TRS Cap Cana Hotel

Catering review TRS Cap Cana As promised, my comments on the catering. I would restate my comments that your staff are wonderful and a few of them ‘stars’. (Stand our names: Anna (reception restaurants) Yvette (reception restaurants) Deniece (Helios) Anita (pool bar) Jorge (Helios) Brauly (Helios) and many more - names forgotten. In fact, I will return to the Dominican: for the people as much as the climate. I would also restate that with only a tiny beach, little of interest in the area outside the hotel and taxi fares so expensive on the island, the only potential ‘Unique Selling Point’ for this hotel is the quality of the food. It failed. As a wider comment, the hotel needs to address some Health & Safety issues: the tiled floor in the shower is dangerously slippy, a liability for disabled and non-disable clients alike. This could be easily rectified by the provision of an additional shower mat and a grab rail adjacent to the shower. General Comments The information in the hotel booklet needs updating. Completely inaccurate. Also, as only El Gaucho is open for breakfast, the theme of the evening meal should be posted there for each restaurant every morning to inform choice. I also believe that all restaurants should be book able for the evening meal but allow a few extra places for new arrivals. This could save waste and improve quality across all of them. El Gaucho Breakfast: Unpredictable: table setting; availability of cutlery/ crockery; insufficient choice in yoghurt flavour and quantity (and a small fridge would be a more elegant & a healthier way to store them); the large heated toaster next to food drys everything out near it. Place it to one side away from any foodstuff. Breads: all available for breakfast are dense, heavy and flavourless. The croissants (and flaky pastry cakes) are also heavy and bear no resemblance to the ‘real thing’. This pastry should be light, crispy and buttery. The ones on offer are flavourless and taste stale. Please, please do a variety of fresh, DOMINICAN breads if you cannot produce tasty ‘bought in’ bread. Evening meal Menu very restricted. There should be at least two menus - preferably three - and include one authentic Dominican dish each day. Restrict the number of choices if this would help variety. The specific menu for that evening should be displayed at breakfast to inform choice of restaurants. Many of the dishes seem to have sat in the oven and become overcooked. Anything that includes the word ‘parmigiana’ does NOT mean putting a slab of local cheese on top! Pre-salting steak (heavily) takes no account of personal taste or health needs..... The desserts all ‘look’ correct but taste wrong. E.G. pre-prepared, tiny, tasteless pastry cases with a tasteless filling topped with meringue bares no resemblance to a Lime or lemon cheesecake. Tiramisu should taste of coffee (and a little kick of Brandy or perhaps rum) at the bottom - not merely coffee coloured sponge. Please, please produce at least one Dominican dessert on each menu and your special Bizcocho at least once a week. Helios Many of the comments made in relation to El Gaucho apply to this restaurant. Variety is vital. Restrict the choices for each course but make them fresh. Many items were clearly cooked pre-order. Despite this, some were cooked to order and there was a better chance of fresh, well cooked food in this restaurant. One night of Dominican food is not enough. One dish of your own culture’s culinary choice at each course or even just at main course would allow a traveller a specific taste of your island. Beach BBQ A big congratulations to the lovely lady who operated the BBQ each day! This was THE most predictable and freshest food in the hotel. Why not have an evening BBQ one night per week with Dominican music and make it a feature? Coffee Shop The food/ cakes in the coffee shop were ALWAYS dry and tasted stale. Consider just offering a variety of biscuits/ fruit/ nuts or other repacked snacks if food cannot be fresh and tasty. Izakaya This was the worst and best restaurant. With Japanese food, speed and freshness are vital. The ‘cook at the table’ dishes were good and tasty as was the noodle dish.... ..... But to wait an hour for your chosen first course and be served two dried out, small finger sized pieces of dried out, overcooked chicken or slices of lukewarm aubergine gone soggy with the miso absorbed.... both were dreadful. In other hotels, the food was prepared fresh and cooked fresh in front of clients. It was quick, tasty and great entertainment! This restaurant had two chefs at different stations with bar stools at the counter and only served approximately twenty-four guests so advance booking was essential - again adding to the sense of a special occasion. A local restaurant in England is always nearly full most of the day and has to be booked at night. They cook full 2 /3 course meals for about 60-80 guests an HOUR! Their key is advance preparation for some ingredients and having 4/ 5/ 6 chefs working AT THE SAME TIME! For a hotel, either model is fine. This restaurant did neither! The black suited gentlemen at the counter seemed to do nothing but squirt sauce on some dishes and the many waiters often chattered to waiting guests, to disguise the time people were waiting - I guess! I believe the issue lies in not having enough chefs to cater for the indefinite number of diners, some of whom were there because they had not booked for El Gaucho! As I stated to you personally, I frame my comments as Feedback. It would take a major rethink (though perhaps little financial expenditure) to change the catering in such a global fashion and certainly not within the timeframe of our holiday. What you currently provide bares no resemblance to your promoted ‘A la carte dining’ when compared to other 3/ 4/ 5 star hotels we have visited. Sadly, I came home feeling I had lost an opportunity to experience the taste of the Dominican Republic..... On the whole, I could have eaten BETTER and more predictable food in fast food outlets close to home. This is not a malicious statement merely the true account of a former guest. I hope that some of my points can be addressed and lead to promoting excellence. Your guests expect that level of provision. Your hotel needs that to become not just popular but a sought after choice. Finally, your wonderful staff deserve to shine in an environment that is worthy of them. I trust my feedback will help drive excellence.

