It's okay

We had the Essentia It's not a real exclusive thing You dont have a real the private access to the beach , only few chairs in front of the beach with a little fenced with a little sign. No supervision on who has the access or not. As for the restaurant , the only advantage is that you need to go see the concierge at the Essenta lounge instead on the main lobby but you don't have exclusivity on the hours and you can only reserve 2 days at the time. Food was good service too , but you do [... read more]n't feel that you are Essentia except for the pool access.

Not as advertised - Paid more than it was worth

Understanding that resort ratings can vary from country to country please understand that my review will be as objective as possible. Also note that my back ground is in facilities management as I currently manage 185 facilities of various sizes or 11 000 000 square feet of occupied space for over 1200 people. Rating scale out of 5, with 5 being the highest. Legitimate Hotel Rating: 3 as compared to the Sandals Brand Transfer to the hotel from the airport: 3 - About a 2 hour trip, no st [... read more]ops, no bathrooms. Road conditions are very good and well policed so I felt safe the entire way there and back. Condition of Hotel: 3 - based on the over all condition of the rooms and the resort. The grounds are well kept, including pools and common areas. The rooms are in varying states of disrepair and the original build quality is not great. Our rooms had mold around the air conditioning supply line, could be corrected with a little insulation, the doors on our closet were broken, or taken off, the bathroom fan did not work, the caulking around the sing was pulled away from the wall the in room safe did not work. Gym: 5 - The gym is excellent, free weights, modern equipment, lots of space, heavy bag. Spa: 4.5 - The spa is excellent, steam sauna etc. I had a massage, it wasn't the best but not going to complain as it was included in my package. Beach & Grounds: 4.5 - excellent, safe, well maintained, no life guards and the pools are cold, there are no non motorized water sports ie. sail boats etc. There is a dive shop, extra cost, and the animation staff are always offering beach front activities, yoga, volleyball, other games, etc. Night Club: 2.5 - small, poor drink quality, not the greatest music Hotel Security: 3 - The hotel is not gated and there is no front line from road security in place. I was a little uncomfortable with this at the beginning but realized later that the hotel is in a safer area of the Dominican (walked the beach freely) and that there were security roaming the various access areas, beach etc. There were vendors on the beach but they were respectful and did not harass, I would simply say No mas and they would go away. Hotel Staff: 4 - Make sure you book as a VIP, this is a time share resort and you will receive preferred treatment as a VIP. Front desk staff do not make customer service a priority regardless of your guest status. VIP rooms are near the beach, our house keeper, Pool/beach waitress Adileni, bartender (Toni night bartender), dinning and kitchen staff went out of their way to make our stay special. Maintenance staff were always working on the grounds, our room deficiencies were never addressed but that's probably more of a management thing. Food: 3.5 - I would have rated this a 3 but the New Years celebration was over the top with amazing food selection and quality. The reservations for dinning were very hard to get, the buffet was the same selection day after day, the food was Ok and as they say, "we could always find something" (at a real 4+star this isn't something you say). breakfast was the best meal of the day. My go too's were the egg station, pasta bar, soup & bread (both amazing). Fresh fruit at breakfast was great too. There were restaurants that you could pay to eat and drink that I did not go to. Beverage quality and options: 2 - The coffee bar was excellent though regular coffee at the buffet was terrible, juices were chemical tasting or may some kind of concentrate, fountain pop was typically flat, not fresh, alcohol was sub standard and I think the draft beer was non alcohol "near bear". Al in all, not even close to 4+ star quality

Terrible Resort

This is the worst hotel we’ve ever had the misfortune to attend. We are pretty easygoing traveller and expect to run into some concerns when travelling to another country but this was an unimaginable horror story. Staff is rude and ignorant, they will only go out of their way for anyone speaking Spanish. The food is barely passable. The alcohol is sub-par and watered down. They have 3 public pools that are never cleaned. Three days before we left the sides of the pool were green and slimy. Eve [... read more]n when someone told them the pool was disgusting they didn’t clean it. Someone put a hose and a vacuum in the pool, walked away and two hours later came back and removed everything and left. I suppose that was their idea of cleaning the pool. Paid for a Steak and lobster dinner only to be told they had run out of lobster. Paid for an Essentia package with a swim out only to arrive and be told they had given our room to someone else and no others were available. No offers to return our money. Nothing you can do about it because no one there speaks a word of English. There is No main lobby. There’s a covered area with one couch that 300 people all try to congregate around to use the WIFI because that’s the only area it works. There’s a road that runs between the main lobby and the essentia rooms that require a crossing guard because there are trucks, cars, vans and motorcycles constantly running through. The smell of gas and exhaust is nauseating. Do not waste your money. I’m sickened by the amount of money we spent to go to this resort to be let down so miserably. If there are any good reviews of an Emotions resort I would presume it’s not the Emotions located in juan dolio. There are two resorts and unfortunately we got stuck at this crappy place. There are also ants, cock roaches and other bugs in the rooms. I could write another page of complaints but will leave it at this.

