main issue here is the lack of communication about what Sun Club entails. -For example, there was confusion over the allowance for the games room (Lollipop) and we were told something different every time - 1hr per day then 2 hrs per whole stay, the pool table is included in your time, then it is not included. Everyone told us something different. We turned up one day to be told the rules have changed and we now have to pay (2.5usd per game!) There was one friendly lady in there but the other was not friendly at all and interrupted us mid-game to tell us our time was running out! -Another complaint we had was the staff at Scuba Caribe which you have to use if you want to do any water activities. The lady at the desk who did the booking was friendly but the 2 guys who managed the pedal boats etc were very unfriendly - no smile, no hello, goodbye or instructions - literally handed the lifejackets and got the boats and told us to get in. We had never Kayaked before and were just left to it. My husband fell back into the boat while trying to steady it for me to get out while the sea moved it and I had the oar in my hand and the guy laughed at him rather than take the oar from me so I could get out. If we had a choice, I would not have used them again but then that would have prevented us from doing any water activities - disadvantage of being in a resort. On returning the pedal boat, they roughly pulled it before I could get out and the pedal went backwards and scraped my foot. This same staff were on our Sunset Cruise - only the captain and the girl who danced were friendly and made us feel comfortable Upon checkout - we were told to go to the opposite side of the lobby to the Sun Club desk which we didn't know existed for our whole stay. By this point we weren't surprised.

Our stay was from April 17th till April 29th 2025 12 days it was great our room was on the Sun club side we were greeted by Evelyn at the reception very good service our room was perfect, the refrigerator was filed everyday with water, beer and sodas... our room was perfectly cleaned everyday. Restaurant a la carte where very good we loved the following one Tiera for sun club members only a special thank you to  Carmen for her good service ..   Tico Taco food and service very good especially the Margarita's were amazing a big Wow . a special thank you to Alba for her good service to always help us with our restaurant reservations and any question we had ... a special thank you to Ana at the Kaleidoscope restaurant our table was always reserved and ready for us for Breakfast and Lunch   ❤❤ .. a big big thank you   for the perfect  super and special thank you to Joan … The coco cafe had the best Capucino caramello cafe … special thanks to Patricia at the lobby bar for her great smile ,giggles and service … We will be back soon for sure we loved this hotel… 😊

At the Sunscape Dominicus La Romana hotel, the experience fell far short of expectations, mainly due to the quality of the service and the lack of transparency in the way I was treated in various situations. First of all, the service at the reception, the bars, and by the housekeeping staff was, for the most part, unsatisfactory. I noticed that the cleaning and care of the rooms depended almost entirely on daily tips left for the staff, which I consider unacceptable for a hotel of this level. Furthermore, I was informed at the reception that I could check out by 2:30 pm, since the transfer bus to the airport would only leave at 3:00 pm. To my surprise, at the time of check-out, I was charged a $10 fee per room, with the justification that I had misunderstood the information provided. I find this situation completely inappropriate and abusive, as I acted according to the information given by the reception team itself. I would like to emphasize that I traveled with the expectation of receiving a service in line with the amount paid, but unfortunately the experience was marked by a lack of professionalism and clarity.

