Enjoyed

Very well designed resort. Clean and well maintained Nice beach, plenty of room well maintained and cleaned daily. Personnel ready to make extra steps to satisfaction of customers. Good coffee. Room cleaned with replacing towels and bedding daily.

Nice place to enjoy the sun with family

Hotel has a very nice and clean beach to stay with kids and enjoy the weather. There are few restaurants and bars in the resort, and the food is fine with different menus every day. The rooms are old but very clean.

Star rating needs to be changed

Where should I start... Day 1.. arrived at the resort... no welcome drink or hot towel to show us we are welcome here We had a private check in.. again .. nothing to make us feel welcome Went to our ocean view room... I had booked a king.. got 2 double beds, toilet flush was not working, telephone was not working, air conditioning was leaking... and to add to that was given no wifi password! Had to trek to reception to have them change our room.... Ok new room... better... but not a 4.5 sta [... read more]r rating.. more like a 3 star Food is blah... the a la cartes can be better Buffet is very small... there is no variety at all!.. whether it's breakfast lunch or dinner... there is no variety whatsoever!! And the meats in the buffet are very undercooked! The snack bar with burgers wings and fries is ok... burgers are undercooked.. have to get them to redo them Mini bar is not restocked at all!!! I had to ask... and all I got was 2 beers!!! Cleanliness of the room is not too good either The staff is very nice, but there is probably only 1% of them that understand English!!... but still very nice !! And quite honestly the beach is the best part of this resort... nothing else!! This is not a 4plus star resort... this is less than a 3 star! And definitely not worth the money I spent!!

Great resort

Considering our present pandemic state, everything was great, quite enjoyable. Would definitely love to do it again, under better global circumstances, to see the real fullness of the resort. Would have loved to take a trip off the property itself and see the locals, maybe visit some of the restaurants and sites. Don't get me wrong there was enjoyment on the resort itself but the variety and the options would have made things that much better. The Corona virus has put a strangle hold on many th [... read more]ings, people, places.....but I'm happy to see how great the resort handled the situation, hats off to them, wonderful work.

Poor experience

This was my 7th time in the Dominican Republic and my first time at an Emotions resort. The hotel experience with awful overall. Customer service was very disappointing. They seemed annoyed everytime I approached them. Information they gave me was inconsistent. It seemed impossible to receive service at the restaurants other than a la cartes. Communication was inconsistent and incorrect most of the time. Room wasn’t great. We had to change rooms after two days because our bathroom flooded into [... read more] the bedroom after every shower. No one helped us move our luggage to the new room. We had to call for towels 6 of the 14 days and even then they only brought a full towel set twice out of the 14 days. When we complained about the service they sent us a bottle of champagne. We decided to save it for our last night and two days later our house keeper took the bottle for a friend of her because she said she thought we didn’t want it. Our “mini bar” we stocked with a beer pop and water - we had to request that it was refilled every day. Food was okay nothing special. Bar only insisted on giving white rum with drinks even when I specifically asked for dark. When I needed to find out what time my bus was coming to take me to the airport it took 4 days to get ahold of my travel rep. In the end they gave me the phone number and told me to call them on my own. The phone in my room did not work and wifi was non existent. We met a few other couples throughout our stay and the awful experience was mutual. Some of them paid for excursions but the bus never came to pick them up. Some had kids in their private adult pools. I was truly disappointed that when I addressed a concern the service seemed to get worse. They didn’t seem interested in pleasing their guests. This was an engagement trip for me and my fiancé. We made the best of the beach - which was great and the coffee bar - which was also great! We made the best of it but I would never go back to that resort.

Worst resort ever!

Dirty hotel rooms, unprofessional staff, food was alright, service was horrible no towels were provided and ran out of beach towels, this hotel is falsely advertised as a 4-star but it’s actually a one star.

Definitely will return !

We loved this resort. We had a few reservations from some reviews we had read, but we were pleasantly surprised. The beach is beautiful, the accommodations great, comfortable beds. We stayed on the Essentia side and would definitely book this again. We did not have an ocean view room, but we didn’t mind. Private pools, walkways, massages....it was all great.

