Hotel & Villa Reviews Dominican Republic - Occidental Grand Flamenco Puerto Plata All-Inclusive 12/28/2005

Occidental Grand Flamenco Puerto Plata All-Inclusive 12/28/2005
Reviewers Rating: Great
Our 2-week stay in Hotel Occidental Grand Flamenco (December 8 – 22, 2005) in Puerto Plata, on Playa Dorada, convinced us that all-inclusive was the way for us to go – it was wonderful to be able to eat and drink anything you wanted any time you wanted, without dealing with money! And it definitely saves you money (eating – and drinking - out every day gets expensive), unless you’re one of those types who like to go off exploring every day and only sleeps at their hotel. Even if you did go out of the resort area (which has pretty much everything you’d need and want!) a lot, you’d still be able to have breakfast and dinner at the hotel most of the time.
Here’s our take on Hotel Occidental Grand Flamenco:
THE HOTEL AND ROOMS: The hotel area was very clean, beautiful, and well laid-out. But the rooms (at least our room, in building 4, ground floor, room 4102), although spacious, were very modest in their furnishings (they may have more updated rooms in other units). The furniture was old and worn out, as was also the TV, which didn’t get very good reception (although had a nice variety of channels, including some USA ones). The beds were so-so: not very big, and according to Tepa, a little too hard (Riia was OK with hers). The balcony, or in our case, a balcony-terrace on the ground, was medium size and fine to sit around in, but only had a plastic table and a chair - but you could move 2 wooden chairs and a table out from inside the room. The bathroom was spacious. Our phone didn’t work and the faucet in our bathtub/shower combo dripped, but these things didn’t bother us so we never asked them to be fixed. The air conditioning worked well, and the closet was a nice size (the room also had a desk/chest combo with 4 large drawers, so plenty of space for our clothes and stuff). Unlike many all-inclusive hotels that have small refrigerators in the rooms (some even with a complimentary mini bar which gets filled every day!), this one unfortunately didn’t have a fridge – this was the one feature we really wished was included, because it would have been nice to keep cold drinks in the room. There were no bugs or insects in the room, EXCEPT when we once left a sweet soft drink in the room for several hours: then tiny ants appeared (they were so little you could barely see them with the naked eye), but they disappeared as soon as we threw the drink away, so we learned not to leave any food or sweet drinks around. All in all, we were OK with our room, although for a 4-star hotel, we’d rate the room as only 2 stars.
RESTAURANTS, FOOD and DRINK: La Giralda, the main restaurant (buffet-style), serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and you can wander in any time they are open – we always found a table with no problem. We found the food here quite good with much variety at all times. The only bad things were too runny scrambled eggs during breakfasts (but you can have your own omelet made, and there are fine fried eggs), and the beef, whenever served at lunch or dinner, was always too hard to chew (we stuck to chicken dishes which were the best, and some pork). Overall, we were happy with La Giralda, and one can always find something or things to their liking there. Although they vary their offerings each day to some degree (and have some theme nights, like a Chinese night), you may start getting tired of it in 2 weeks if you eat nowhere else.
There are also four a-la-carte restaurants which are included in the all-inclusive packet but for these you have to make reservations (while we were there, the reservation desk was open daily 3-10 pm, and there was always a line by 3 pm). Seatings for these restaurants are at 7 pm and 9 pm. By far the best of these is D’ Oriental, for which you can only make reservations the same day you want to go there – this restaurant is very popular, so be sure to line up by 3 pm for it or you won’t get a table. We also liked Las Reses, a Brazilian-style meat restaurant in which you didn’t actually order from a menu: they kept bringing all types of meats to your table (chicken, fish, pork, beef….) and they were good. The third one is an Italian restaurant, which we didn’t try (Riia cooks a lot of Italian at home, and the buffet at La Giralda always had some pasta dishes), and the forth one is outdoors Mexican (El Lago bar turned into a restaurant in the evenings), which we didn’t much care for (very average food). As we mentioned, during the day you could also eat in Las Marismas at the beach, and in the afternoons, El Lago also served hot dogs, hamburgers, and salad. Other than for some 4 hours in the wee hours of the morning, you could ALWAYS find some place to get something to eat at this hotel, which was great. Note that all restaurants require that you wear long pants/dress for dinners. You can wear shorts for breakfast and lunch.
