TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

This review is for the water sports of the hotel and especially Chocolate and Christopher. Such great service, always smiling, always trying to keep everyone happy, finding spots for everyone, so caring and responsible with good advice to what is ok for kids and in which weather. I chose this hotel for the water sports and was not wrong. Catamaran, kayak, paddle, boogie board and even windsurf. Thank you guys for this great experience. Hugs to all

Absolutely do not recommend this hotel if your English. The hotel staff only care about Italians, Argentinians, Spanish and everyone else but English people. We've had many encounters of discrimination and racism towards us. Firstly, we've noticed that as you enter the hotel they only come up to you and give you a drink and have a conversation with you if your from any of them countries names above! Secondly, when you go on holiday you would like to participate in the activities around the hotel, however, we've stayed here for 2 weeks now and none of the staff ever came up to us and asked us to join in. They saw that we're English and completely ignore us no matter what it's to do with. Thirdly, we had an incident closer to our departure which made us write this review where we were enjoying our day on the beach were a couple of staff come up to us and speak to us in Spanish saying something about the table we had and how we had to swap it for a worse one as we aren't 'vip members' of the hotel. We only agreed as we thought someone needs it as we are getting another table (much worse than the one we had before) but to our surprise they took the table and ask around if anyone wants it and everyone said no so the staff just placed it behind a tree as no one needed it. Then a staff from the hotel called paola santana disrespected us, mocked us and laughed at us after the incident as my dad said it's not funny as she was laughing and she then proceeded to say "ha ha ha" infront of our faces which made us write this. However, if we weren't English then none of that wouldn't of happened as they prioritise every other nations bus England. Moving onto the whole staff compartment, they are all lazy and not talkative to everyone. Staff behind bars take long to make your drinks, during breakfast, lunch and dinner you have to wait a long time to receive coffee as there's no other way to get your own as you have to wait till a staff member comes and makes you coffee. The food was also sometimes served cold. An overall view of the hotel was awful as the staff were racist and unfriendly towards us as a family because of the fact we were English. Do not recommend at all if your into holiday sports and other activities around hotels as they won't ask you to participate in them. If you even try to communicate with a staff then they would just walk off as they despise English people. If I could I would give this hotel negative ratings due to how we were treated unfairly because of our nationality. This has never happened to us as other countries have always been polite and helpful towards us so this has given us a large shock and we will definitely not be visiting the country anymore.

We recently stayed at the Palace from June 30-July 7. The good: -Grounds are beautiful and well maintained -Food was good at the buffet, Il Palco restaurant and La Rocca restaurant (those were the only two restos we went to). The crepes are very good as well and are a fun treat during the day. The coffee shop was a big hit especially that there was air conditioning in there and a great break from the humidity. You should not have any issue getting food or liking something. Variety is good. The NOT so good -We had issues with some of the rooms in our group of 4 rooms. One family had to change rooms twice because the first room upon arrival had a leak from the bathroom light. The second room had an intense smell of sewage making it unbearable. The third room they received was kept but ran out of hot water one evening. As for the other 3 rooms in our group. One had a faulty air conditioner which was not very strong and a clogged shower. Another room had a major leak from the bathroom light and only after the second request, did they finally come to repair it-2 days before our departure. -Communication is difficult-most of the staff do not speak English. We were okay as some of our group members could understand Spanish but it wasn't always easy. The part that we found difficult was when going to guest services and making requests, it always took 2 times to actually get anything we requested. For example, our first day, our room was not made up. The maid explained to me that she was told that we had been moved to another room (which we had not). We were okay with that but when we asked guest service to provide us with clean towels and toilet paper, it took two requests to actually get any service. This seemed to be the trend with any request we made to guest service. The first time you ask they say yes but nothing happens. The second time they act. -The resort does not have enough seating with tables and chairs in the lobby so when we had a full night of rain, (we caught the tale end of the hurricane), we had no where that would not require us to be soaked to sit with our group and play games with the kids. The lobby bar is small and the line ups are ridiculous. Instead of all those big sofas, they should have tables and chairs. -They did have lots of seating at the snack bar but its so humid underneath that hut that it was not always comfortable. Once evening we pulled out the tables and chairs from under the hut and one of the staff came to tell us that we could stay but to make sure to put everything back to how we found it because the night before we did not. To be honest, I was quite insulted because of being reprimanded. It was our mistake the night before that we didn't return the table and 4 chairs but to be scolded like children the next night was embarrassing-he wasn't nice about it. The staff could not communicate to us because he only spoke Spanish so he called over another staff member to translate and even she looked embarrassed. -The only place where you will find air conditioning is in your room and the coffee shop. If you don't like to eat in heat then this is not the place for you. The buffet is hot and one thing that bothered us was the fact that their cheese and cold cut platters are not kept cold. The Italian resto had air conditioning too and it was comfortable. -The entertainment on the Palace side is little to non existent. They tried but even the animation team looked too hot to really want to be there. At night they always had live music but again, not really a nice seating environment to be able to properly enjoy it. -We walked over to the beach side and would have loved to sit there as it was more lively and lots of action but again, it was very busy and very little areas for big groups to stay. I guess because we were a big group, and we stayed together, it made it difficult to ever find proper seating. -On a personal level, we were meeting a nephew who lives in Dominican. His dad who is Canadian came on the trip too and he wanted to come spend a day with us at the resort on a day pass. He made the mistake and only brought a photocopy of his passport and not the original one. They refused entry to him because they needed his actual passport (so that they could take a photocopy of it). It was too far for him to return to his house in Dominican to come back. We understood that there are rules but the fact that he had his drivers license and the photocopy of his passport (which is what they would have taken), we were hoping to allow him entry. All to say, they were not allowed entry and the visit with the nephew did not happen as planned. -The service is non existent. Very few of the staff members were helpful at the buffet. The lady at the coffee shop was great. Overall, the month of July is not a great time to go because of the high humidity and lack of AC. It is a 3.5 star and nothing more. The rooms need to be renovated for sure and maybe more attention to accommodating larger groups and having better places for evening gathers.

have been to the dom rep many a time but this time thought i would go to the palace add heard it was a good hotel how wrong was i if you didn't get up a the crack of dawn you wont get a sun lounger even the beach was over crowed even the dining room was crammed many a morning i wasn't even asked if i would like a drink with breakfast .my room was lovely and cleaned everyday , the pool was just so overcrowded with kids and footballs being thrown there was not tea , coffee making facilites either the grounds are kept lovely and last but not least for the ladies if you like to go for breakfast ready for the pool or beach dont go into the dining room in a cover up as i was told to wear shorts

The resort was absolutely beautiful! 5 star service with amazing food and views. The lobster and steak dinners were the best Ive ever had. Mix that with a home made fresh pina colada and you are in heaven ! I would highly recommend this resort to anyone looking to find paradise !