Great couples and group vacation

We traveled as a couple along with 3 other couples and 3 single males. Like any resorts it has its pros and cons. We were in a swim up room which included the use of another pool. One thing about this resort is there are too many different groups/levels which results in many areas being restricted. VIP group, Bravo group and the adults only pool. It becomes confusing that there are so many levels and many areas you can't access if you have a regular room. An example is if you have a regular room [... read more] you can only access one of the four pools. Seems a little over kill on the up graded packages. Services was average. More of a language barrier than you will see in Cuba. Bar was only stocked with the basics so no fun shots, just rum, vodka etc. Male members of the staff will hit on females, calling them beautiful, hot, sexy etc. Venders on the beach and set up on the resorts are very aggressive and relentless. You truly just have to ignore them or say no thank you and they will move on. They had an odd rule of not allowing drinks in the pool, you weren't even allowed to sit on the side with your legs. We found this really odd, as we had never experienced this down south before. Rooms were nice, in good condition and clean. Wifi worked but was slow, enough to check in on things back home. The resort is very small, short walk to the beaches, pools, bars, buffet. Beach and pool were both not crowded which is very important for us. Most days we weren't up until 8:30-9am and had no issues getting a chair in the shade. Food was good, always able to find something to eat. The animation team was a lot of fun and definitely made our trip more fun/memorable. The MJ show was great. Overall, we enjoyed out stay and would come back again.

Appearances aren’t everything!!

Starting with getting off the bus the hotel looks great. The walls are freshly painted, landscape was nicely trimmed. The lobby is very small. There were 2 bus loads of people to check in. 4 staff working the check in counter. The staff were pretty decent at English. There were no rooms available at that time, we all had to come back a couple hours later to get our rooms. They did give us our bracelets so that we could go get food. On our way to go get food a timeshare guy was hounding us pr [... read more]etending he wasn’t timeshare. When they did give us our room we had no towels and only got one room key. Internet was very poor. Hardly ever worked. Internet connection with no access. The back pool was vacuumed every day. Adult pool had a dead gecko in it for 2 days, and was only cleaned once in the whole week. Jacuzzi was full of sand. All pools and jacuzzis were super cold. Ocean was warmer. Music was way too loud at the main pool. Not as many restaurants as advertised. Easy to book dinner reservations. Buffet had a limited selection. A la carte restaurant food was always over cooked. Service was painfully slow.... 3 hours for a meal at the Mexican. Lunch and dinner buffets were pretty much the same foods. No variety day to day either. Bar had not much of a selection for drinks. Bartenders were not very good with English. Bar menu had 12 drinks. Each bartender made the drinks differently. Disposable cups were great, meant no lipstick on “washed” glasses. Beach was well kept. Local sales people hounded you at the beach all day. Always hustling. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Hotel allowed local sales guys to set up markets strategically at spots you had to walk through in order to get to the beach or main pool or restaurants.... no other way around. The rooms were a good size, clean, updated. Some people had clothing go missing from their bags. Safe was too small. No towel rack on the balcony. Deadbolt didn’t work on the door. Archery and the bicycle tour was great. Evening entertainment was hardly ever in English. Resort is very French driven. English were excluded from activities. 90% of the staff were professional and courteous. Some staff mocked us when we couldn’t speak their language, being pretty rude about it.

Beautiful spot!

The layout of this resort is great. We loved the side we were on we were in room 1120 on the adults only side. The food was just good nothing to rave about. The burgers at the 24hour snack bar were always delicious tho and hand made! Buffet by the Mexican restaurant is better then the ocean front one, there is more variety. Service was great for the most part. At the a la cartes the service was understaffed and if you were younger you could tell service was different then if you were a family or [... read more] an older couple. We enjoyed the beach the water and white sand was great. The swim up room was great we used our pool everyday! We definitely enjoyed ourselves but definitely would rate this more of a 4 star.

Juste

Les chambres sont propres d'une valeur 3 étoiles, les personnels comme Maiki au restaurant très sympa gentil. L'hôtel doit avoir d'autre équipe d'animation les show sont désastreux. La plage n'est pas

Excellent

Accommodations and service were all excellent. Food was acceptable albeit plain without much change on a daily basis. All of the staff were exceptionally friendly and went out of their way to make you feel special.

Good resort

The resort was nice, the people were polite. Great activities for kids. The room was good the only issue was getting beach towels and having the room towels changed. Otherwise, overall, we had a good time.

Clean

resort is clean and comfortable but there is sand fly my wife got bumps and sore the food is good as resort food goes some people complaining that the hotel too far (punta cana to juan dolio) but I enjoin the ride but do not ( I said do not) a book a trip from reunners if don't speak in spanish

Ok 4 Star !