Beautiful resort, country and all inclusive vacation

The rooms were very clean and updated, the staff was absolutely fantastic. The food was 9/10 and there was lots of variety in the buffets. The grounds were constantly being maintained and there was plenty of beautiful areas to sit and enjoy the scenery. We traveled with our 9month old son and we were accommodated perfectly with a crib in the room and a first floor room. I highly reccomend booking through trip central and staying at emotions. The only negative I can say was that they tried hard t [... read more]o sell us on the time share/VIP section of the resort....and that since we stayed on the Dominican labour day there were lots of locals at the resort and it did get pretty busy over their long weekend. One of my favourite things was the cafe that served specialty coffees and my husband loved the sports bar that played American basketball games! I highly reccomend this resort!

Small, but it has everything

The resort was small and a town road cut the "beach side" off from the "main side" where the lobby, pool and shops were. However, it was easy to cross and really didn't notice it. There were 10 people in our group - two arrived the day before the rest and were situated in the adult only section - which is what we paid for. However, when the remainder came the next night, we were "upgraded" to the beach building. However, the surprise was - it was a family building, so turned out not to be much o [... read more]f an upgrade other than we have a roped section on the beach and our pool was on the beach. HOWEVER, this also meant that the two people from our group weren't able to sit at the pool with us (had to have a special bracelet or you were kicked out). We had all paid for the exact same package and there was no reasoning with the staff. The food was fine and the a la cartes were fairly easy to get into and accommodating. The maid service was slow - we were trying to get ready for a 6pm dinner reservation and housekeeping came in at 5:30 and wouldn't leave (didn't speak English) - we had said not to worry, clean tomorrow - but she stayed to sweep - was awkward. The one negative was the location of the resort - it was in a little town and it was a bit sketchy. Workers told us not to EVER walk to the left of the resort and only to go down the street to the right during the day. There were prostitutes (husband was propositioned twice) and locals were about. Also, this resort has no money exchange - and we were advised not to go to the back as tourists were told not to walk in that direction (15 minute walk). There wasn't anything uber special or bad about this place. We had a relaxing vacation - which is what we went for.

RESORT DELIVERS

OVERALL THE EMOTIONS RESORT IS A TRADIONAL DOMINICAN RESORT ON A SMALLER SCALE WITH EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE STAFF,AVERAGE BUFFET AND A LA CARTE RESTAURANTS AND A FEELING OF SAFETY WHILE YOUR ARE WALKING AROUND THE SURROUNDING BEACH FRONT PROPERTIES. BEACH HAS SOME ISSUES WITH CLOUDY WATER AND SEAWEED THAT ACCUMULATES ON THE SHORELINE(STAFF CLEAN IT UP AS BEST THEY CAN) BUT THE RESORT HAS PLENTY OF LOUNGE CHAIRS AND A NICE FULL SERVICE SNACK BAR CLOSE TO THE BEACH. ENTERTANMENT AT NIGHT IS AVE [... read more]RAGE ND ENDS AT 11:00 P.M. OVERALL I WOULD RATE THIS RESORT A "B plus"