The first thing everyone needs to know is that the various Face Book and social media sites connected with this hotel are all run by hotel staff or people with an interest for getting people to stay at this hotel. Having spoken to other guests while there we found negative and English language reviews were not being uploaded. We are experienced travellers and can honestly say we did not expect it to be as bad as it was. We did try to use some Spanish language– just GCSE level. Arrival… zero out of 10- We travelled as 4 adults, booking 2 rooms but not Sun Club. On arrival reception, were only interested in upgrading us to a shared family room which we turned down, they then said the mini bar is stocked on arrival (beer, cola, fanta, sprite, water) but only with water after that – we advised them that we had all inclusive which stated a well-stocked mini bar for the duration, they said that was only for Sun Club we requested to speak to a manager and they said No! and sent us to the concierge desk. The 2 men at this desk also refused to listen and get a manager just saying to check our terms and conditions on our booking information – which we did and found it stated a ‘well stocked mini bar for the duration,’ we were tired and gave up and went to our rooms at this point. It is very frustrating that HYATT/ Sunscape Dominicus feel they can change the terms when the feel like it. We did tip $2 per day and write notes to house keeping so our fridge was kept stocked up in the end. Rooms…10 out of 10 -The corridors were clean and apartment blocks well labelled. The rooms were clean and well decorated – blocks 3 and 5 third floors. Good showers and 2 double beds (although one in our room only had 3 legs so rocked a bit?!) with room to move around- air con, fridge, safe, coffee pot, drawers and wardrobe, iron, hair dryer, outside balcony area. The toilet was a tight squeeze but ok and all was clean, no problem getting beds and towels changed. Housekeeping were a bit hit and miss to start with but improved as stay progressed and even topped up our fridge with more than water. Pool and Sunbeds…7 out of 10- I did get up early to go sit for ‘my quiet time’ by the pool at 7am, there were plenty of sunbeds until about 10am but those with shade were gone by 9am. I took anti-bac wipes daily to wipe the sunbeds and sometimes had to clear away dirty plates and glasses from the evening before. The pool was mostly clean but some days there was a scum on the surface and hair around the entrances but mostly it was Ok. The pool boys did their best to clear away debris blown from the bar roof that constantly landed in the pool. The pool never smelt of chlorine but some of our swim wear did turn a bit yellow over the 10 day stay – I recommend you take a travel sink plug and some washing powder and rinse swim wear daily. – the ‘Sip and Dip Bar’ was terrible, they prioritised Spanish speakers and ignore English looking guests even if you were the only person waiting to be served, they also never put alcohol in your cocktails unless you specifically requested it. The entertainment people again tended to ignore you unless there were no other Spanish speakers or Hispanic looking people around and all announcements were given in Spanish, French, Italian but NEVER English. Various parties took place from 4pm daily around the pool but the organising was terrible and because they never made any announcements in English we never really knew what was going on Beach/sea….7 out of 10 – lots of sunbeds all cramped together and not enough shade – you will need to get up early for a sun shade here! Yes, there are rocks in the sea but the hotel can’t change this natural sea defence – take water shoes and the area to the left of the pier, in-front of the white gazebo has less rocks, if you are worried go in the sea on calm days or earlier in the morning. We snorkel a lot and saw some amazing fish and rays. The corals have been bashed by guests standing on them but we saw porcupine puffer fish, angel fish, parrot fish, eagle rays, barracuda, squirrel fish and more. Its worth standing on the pier at night to see the rays swimming under the pier. There were also vendors on the beach, mainly photographers with a monkey, a couple of blue Macaws and a Iguana, the men trawled the beach for over 4 hours, never visibly giving shade or water to the animals and when they left walking back along the beach what looked like a hotel manager appeared from the restaurant on the pier to collect his commission before the vendors left – all I can say is… ‘SHAME on you HYATT for allowing this cruel practice to happen on your property!!!’ Restaurants…10 out of 10 - Windows, Coco Cafe and Pizza place – Windows is the main buffet restaurant and we had breakfast and lunch here , excellent bread and if you want bacon for breakfast just ask the egg/omelette man or someone near the kitchen entrance. Salad excellent for lunch. Also Ice cream in here, behind the kid’s buffet. The pizza place did the best pizzas and we returned to this restaurant 3 times. The Coco café was good for hot chocolate, coffee, dough-nuts and ice cream. The other restaurants …3 out of 10 overall – the best of these was the Da Mario only because it had a good salad bar but the pasta was OK, The Tierra on was ok but portion sizes amongst our party were so different- very inconsistent. The Teppanyaki show dinner had to be booked – very disappointing, the food was very good but the show was just someone bashing his utensils on the hot plate, no flame throwing or smoking onion rings or show cooking at all, as we have experienced in other places. The Chopsticks sit-down Chinese was just the Dominican version of salty Chinese food – nothing special. The Tiki Taco again very inconsistent with portion sizes and gave us the wrong meals - all the waiting staff are very friendly and happy people. Other bars… 0 out of 10… the Tortuga on the beach was for Sun Club only but Sun Club wasn’t in this area so the staff just sat doing nothing all day – Hyatt needs to make this a bar for everyone and move sun club bar to the pier. The coffee bar on the beach was staffed by people who didn’t know how to make coffee. The Coconuts beach bar was OK but you needed to be very clear if you wanted alcohol in your cocktails. Self-serve water was available at most of the bars and we took big cups with lids to fill up at these stations. On several occasions we found ourselves getting a plate of chips from the snack wagon after our evening dinner! We didn’t do Bluewater Grill as it was same as daytime BBQ which we tried once and meat was so tuff we had to leave it. Sun Club – not worth it… your pool is surrounded by Sunscape buildings on 2 sides and a building site on another so the pool was in the shade for most of the day, the sun club beach was quite empty of guests probably because the entrance into the sea here was very rocky. We spoke to many people who also agreed $30 per person per night was not worth it for the Sun Club experience – also this is no longer an adult only option as the hotel say they want to be promoted as a family hotel? Over-all we negotiated the systems and had an ok time, we will not return to this hotel and will think twice about booking any HYATT hotel in future. Most of the staff were friendly and helpful but over-all too many changes from our original booking and inconsistencies throughout our stay. Our advice is go armed with knowledge from independent sites, expect rocks in the sea and to be ignored if you look English/European. Make sure you do a trip to Saona Island – we booked this with Katerina Caribe who we contacted on WhatsApp before leaving the UK – well worth every penny – brilliant day