Soft drinks, coffee and tea, wine, beer, and local alcoholic drinks are included in the all-inclusive packet, and served at the restaurants and bars of the hotel. We had our share of Bahama Mamas, Tequila Sunrises, Rum Sours, Bloody Marys, etc! The coffee is excellent, by the way (brand: Santo Domingo)!
Water from the faucet is not drinkable in Dominican Republic. All buildings had drinking water available in the hallway.
THE BEACH and THE POOLS: The hotel is on Playa Dorada, which is a very nice and quite clean beach. There are other hotels using the beach, too, adjacent to this one. We went to see the beach a few times but didn’t spend much time there only because we are not sun-worshippers (don’t like to lie out in the sun). Each time we went, the beach wasn’t very crowded, which is nice. The hotel has a snack bar (also serves alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks) called Las Marismas on the beach, which serves a small lunch buffet with grilled stuff. You can get a massage or your hair braided on the beach, and there are some locals (but we didn’t see very many) selling stuff like souvenirs, jewelry, oil paintings and t-shirts, but fortunately they are not TOO pushy, and leave you alone if you tell them firmly ‘no gracias’ (no thank you).
The pools were wonderful, kept very clean, and easy to get in and out of. You can walk into the main pool, and play volley ball etc. in a smaller pool near the reception. There’s a kid’s pool too, but we saw kids mostly in the main pool with adults. There are showers by the pools (and also near the beach). Lots of sunning beds by the main pool and on the beach; it seemed to us that you could always find one to use.
You can get beach towels at the hotel in return of a deposit (which you get back), so you don’t need to bring your own. You leave a deposit on the first day, and at the end of the day you bring the towel back and get a receipt for a fresh one on the next day, and so on, until your last day when you receive the deposit back as you return the towel for the last time.
ACTIVITIES: There are lots of activities, some (e.g., ping pong, basketball, mini golf, snorkeling, Spanish and dance lessons, shows) included in the all-inclusive packet, and others (motor sports, golf, etc.) available for extra cost. See the hotel’s web site for more info: http://www.occidental-hoteles.com/ (search internally for this particular hotel). We only wished they had a casino in this hotel (there are a couple of casinos in the other hotels nearby).
SERVICE: The service we found very good and friendly, and most of the time quite fast in all areas (reception, bars, restaurants). The staff speaks English. Although tips are included in the all-inclusive packet, it’s a nice touch for you to sometimes tip in the a-la-carte restaurants and in the bar you use the most at the hotel – the locals work long hours for very little pay.
The only thing we were disappointed at was that our food packets were not made for the day we left early for an all-day tour (our guide said the hotel only ‘remembers’ to make them 50% of the time). You can make a request for such a packet at the 24-hour reception desk the day before your tour (before 6 pm), if your tour leaves before breakfast (i.e., before 7 am).
SHOPPING: The hotel has a small shopping arcade inside it, where you find souvenirs, art, cigars, booze etc. to buy – but the prices are of course higher than in the towns! There’s also a shopping plaza next door with more stores and some restaurants, but because this is located in the tourist area in Playa Dorada, the prices are often higher here too. Puerto Plata has shops and a bazaar-style market which we recommend. Everywhere you go (inside or outside the tourist area), remember to haggle! You can get what you want to buy for HALF the asking price or even less, if you haggle! Things to buy: Brugal rum (good and cheap, 4 to 6 USD per bottle); cigars (buy from a real cigar store to get the real stuff, not some hand-rolled crap individuals sell on the beaches and streets); colorful Dominican oil paintings; amber or larimar jewelry (be sure you get the real stuff, not fake); Santo Domingo coffee. Cigarettes are cheaper than in most places in Europe and the USA: only about 13 USD per carton.