Amazing People beautiful resort

This resort is beautiful. We stayed on the Essentia side which is the highest end they offer. The rooms are nice and the views and free things added in are a really nice add-on. However you must make sure you have the things you are suppose to have. Alot of little things were missing but when we addressed with guest services they were amazingly gracious and understanding. They went above and beyond our expectations on making things right. Every single person you encounter are truly happy and fri [... read more]endly. I could spend hours naming off all the people I have met there that made our vacation special. Honestly the people make the difference and these are the best people. The food in the buffets repeat regularly however this is not a bad thing. everything is better then expected and I'm a picky person. The a la carte's are exceptional in every aspect! Jose Antonio is truly wonderful. The bad is not in anyway shape or form fault of the hotel but the beach area is very rocky beach shoes are a must. The resort is kept sparkling at all hours. They have a very small road (more like an alley way) that is not very busy at all and they have security at the road at all times. (Don't be alarmed it's not needed) we walked up and down the roads and felt very safe. Even the locals are polite. If your looking for a nice quiet place for the family or even by yourselves you can't go wrong. I hope this helps and have a great trip! As far as trip Central.ca goes... They got us everything we wanted cheaper than any other providers. We saved 600$ total on our vacation just by booking here rather than sunwing.

Winter get away

The beach was very poor--weedy and sharp stones. The pools were good but the hot tub lacked entry and exit rails. I liked the set up of the resort. The rooms were great. The food mediocre. The main street set around the pools was nice. Service was good.

A most relaxing holiday

The beach, food and service were all very good My excursion was wonderful I just wish some of the staff understood english better The excursion I took was wonderful Really got to see how the local people live

Pretty Resort

This resort is about 1 hour and 40 minutes from the Punta Cana Airport. I prefer smaller resorts, so this resort suited me well in that regard. The resort itself is pretty, could use some touch ups, rooms are clean and spacious. We were "upgraded" once we arrived. I booked the Adult only building that had its own gated pool. I was moved to the Essentia Building that faces the beach. It also has its own pool, this is for families that are in the Essentia building. I did not consider this an upgra [... read more]de. I chose the adult building for the quiet adult pool and room. This building was noisy at all hours. The pools at times was taken over by kids, as it should be if you paid for that. The beach and pools are nice. The beach does have vendors, but a friendly no thank you usually sent them on their way. The food was ok. The buffet never changed, making it hard by day 5 to find something appealing to eat. The 3 other restaurants were good. We really enjoyed the mexican and Italian. The staff and service are great. Overall, I wont return to this resort, but i would go back to the Dominican. The Saona Island tour and the Santo Domingo tour are fantastic.

A diamond in the rough

we loved the resort, its wasn't too big but overall we couldn't find anything to complain about. The only thing was we landed in punta cana and had a 90 minute ride to resort. If we go there again, (and we hope so) we will try and get it out of santo dimingo or La romanna. Beach was kept very clean all the time, food was good, a-la-cartes were excellent, especially the mexican and Italian, staff was perfect. I could go on and on but we fully recommend this resort to everyone.

Awesome Resort

We had a great time at this resort. I would surely call this a 5 star resort. The food was excellent , the staff was super friendly and very courteous, the entertainment was great(goin all day...at the beach in the morning...pool in the afternoon...theatre in the evening) and they mixed in with the vacationers. The bathrooms were kept very clean, the rooms were beautiful, a la cartes every night if you wanted but the buffet was great, dining area very clean and tidy and the food area closed off  [... read more]from birds and insects, the beach was clean and awesome and it was only a 5 minute walk to anywhere!!! I would definitely go again. Just wish the bus trip from the airport was shorter. Maybe we could fly into La Romana or SantaDomingo instead of Punta Cana.

The best way to ring in the new year!

My fiance and I travelled here for a week over the new year. Overall we were very impressed by this hotel and only had a few minor issues. Check In: Quick and easy. Received a welcome drink on arrival. Our room wasn't ready so we were shown where the buffets were and told to come back after lunch. When we returned we found our room was upgraded to a deluxe room in building 9 (farthest but quietest - only took us 5 min to walk anywhere on the resort so this building is recommended!). Staff is  [... read more]great overall. We didn't find tipping changed the service which is nice. Room: Deluxe rooms are large. Air conditioned well and shower & toilet are in separate rooms so good for families. Shower pressure was good as was temperature. Mini fridge stocked daily with pop, water, & coors light. Tons of pillows! Food: Buffets & snack bar are great. We are vegetarian and were impressed with the number of options available. Always accommodating - the pizza chef at the snack bar was happy to make us cheese pizza when there weren't any veggie options available. Loved the coffee shop (free) - always a busy place but the baristas are quick and make delicious drinks (highly recommend cappuccino with Bailey's). New years gala was very impressive (TONS of options - sushi, fried ice cream, cheese, lobster, etc. ... many of these things found at the buffet throughout the week!) very over the top! Always tons of fruit available which is nice. Bread was delicious too. Drinks: Lots of options - no top shelf liquor but everything was good. Blended drinks and mojitos always available. You can buy nicer wines (expensive but nice to have available) and bottles of beer if you like. Pool & Beach: The hotel was PACKED while we were there. There were not enough pool or beach chairs for everyone (probably 50 or so people forced to lay on the sand), which is the one thing I found ridiculous (after going to many all inclusive resorts I have never experienced this until now). Likely this is not usually the case but would be nice for the resort to buy more chairs for future! Pool is tiny (not tons of chairs/space around it) but nice. The beach is huge with lots of spots in the shade. Soft sand and ocean is nice once you pass a bit of seaweed. Entertainment: Lots of daily activities, shows at night are the same as you typically see. Lots for kids to do! Overall would recommend and we would return!