Let me start by saying no disrespect for anyone older, I am close to 40 and felt this hotel was tailored to a much older, conservative demographic. I stayed at the sister property TRS Turquesa in May of last year. (Highly recommend!)Had an amazing stay. Thought trying the same company different property with better star reviews would be better. I was wrong! Get a nice room that you want to spend your time in. Other than that there is not much to do. Hotel is so far back from the front gates that you pretty much have to stay on property or get a taxi/excursion to explore anything else. - check in: uncomfortable. Arrived around 1, room is not ready until 3:00. Butler didn’t start until that time. So didn’t get a proper tour of rhe resort. Ate lunch, then my room was ready. Front desk staff is not approachable. - key didn’t work. Had to ask twice. Had to take the key off my wrist each time to use. Was a pain each time I went back to my room. - restaurants: there are only 3/4. One of which you need reservations for. Go figure. Not hard to get but you need to know that. Food in the restaurant by the ocean is awful. (Italian) No flavor, basic, all noodles tasted al dente. Juice was acidic and carbonated. Steakhouse was the only restaurant where I had a decent dinner. - pool: no hot tub!!! Pools are cold, not heated. Couldn’t even get in the pool. And the little area of the pool that has the massage Jets, turn off at a certain time, around 5? Good luck finding how to get towels? Had to ask, still don’t know if there was a towel hut? (Pics attached) - beach: non existent! You can put your feet in the water that’s about it. So ugly and worn down, with fishing boats and locals on their motor bikes right next to the fence. (Pics attached) - room cleaning- they kept the same old coffee stirrers in the room. When they replaced the towels, they just put hem on the shelf. Not like new, rolled with the logo out. Did not replace toiletries. Had to call to ask for additional. - gym: small! Mats dirty. Nothing to clean with. (Pic attached) - Butler: unless you know all of the different things you can request from a butler; this was pointless. Only reached out once when I was told I needed a reservation at the steakhouse. Really? And I could only do thru my butler!

We returned home from a wonderful stay at the TRS Cap Cana and will be definitely be returning again in the Future. This is our second time to the resort having stayed there 2 years ago when it was not part of the Palladium group. We believe that it is even better now under the new owners. We found that the facility was well maintained, the food choice and quality was excellent, the drinks were tasty and well supplied. For us what makes this resort special are the wonderful people who work there. We would like to thank Michael Bautista the front desk manager for working with us in advance to arrange for the room we requested. We would also like to thank Nicauris Polanco the butler manager as well as Maniel our butler for helping us with all the little things that add up to a wonderful time. We would also like to thanks Marcos and Anita for keeping our drinks refreshed around our swim-up pool. The world is experiencing some difficult times and we are thinking of all our friends at the resort and wishing everyone good health.

This is a very nice resort. We were greeted at the hotel just after midnight by a nice young man. He gave us our bracelets and directed us to our room. We got a room with the swim up pool, so worth it. Nice lounge chairs outside and drinks brought around for you. The restaurants were all nice. The steak place was our favorite for food and service. The service at the sushi restaurant was the worst but the food was good. It seemed they did not have enough employees working the sushi side and the waiters were concerned if you ordered too much food in their opinion and would not let you order more. Very embarrassing. Now for the rooms. Our butler, Luis, was great. He made all our steakhouse reservations without fail. The maids do need some training though. They frequently did not re stock the wash clothes and never stock beach towels even though we had a swim up pool. Our butler had to handle being us all that we needed. The spa is a hard 3 stars. The employees did not refill water jug all the time nor did they make sure there were towels to use. We went one time and the spa was cold. Employee just sitting at front desk. No patrons but still they can't check the towel supplies or jacuzzi heat. Not impressed. Other great things about this resort is nice pools and entertainment. Daily pool exercises, dance classes, and other fun activities. We were in the corn hole game, very fun. Now the bad. The smokers have ruined this place. The restaurants have no doors or windows because there is a prevailing breeze. They put the smoking area right outside the restaurant and all that stinky smoke goes right inside and ruins your meal. It's like this everywhere. People smoke everywhere so you can't get fresh air anywhere. The lobby is filled with smoke too. They should give smokers a designated area to smoke that doesn't affect non smokers. Also people smoke on their patio and it blowseems right in your face. This was an adults only resort but now we need non smoking. Worst ever. People also hoard the lounge chairs by the pool all day! Towels run out 5 minutes after they are put out. Sucks.

The resort was small, very small. It was under half capacity when we got there. Part of the reason was COVID-19 we were told. But it was like nobody was there. The resort itself was gorgeous. The views of the ocean were amazing. Beautiful, clear water for as far as you could see. The rooms were clean, the service and staff were friendly and attentive. It was very slow pace, too slow for my wife and I. This is not a bad resort at all, in fact, of the 3 we’ve been to. This was probably 2nd best. The food, not so great. Very limited options. The drinks were very good. Facilities were well kept and maintained. The staff were excellent overall. We felt very let down by our experience though. It’s sad actually, we wanted to get away before our baby was due. I’m even writing this review knowing we should still be there right now. We left 4 days early for a few reasons. The virus was the top reason, ensuring we could get home still. We tried transferring to another TRS resort about 35 minutes away, we were denied bc of the virus, so we came home. I really don’t think we’d ever return to this resort, it was too small and too slow pace for us. We like more food options as well as food quality and taste as well. It’s heartbreaking having to write all of this as well, the resort tried. It just didn’t meet our expectations. Trust me, they weren’t high or u reasonable either. We just enjoy our food and fun. The resort is also kind of secluded. Next to a marina that is a ghost town, the shops are all closed. It was very close to the airport, but not close to any other resort. Very secluded, which again, made it feel smaller.