We’ve been at the emotions mid June before vacation got a good deal and want it to try something else . The hotel by itself is small compare to Bahia or iberostar ... for us it was a plus ... the service is good ... we were with my 3 year old daughter ... had some entertainment. Lot of local go there from Thursday- Sunday ... expect to meet a lot of them because this hotel is not far from the capital ... Pool was not maintain properly ( only 2 pools ) ... local eat and drink in the pool but I  [... read more]guess is normal . Try to do the Catalina excursion . This hotel is average compare to Similar hotel . You have to try all the restaurent à la carte ( but the Asian) . Good luck !

Great resort!

First off, the food was very good! Lots of variety and seldom repetitious. The staff were very friendly and looked after any concerns or questions immediately. The toilet wouldn't flush one day and the maid informed maintenance and he was there and had it fixed in 15 mins. They seemed to genuinely care about the clientele. The grounds were well looked after and the beach was cleaned up every morning. The only negative I had was the speil by elite for travel deals with Hodelpa in other parts [... read more] of the world. The original concierge and another both stated it was a 90 minute presentation but could leave after 20 mins and still get a free massage. Why not, so the main guy ( name escapes me) was very insistent we sign and stay for 90 minutes or don't waste their time. I said I am on vacation, I am relaxing not being forced to sit for 90 mins if I am not interested. I said the guys said I could leave in 20 minutes. No, that's not how it works! Well I said they need to get on the same page then. His assistant gave us massage vouchers for the trouble regardless. However, here is the catch...the "free" 15 minute massage you receive is AFTER you have a 1 hour massage which is $85 USD. All in all though, I was extremely happy with my stay there.

Average Resort

Resort was ok..... paid for an upgrade didn't feel like I got my money's worth. Was suppose to have private check in. The VIP concierge was closed when I got there. Asked for beer for my room twice and didn't receive any!!! Food was good but not great......

Stay @ Hodelpa Juan Dolio

We just came back from a 12 day stay at this resort. We stayed in building 5 on the ground floor. It was very quiet and the room was clean. Wifi was not that strong, however came in clear in other areas. The food was great especially at the three al a carts which we took advantage of. The Mexican and the Dominican were our favs. The staff was friendly and the grounds were always being cleaned. It was seaweed season there but that did not deter us from swimming in the ocean. The beach was constan [... read more]tly being raked. No trouble getting chairs on the beach. There were vendors but very polite. What impressed me the most was that the booze was not forced on anyone but available on request. Only complaint was the music could have been a few decimals lower for us older folks.

Great Resort...we will be back

We stayed at the Essentia Club on the Beach. Never a line-up at the Buffet's (usual resort food). A la Carte's a little weak, no different than the Chic Resort, but not as good as Majestic Resort. Building was a little tired but clean and air conditioning worked, ample towels. Would like to have had a bottle of Rum in the room but fridge stocked daily with water, beer and soft drinks. Do not bother booking the Swim out rooms they are not like the pictures you see from Emotions in Puerto Pla [... read more]ta. The swim pool gets NO sunlight and the view is of a vine covered wall with noisy traffic on other side. We switched rooms to across the hall (no problems with this request) and were much happier with the less expensive room overlooking the private pool and the Ocean. From this room we were steps away from the pool, ocean, buffet and bar. The highlight of the resort is the amazing service and friendly staff. If other people are having problems with service and staff its a surprise to me. If you have a problem with sales people simply say no the 1st time they ask and they will be respectful. Keep in mind they are just trying to make a living but if you have no intention of buying tell them that so you don't waste their time. The free trip to Santo Domingo was worthwhile. The free Resort Spa massage was a bonus. The reports of dogs on the beach made my spouse and I a little apprehensive, but turns out the dogs were good and did not bother the guests. The beach is sandy but the shoreline has pockets of coral so beach/water shoes are recommended for comfort when in the ocean. God activation team if you like that kind of thing, we did not participate and were not pressured to do so. Always lots of available chairs on the beach and poolside. We would recommend the Lobster or Steak dinner ($40. us) on the beach as it was well worth it. Staff are happy to receive tips but do not pressure or ask for them.

Good overall all-inclusive vacation

The coffee cafe and pool area a nice touch. Room was fine (toilet out of commission one day), though a comfortable chair would have been appreciated. Buffets great, specialty restaurants pretty good (Italian the best). Beach and swimming above average, though lounge availability in the shade could be better. Plenty of activity, staff very friendly and helpful in every part of the resort. Multi generational family had a great time.