TRANSPORTATION: Playa Dorada is an exclusive tourist area with lots of hotels, and you will most likely want to visit other parts to see more, and do some shopping. Your trip provider probably has tours you can take (we were with Aurinkomatkat, a Finnish travel agency, and did 3 trips with them: one to the capital Santo Domingo, one around Puerto Plata, and one Jeep Safari which took us to the country side and small Dominican villages – this last one was by far our favorite!), and there are local tour providers at the hotel as well as at Playa Dorada Plaza. But if you want to go somewhere on your own (we went to Sosua Beach), you can either take a local bus from the main road (very cheap, would have been only 20 or 30 pesos per person one way to Sosua Beach, which is about/less than a dollar), or a taxi (very expensive!). You can haggle over taxi costs, too, but they are still quite high (although it’s not too bad if you share with others, e.g., have at least 4 people go together). We wanted to go to Sosua and right as we walked out of our hotel area, guys were always going ‘Taxi? Taxi?’. We asked how much it was, and it sounded to us (the conversation was in English) like the guy said ‘fifteen dollars’ for a round trip (they’ll wait for you and bring you back after you’re done where ever you go, or you can ask for a one-way price). This was of course too good to be true: on arrival back at the hotel, we found out it was FIFTY dollars (the guy and one of the hotel staff showed us the sign by the hotel, which we had not noticed before leaving). After some arguing, we ended up paying the 50 dollars, but had we understood that that was the price, we would NOT have taken the cab (we probably would have been able to haggle a lower price at the taxi station located at the plaza). So if you DO take a cab, make sure you and the taxi driver both are saying the same thing: write the price down for the driver to check your agreement, or say the price in Spanish (we kicked ourselves for not doing that, as we knew 15 is diez y cinco).
THINGS WE RECOMMEND YOU BRING WITH YOU (regardless which hotel you choose):
- Mostly US dollars, which you can change locally to Dominican pesos as needed (pesos are hard to change back, so only keep changing as you need them). Pretty much every place and every person takes US dollars for payment. Bring/keep one dollar bills (and/or 20 and 50 pesos bills) with you for occasions where you want to tip someone.
- Sun tan lotion and a hat! Tropical climate, so even during the coolest months, it’s mostly hot, around 30 degrees Celsius/over 80 degrees Fahrenheirt.
- An umbrella. Tropical showers can unexpectedly come down hard, and if you’re at a resort like this one where you need to walk outside to go anywhere, this comes handy and keeps you from getting soaking wet, e.g. on your way to dinner!
- Large cups and/or large plastic glasses or bottles. The cups/glasses you get at the restaurants and the bars are small, and you may want to take a big drink with you to your room or somewhere else, so you can ask your own cup/glass/bottle to be filled up with a drink of your choice. The plastic bottles (e.g., empty 20-ounce soft drink bottles) come handy for tours: we always had these filled up with mineral water or soft drinks at one of the bars before we left the hotel area. If you don’t bring them from home, you can of course purchase such soft drink bottles from some stores there, and keep filling them up.
- If you plan to go on some safari or see small towns on your own, a great thing to bring for the Dominican kids would be some notebooks and pencils.
- Long pants/dress for dinners.
This was our first time in an all-inclusive resort, but definitely won’t be the last! We would recommend Hotel Occidental Grand Flamenco to all those not too fussy about their rooms, and who do not mind not having a fridge in the room.
See http://www.worldisround.com/home/riiatepa/index.html for our pictures of the hotel and of the tours we took while in Dominican Republic!

Grand Flamenco Puerto Plata by Occidental

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Open-air beachfront disco

• This tropical-village, All-Inclusive resort in the classy Playa Dorada enclave has eight restaurants and an open-air disco.
• From guestrooms featuring spacious balconies or patios, guests stroll to a shopping mall and a golf course.
• A long beach, two pools, and myriad activities provide daytime fun. Later, families flock to a pizzeria on a rooftop piazza.
• This All-Inclusive resort includes various amenities in the room price.

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