The rooms are a little tired and need some updating.

We found that the resort was too far from the airport and took about two hours by bus to reach. Because of this, we lost the first day. When we arrived we were disappointed to find several things in the room that needed to be addressed: the safe did not work and they had replace it; the bar fridge did not work and had to be replaced, the handle was missing on one of the two drawers of the dresser and there was no hair dryer in the room. We spoke to the Transat representative the next morningt [... read more] and he had the issues addressed. Unfortunately we lost 1/2 day waiting for all of the items to be corrected. On the other hand, the food was very good and the staff were friendly and helpful.

Amazing week!

Just got back from a 1 week vacation at the Emotions by Hodelpa and I had a great time! I love how the resort is smaller in size which allows you to get to where you want to be in 2 minutes or less. I have no complaints about the food at this resort but I would say to try to get into the a la cartes for dinner (we didn't go to the buffet for dinner but I did hear it was good). The Domincan restaurant was my favorite (I ate here 3 times). Be sure to try the coffee house. The frapps and cappu [... read more]ccinos are amazing! The beach was nice but other people are right in saying the vendors get annoying. I just ignored them after day 1 and they leave you alone. The road you have to cross to get to the beach buffet and beach is a non issue...don't listen to people saying its a huge deal because it isn't. Hardly any cars drive by it so I don't understand the complaints. We lucked out on the weather all week. Super sunny, hot with a nice breeze and no rain! We did a catamaran excursion to Saona Island which I definitely recommend. It was gorgeous and a high-light of the trip. Overall I loved this resort and would go back if the price was right. I have already recommended this place to people I know.

Emotions by Hodelpa

Overall I would say this resort is a 3 star. We had to be moved to 3 different rooms before there was an acceptable one. First one, the room flooded. I had read about this problem on Tripadvisor, and they weren't kidding. After a 10 minute shower there was water on the floor 1/2 way into the room. We couldn't call the front desk, as the phone didn't work. They moved us to another room the next day. Standing in the bathroom we would feel drops on our head. Look up and there was water dripping fro [... read more]m 5 different spaces in the ceiling. Told the front desk in the morning on our way to an excursion. They said they would send someone. We arrived back later that day, nothing was done. Still dripping. Very frustrating. I put a review on TripAdvisor telling this story. Surprise, surprise, we had a call in our room, and a letter under our door. Guest Services Manager wanted to meet with us. The next day we were moved to the VIP building (#4). Much better. The last week of our 2 weeks was better than the first. The food is pretty good, no spices though, so bring your own if you want more flavor than salt and pepper. The entertainment is fantastic when the dancers were there to perform, and the Michael Jackson - best resort show I've ever seen. Some nights entertainment was lacking. Beach is pretty good, but there is some seaweed.

