Catalonia Royal La Romana

We really did enjoy our 14 days stay here. The hotel is beautiful and offers a good range of entertainment both in the day and evening. We tried all the restaurants on site and most of them were very nice. Our favourite being Thalassa and Bloved. You do have to book the restaurants via the app and they can get booked up quickly. Big shout out to Rolando in Bloved who did a great job of looking after us and especially Berenice who kept delivering the refreshing drinks at the Bar Aqua during the day. Both are a credit to the hotel. The beach was stunning however it is extremely difficult to get a place in the shade as people reserve them as early as 6am, I feel the hotel should address this. One thing we did find was that some staff could be borderline rude to guests, this is simply not expected from a 5 star hotel and there was definitely a language barrier that could make asking for the simplest of things quite hard, however both my husband and myself tried our best to speak Spanish as much as we could. Would we come back again? Probably not, however we did enjoy our holiday.

The good… Well appointed huge room. Housekeeping very efficient thank you Milena for looking after us. All around the hotel areas the grounds, pools were beautifully maintained. Thalassa breakfast was very good, egg station plus everything else in abundance. Staff very helpful and friendly did help that my husband spoke Spanish or could have been a bit difficult at times. The only one very unwelcoming was the maitre d lady in Tao Cat. Totally different atmosphere on her night off. Drinks and drink waiting staff all excellent. Not so good…. Yep 5.30 in the morning towels out on the beach. If you was not at the front shaded beds then yes you didn’t get an ocean view but more for us you got wafted all day with cigarette and worse cigar smoke absolutely filthy. This was all over in the hotel to the point of some evenings we had to move inside. Food was awful pre cooked not re heated properly. Husband was really ill after eating a tiny amount of fish from the buffet. At Thalassa one lunch time he was served raw chicken. We spoke to a few people who had been sick too also hotel next door. After this we were nervous to eat anything asking for it to be hot as mostly served cold. We found that the quality of the meat was slightly better at the adults only restaurant but even that was hit and miss same plate next day tough and gristly. We really struggled to find anything apart from breakfast that we enjoyed and was well cooked. I asked for some vegetables one evening in Thalassa to be told no sorry we don’t serve vegetables. Tui transfer flight at 5pm picked up at 12! Ridiculous. All said we had a nice time, beach was lovely but no chance of any bed with shade after 8am. Would not return.

-Food, at restaurants great Buffet gross -Grounds Beautiful -Staff most are great. Special shout out to Oscar and Diego at the pool bar. Amazing people. So sweet and entertaining. Rooms - very nice Biggest drawback to this resort is beach chairs. If you don't get up at 5 AM To put out towels your out of luck for view of the ocean. I will attach a photo. It's thr one reason I wouldn't come back

Absolutely beautiful resort with a stunning beach—truly one of the highlights of our trip. The La Romana area itself is gorgeous, and we overall enjoyed our stay. That said, there were several issues that made the experience frustrating at times. The biggest challenge was communication. There is a significant language barrier, and many staff members speak very little English. This led to frequent mix-ups with food orders, difficulty getting assistance, and an overall lack of clarity throughout our stay. We were told to use WhatsApp to communicate with staff, but messages often went unanswered or required multiple follow-ups. Upon arrival, we were placed in the wrong room with no explanation. It wasn’t until the next day—after asking—that we were told, and it took three nights to finally be moved to the correct room. Room service also failed to show up one day without notice. There were also some frustrating policy issues. We weren’t informed about the beach towel exchange rules, and after turning ours in at the beach kiosk, we were told the next day we couldn’t get new ones. It took escalating to management to resolve it. We also went a full day without hot water. As for food, the buffet was disappointing, but the à la carte restaurants were excellent. Drinks were consistently great. While some staff members were very kind and helpful (shoutout to Shirell for being friendly and speaking good English), many others came across as disengaged or even rude—likely due to the communication gap. There wasn’t much of a welcoming or hospitable feel overall. We are easygoing travelers and still managed to enjoy our trip, but we wouldn’t recommend this resort to non-Spanish speakers at this time. If the communication and service issues were improved, this place would have the potential to be truly incredible.

Anyelo at the beach bar is fantastic, really attentive and his English is superb as Catalonia is predominantly a Spanish speaking resort. I would highly recommend!