Gran Bahia Principe Cayacoa Reviews

A lovely building on a very good cliff top site. All the expected facilities are present, but our recent stay was blighted by management issues, namely: cold food at the buffet restaurant, indifferent food quality at the speciality restaurants, rank water in the swimming pool leading to many cases of ear infections, poor response to problems with plumbing, air con etc., and worst of all a total debacle when there was a hotel fire.

The circumstances were complicated but in short the hotel management decided to leave guests asleep during a hotel fire, disable the fire and smoke alarm systems, chose not to involve the official Dominican fire department and generally took a very laissez-faire attitude to it all. This is despite the corridors being filled with acrid smoke - guests had to breathe through dampened towels and stumble around at 0300 hours looking for the fire exits! Many guests demanded (and got) a change of hotel as a result but were told quite categorically that the tour operator (First Choice) would not be making any compensation payments...... Well done, First Choice.... a great P.R. move........ In fact we were asked to sign a document which proved to be a very comprehensive disclaimer, surrendering all our rights to make any complaint or claim on any party as a result.... Needless to say nobody in their right mind would fall for such a shabby trick and the 'Customer Services' officer was told in no uncertain terms what she could do with the document.

In all then, this is a really well designed hotel in a prime location which has the potential to be a great holiday destination. It only needs the hotel management to wake up and realise that they are dealing with Europeans who expect a certain standard.