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Dominican Republic Hotel, Resort & Villa Reviews Reviews
Tropical Princess (Caribe Club Princess) 05/07/2004
Reviewers Rating:  Excellent
April 2 – 9 2004 Tropical Princess (Caribe Club Princess)
This resort is known as Caribe Club Princess; the only differences between the 2 names are the type of accommodations and number of ala cartes. It is one resort, nothing separates it; 665 rooms in total. Tropical Princess ‘rooms’ are by the quiet pool and include 2 ala cartes (the other active pools are just around the corner). (Caribe Club has ‘suites’ and a few more ala cartes).
We’re a couple aged 40 from Toronto; well traveled, 3 & 5 star resorts and destinations. We found this resort to be beautiful and very comfortable; (we were originally looking at Grand Paradise Bavro & Sirenas Cocotal as we like their layout) we found a great sell-off to Tropical Princess. We were very pleased.
Lobby: Large and beautiful, marble floors, thatched roof open air, has restrooms, a bar with stools, sofas, tables and chairs, wait-service, drinks in glassware, good drinks, drink menu. About 10 gambling video/games. Active in the evenings has a DJ and dancing from about 10:30 to 11:45.
Grounds: Very beautiful and lush, well maintained. Resort is well-laid out and easy to get around. Rooms, pools, bars, and dining are all by the beach area. The lobby, entertainment theatre, shops, internet cafe and disco are all near the resorts entrance. It’s a beautiful 5 min walk thru the mangroves with soft music playing; or you can take a shuttle, a few of them always going around.
Rooms: Very nice, clean and comfortable, felt new, no musty smells or dampness, nice decor. All buildings are 3 levels, no elevators; a concierge desk in each building to book your ala cartes. All rooms are nicely located. Nice garden or pool views. (Ocean views in Caribe section only and not that many). No complaints.
Consist of; 2 queens or 1 king, balcony with 2 chairs, good closet and drawer space, safe (two dollars a day); small table and 2 chairs, coffee maker, coffee, mini fridge, 2 small bottles each of water, coke and sprite, large umbrella, ironing board, hairdryer. TV approx 10 channels; CNN, A&E, sports, movies, etc. (mostly English, a few Spanish). Nice clean bathrooms (suites have double sinks; think rooms did too). Air worked good and water pressure fine; adjustable heads. Rooms have cards in the power unit, so it does not require you to use your key-card (if it goes off pull out card and re-insert it). Rooms and suites are equally nice.
We were given an upgrade to a suite; very nice of them. Ground floor, faced the activity pool, nice view. Suites are; rooms with an extension, few steps down into a living room area with armoire & TV; coffee table, daybed sofa (very comfy). If you like to lay in bed and watch TV directly in front of you, then rooms might be better, if you pulled out and angled the TV in the living room you could see it from the bed.
Beach: Very nice; soft sand, turquoise water, no rocks, palm trees, can walk for miles. Very busy beach; all tourists. Not enough lounge chairs; beach felt a bit packed at times. Lots of palapa huts, but were taken by 8 am. No natural shade in the open beach area. Water was wavy which brings in a bit of seaweed and makes the water not so clear. Water sports centre right down the centre; swimming areas roped off to the right and left for safe swimming. Beach and water sports were never closed due to weather; we swam every day. You can walk the beach for miles in both directions; resorts all the way along. To the left (facing water) 5 min walk to the beach vendors shopping huts. To the right ½ hr walk to another shopping area (larger) with some restaurants (Caption Cooks). Tropical Princess seemed to have the most waves. Water gets deep fast, you don’t have to go out for miles.
Pools: 3 beautiful large pools, all within a short pathway of each other. Shallow-end resembles shore line; you can walk right in. All pools have loungers and palapas.
a) Quiet pool; nice and relaxing (had a bar) no beach view.
b) Active pool geared for kids and Germans (near beach grill/bar) could see the palm trees and palapas; but not a ‘wide-open’ view of the beach.
c) Main activity pool, games, dance lessons, aerobics, swim up bar (near other beach grill/bar) same type of view as above pool (b).
Restrooms at the beach grills.
Entertainment Shows: Looked very professional. Large theatre style, thatched roof open air (we don’t care for theatre style) we really didn’t watch them. Lots of seating, but not quite enough. Did not see a bar. Kids show started at approx 8pm and adults show at 9:45. Afterwards go to the lobby (next door) DJ/dancing till 11:45. Staff get up and get the crowd dancing.
Disco: Popped in one night and it was a full house; looked like fun; had a section with sofas also.
Food: We found all the restaurants to be very tasty and offered a good variety; everything was fresh and always replenished. No complaints at all.
Dining
Main Buffet: Open air thatched roof, very large. Good selection. Made to order stations: Breakfast; crepes, waffles, omelet/egg (2 stations). Dinner; pasta, meat, fish stations. Plus a good variety of buffet items.
Beach Bars/Grills: Two of them. One at each end of the resort by the beach. Open air, outdoor or roof covered seating. Small buffet items plus grilled burgers, hotdogs, pizza. Serve yourself. Palapas block the wide open beach view. One of the grills have volleyball next to it; fun to watch the games; watch for flying balls; ha.
Brazilian: (One of the beach grills). Nice experience; good food and lots of it. They bring you different meats on a large swords and serve you a portion; very nice.
Dominican: Near the main buffet; from the outside looks like nothing special; but very cute inside; paintings and little verandas.
All night snack bar: Beach Bars are open at night for drinks; however the covered grill sections become ala cartes. At 11 pm one of the grills becomes the all night snack bar. Small buffet items plus grilled burgers, hotdogs a coffee machine with cappuccino, moccachino, espresso.
There are more ala cartes; Japanese, Creole, Italian, Seafood; our package did not include them however for just $8US pp we could dine; Seafood $20US pp; we found 2 ala cartes to be more then enough along with the buffet and beach grills.
Internet Cafe: $5US for half hour; about 5 computers. Not a log in type; they just sit there and time you. Have MSN AOL and Yahoo messengers. Worked fine.
Other: Resort felt safe. Had a lively feel, always something to do or something going on. Had ping pong, darts, shuffle-board. On certain nights vendors set up outside by the buffet area and sell art, coffee, rum, jewelry, etc. There is a bulletin board near the activity pool listing the days and nights entertainment and activities. Not a lot of English speaking staff; but staff all very friendly
We took a cab to and from the airport; $22 US plus tip one way. Off the resort; Bavro Plaza and the beach shops the locals are very pushy and make it very annoying to shop. Easter Week; Good Friday water sports closed (half day Thurs water centre decided to close) but that was it. Everything open.
Weather: Beautiful. It was cloudy one day and rained late afternoon on 2 days; but other then that it was sunny and hot and always a nice breeze. Nights were perfect; just a couple of nights it got a bit muggy.
We felt the resort was very deserving of its rating and would even give it 4.5 stars.
Always watch for those slippery wet tiles, they are dangerous.
Enjoy!
Resort website: http://www.princesshotelsandresorts.com/tropical/index.html
L & E
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