Beautiful Resort

Our arrival at the resort was late but the gentleman at the reception desk was friendly and happy to greet us. We had another gentleman help us to our room and show us where everything was located. As I said, it was late so we just got a nice cold beer out of the mini fridge and sat on our veranda overlooking the beautiful color changing pool. The next day we got up early and went down to breakfast at the beach restaurant where we were delighted to find a large assortment of breakfast foo [... read more]ds as well as a large variety of fruit and a cook preparing omelets and eggs however you liked. After breakfast we walked down and stuck our feet in the Caribbean. It was very warm and the beautiful blue water along with the soft sandy beach made us want to come back and enjoy the gorgeous beach. If you want to get a beach chair you should arrive early because they fill up fast on sunshiny mornings. We then took a walk around the resort to check things out. We located the a la cart restaurants, another buffet style restaurant, a climbing wall, tennis courts, an oversize chess board and a target range to shoot a bow and arrow. We also noticed that there was a daycare as well. We don't have children so we didn't go inside. There are also two very friendly flamingo's that love to be fed a little piece of bread and don't mind if you take their picture. Our hotel room was quite large with a king sized bed, a mini fridge, an umbrella that I am happy to say we didn't need, a flat screen TV with many channels (some were in English), a safe, a large wardrobe and a dresser. The bathroom was very large and the shower was large enough for us to both shower in together with plenty of room to spare. It contained a shower head at both ends so there was no wrestling for the water. We had a nice veranda with 2 chairs and a small table that we sat at quite often contemplating what we were going to do next. There was entertainment nightly but we aren't much for large crowds and noise. Our room was overlooking the area where the entertainment was being held and it was very loud. We are early risers, so the music caused us to have a hard time sleeping. My suggestion would be to ask for a room overlooking the garden if this is something that you want to avoid. We stayed in the adults only part of the resort and it had it's own private pool that was very quiet with it's own beach chairs and security gate. The a la cart restaurants were all very nice and quite tasty. We enjoyed the Italian one first, the Dominican one a couple of nights later and the Mexican one last. The Mexican restaurant was very popular so it filled up fast. You had to get in and make your reservations the day before and first thing in the morning. The buffet style restaurants were also very good. We enjoyed the variety and the convenience for all three daily meals. The resort is located in an area that had a few small shops. If you are willing to go off the resort and have a walk, you can get better prices than you will find from the vendors on the beach and we found them to be all very friendly and helpful. The resort had a photographer that took pictures in a variety of poses with her two beautiful parrots. She did an excellent job and we had a very hard time deciding on which pictures we wanted to purchase. The Nexus employee helped us decide which excursion we wanted. He explained everything they had to offer in perfect English. We decided on a full day trip into Santa Domingo that we enjoyed completely. The history of the city is amazing and the old city is breathtaking. Our guide could speak several languages and did an excellent job of explaining everything. All of the staff were very friendly and helpful and did everything possible to make us have an excellent vacation. The bars were open early and stayed open late so you always had beer and mixed drinks available throughout the day to keep you refreshed. All in all we found this resort to be one of the best ones we've stayed in so far.

Nice resort

Very nice resort, clean. Service at the bar and pool area was very good. The front desk however, they didnt speak any english, gave us the wrong room facing a parking lot and we had to go back 5 times to get the one king bed that we paid for. The excuse was "there are more double rooms" to which we responded thats great but we paid for a king bed. Beach was amazing and great food.

Had an Incredible time!!!

Soo beautiful, had great food, friendly staff and lots to do. We stayed for 8 days and still didn't get around to trying everything. It's got ping pong, basketball, pool, rock climbing, archery, tennis, local golf course, life size chess and even a disco club at night and a ton more. Ended up staying an extra night! Won't be disappointed.

