Puerto Plata, Casa Marina Reef Hotel Review

Overall Rating

The resort is amazing, it's clean, beautiful and has lots of communal area's large swimming pools and also some more private areas around the cliff side jacuzzis as well as two private golden sandy beaches one with sports and one without. The entertainment in the amphitheatre is top notch, very professionally put together as is the daily games around the main swimming pool, normally held around 11am and 3pm the staff are friendly and all make you feel very welcome and the excursions are fantastic especially ocean world and the mega trucks.

The food is very varied and they have a different theme every night in the buffet restaurant as well as the three specialised restaurants on site (Mexican, Seafood and Italian). The Mexican restaurant food is not very good in my opinion and neither was the sea food, it was all either bland or salty. I definitely missed home cooking some nights.

We had a fantastic holiday overall at the Casa Marina Reef Hotel and weren't bored for a minute, the daily games around the main swimming pool are very professional, normally held around 11am and 3pm the staff are friendly and all make you feel very welcome and the excursions are fantastic especially ocean world and the mega trucks.
We ventured out of the complex a few times but ensured we listened to our rep when they told us the places we shouldn't go. The shop keepers and stall owners all bugged us a lot to check out their stores which mostly had the same stuff so once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all. We took our life into our own hands when crossing the main road to get to the supermarket in Sosua coz of some of the crazy motorbike drivers but I would definitely recommend it as the prices there are so much cheaper than the hotel shop which you cant barter in. Any stall you visit anywhere always barter down to at least a third of the price they first offer you as they are always hiking up the prices for tourists a lot and expect you to barter. The Dominican people are very cheeky and love to have a laugh with you, they know every trick in the book to engage you in conversation but they were always friendly even if you politely tell them you are not interested. Definitely check out some of the excursions, the mega trucks is a must do you get to see so much of the culture the beautiful land taste the local drinks, cigars, coffee and cocoa, ride horses and visit a typical Dominican house and school as well as a deserted untouched paradise beach and the land that Jurassic park was filmed in, getting all the more drunk with the free bar on board as you go. Ocean World is just fantastic, we swum with sharks dolphins sting rays and played with sea lions, it was incredible. We also went up the mountain on a cable car and visited a rum factory and an amber factory. The mountain was breathtaking it had a replica of the statue of Jesus in Rio that was donated to the Dominicans by Brazil, it was really big and the views were awesome. Overall it was a phenomenal success and we were very happy we went.