Catalonia Royal La Romana

Kind personal / Osvaldo & Sophy 👍View and Sea DREAM

This was a lovely hotel on a beautiful beach. The staff were friendly and could not do enough for you. Generally the food was good though some meals were a lot better than others! It was great to have proper a la carte restaurants rather than buffet food. The animation team worked hard but the entertainment at night was a little too low key! We knew this when we booked it but there needs to be more variety and a proper two week cycle of acts. We were happy to go to the other hotel with the families and children weren't a problem!! I will recommend this hotel to friends

Just back from a very relaxing two weeks here on the adult side. Overall everything was great. We booked our meals through the app and always found a spot for supper. We did have to be up super early to get a shaded spot on the beach. By 8 a.m. mostly everything was taken. The servers on the beach were fantastic, very friendly and attentive but we do tip for each drink. We did find some of the servers to be aloof to the point of rude, and we even had one host at The Terrace roll her eyes when we didn't speak Spanish. I spoke to several food managers about our experiences and one said they are trying hard to train staff to provide better customer service but they have a lot of work to do. While we were there we were asked to fill out a survey at supper, which we did and made comments as above. We were summoned to the front desk and quizzed/interrogated about our comments which was very strange and they never acknowledged or apologized for our experience. The guests were mainly European (France, Italy, Portugal, Spain), Argentinian and then near the end a number of folks came from the UK. We travelled as friends and found it quite difficult to meet people as the adult side is very couple-y. There was one entertainment staff member who seemed to do nothing but go from sun bed to sunbed handing out a QR code and asking Spanish speaking guests to fill out Trip Advisor reviews which is why you see so many on here that are repetitive. I don't see the point of that, but it appeared to be his main occupation. The Thursday night silent disco was super fun as was the sunset beach party. The crepe hut was amazing. There is only one kind of wine and it comes in red/white/rose. I didn't love it. Other wine was available for purchase. There were baby cans of presidente in the room fridge but something different on tap. We also got oreo cookies and peanuts in our room every night. The towel thing baffled us...we would use towels and put them on the floor to be replaced but the maid didn't always take them - instead a different maid came to our room every night to give us fresh towels around 8:30 - 9 pm both beach and bath towels but didn't take the old ones. At one point we had 8 beach towels in our room. There is a place o exchange the towels on the adult side but the guys were not always at the hut, you had to ask the bartenders to get them and one was super grumpy. Small problems. I'd definitely go back. We never had any stomach issues but many people did. We stayed away from things we couldn't identify and cut burgers and other mean open to ensure it was fully cooked before we ate it. Not everything was super hot in the restaurants (the baked potato at the steak restaurant was ice cold) but the staff were so unpleasant that night that we went to the buffet on the way home.

Overall a relaxing vacation. Unfortunately there are no rules around smoking so smokers are lighting up everywhere - at the pools,on the beach sitting next to you etc. so that was super annoying. Really should be designated smoking areas in this day and age. Will look for a smoke free resort in future. Restaurants were pretty decent with great house wines. We found the staff generally helpful and kind but many of the female staff particularly in the restaurants were unfriendly, kind of scowling and seemed not to enjoy their jobs or being around people. This happened quite often not just a one off, so kind of strange to see this in a service related job. The beach was great. Sand beautiful and clean clear wam water.

Came down with our family of 5, arriving on Saturday. First case of food poisoning started Sunday, and that person was down until Monday afternoon. Daughter came down with food poisoning on Tuesday, started recovering Wednesday. At that point we decided to bail and cut short the vacation and just pay for flights home. Unfortunately, I came down with food poisoning Thursday morning. Made it to the airport where we sent the three kids home, while my wife and I wait it out in a hotel near the airport. In the time we were there we never once saw any kitchen staff temping any of the buffets (breakfast, lunch or dinner). At the lunch buffet it was open air, no covers on any food, and birds walking around picking at the food. A la carte restaurants had food pre-prepared. How do we know? Because you placed your order and the food came out 2-3 minutes later. Cold dishes were common. Raw hamburger (that we didn't eat) was disturbing. Hotel grounds were nice, beach was nice. Just hard to enjoy anything when you're stuck in your room vomiting and fighting diarrhea. In case you assume it was a one off, multiple other groups we encountered were suffering the same. One couple were so sick they couldn't make their flight out and had to stay longer. Which is why we bailed. Being stuck in a place where it seems anything you eat at any time can make you violently ill is just a nightmare. Worst vacation ever. Total and complete waste of money.