Nice resort and beach; unfriendly staff

My boyfriend and I stayed at this resort for 7 nights from January 6th-13th, 2017. In all we had a great time, but there were some kinks and mishaps that could have made our trip less enjoyable if we chose to let them. (I'll elaborate more later). Firstly, I'll start with the positives. The resort was very nice, obviously new designed. It had a very modern feel with wood and stone accents everywhere. The restaurants were nice, the buffets were enclosed in rooms that had to be entered and exi [... read more]ted by automatic sliding doors (no bugs flying around the food!) which I thought was a smart touch. The coffee shop was cute, they seemed to had a lot of different types of coffees and flavoured syrups but since there wasn't a menu we stuck with getting lattes and frozen coffees. The snack bar always had fresh burgers and hot dogs on the grill, and the french fries and pizza were usually fresh and hot. The beach was very nice, beautiful water and plenty of beach chairs so we didn't have to search long for one. They seemed to have many games to play during the game, but they were closer to the resort side of the beach, so if you didn't want to be bothered by the speakers you could move closer to the water and you wouldn't really notice it. Now for the negatives...The staff weren't very helpful or friendly, and the front desk really didn't seem to care about our needs/problems. For example, our first night there we got in late so the only food we could eat was from the snack bar. This would've been fine, we aren't picky, until the group of dancers from the entertainment show butted to the front of the line (there were about 5 people in front of us waiting for burgers) and got served their burgers right away before any of us who were staying at the resort. We decided to let it go, but for the rest of the trip there seemed to be a preference for the spanish speaking couples and families over us (we are a young couple from Canada). In the mornings we were only offered coffee or water from the waiters/waitresses in all maybe 3 times (keep in mind there was 7 mornings), the same happened during lunch and dinners (I'd often have to wave them over for water, and we were only offered house wine once). I've been to many other resorts, and I've never had to constantly wave over a waiter to be poured a glass of water. It is not like we didn't tip either, we'd leave a tip for our waiters and bartenders that would serve us kindly and especially the bartender if we asked for a more 'complicated' drink (such as a strawberry margarita where they would use the blender). I just got the impression that the staff didn't really want to cater to us, and I am not trying to sound like I am high maintenance, but I do expect a minimum amount of catering to when I am at an all-inclusive resort. To elaborate on the front desk, the first night we were there we noticed we couldn't change the temperature on the air conditioner. We called the front desk and they said there was a remote that went with it, and I told them there wasn't a remote in the room. They said they'd send the maintenance man over to help us. 30 minutes later the man showed up, and only spoke spanish. This was okay since I can speak a bit, so I (badly) explained to him that we didn't have a remote. He tried connected to the air conditioner with what seemed to be a universal remote, but nothing worked. He called the front desk and spoke to them, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. He then left with the impression of coming back, but never did. We waited for an hour for him to never show (this was at 1 am the night we arrived, so we were tired from travelling and didn't want to wait longer). The next day we went to the front desk on our way to the beach to complain again, and they took our room number and said they'd send someone to fix it. Once again nothing was fixed when we returned to our room that afternoon. We tried to call the front desk and noticed that the phone wasn't working (no dial tone) even though it was plugged in. We decided we'd get ready for dinner (shower) and go to the front desk on the way to the buffet. After my shower, I stepped out from the shower to find the bathroom completely flooded with water. As I stepped out of the bathroom I realized that the water had not only flooded the bathroom, but also the first half of our room (the water ran all the way to halfway under the double bed closest to the front door). It shocked me so much because while I was in the shower (it's a walk in shower so it isn't in a tub) the water hadn't accumulated at my feet, which means that it would partly run down the drain but the majority would leave under the glass door. Since our phone was broken, we had to walk to the front desk to tell them our room had flooded and that we wanted to change rooms (flooding shower, broken phone, and missing air conditioning remote were enough reasons for us to want a new one). They told us they would send someone over to check and then would see if they could accommodate us. We went back to our flooded room and decided to take initiative and push most of the water out by the front door with the towels we had. About 30 minutes later I heard a maid and maintenance man outside of our door talking and then beginning to sweep away the water from in front of our door. I am still not sure if those are the people the front desk sent, but since they never knocked on the door (I had to open it to talk to them) I assume they weren't sent. They moved the rest of the water out of our room and we went for dinner. We came back to a mostly dry floor and decided to deal with it in the morning. The next morning we went back to the front desk, and they explained that some of their rooms had been made improperly and the shower floors don't slope towards the drain (meaning they know they have flooding showers and still put people in those rooms). They also told us that we cannot change the temperature in our room (which is strange to not say the first time we asked? Why send a man to our room if the remote apparently doesn't exist). We then realized that they weren't willing to accommodate us, and we didn't want to fight them for a better room. We had wasted too much energy and time into it as it was, and we wanted to focus on our trip and the beach instead of our room. In the end, we found a way to inhibit the room from being flooded (the bathroom still would fill with water, but we'd close the door and stuff the bottom with a towel). The temperature in the room was tolerable, and we didn't use the phone since we never tried calling the front desk again. We focused on our time together, and the positives of the resort and had an amazing vacation in the end. I realized that I wrote a lot longer paragraph about the negatives of the resort, but keep in mind this was only our experience. Maybe you will be put in a room that doesn't flood and that has an air conditioning remote, and maybe the staff will treat you better than us. I realize that maybe since we are a young couple (both 19 years old), the staff might have not taken us seriously and maybe treated us unkindly because they didn't expect tips from us? These are only my assumptions and I could be wrong. For what we paid, ($1100) the trip was worth it to us. The food was good, the drinks were good, the resort was modern and nice, and the beach was amazing.