We just got back from the Riu Bachata and were very pleased.

I had read a number of reviews online and I was a little worried because 1 out of 10 said it was horrible or the food was terrible or something. My feeling is that you get what you look for wherever you are.

After staying in the Bachata I can say they try their best to give every traveler a great experience. It was a very nice hotel and even though we went with a few reservations, we were very pleased about the hotel, the staff, the food, and our stay.

We stayed April 30 through may 7th booked through a friend who does Travel through GOGO tours. It was our 25th year wedding anniversary and we thought we'd do something cool. We arrived and they had a guy at a desk waiting for us at the airport, transfer to the hotel was easy, We did sit for a while in the bus while some guy took both our vouchers, gave us a different voucher, and told us who to meet in the Hotel for our orientation. The Orientation was nice but more of here's the excursions we have available originally. After we got to know Jacquline, our tour representative though, she became the go to person for finding out stuff and she was very helpful even with stuff not related to tours.

The Lobby of the Hotel is open but spacious and beautiful. A tropical paradise. Birds flying in and out which surprised me. But not once in our stay did we see a mess from the birds. They even zoomed in and out of the dining room but really seemed to know their place.

Our room was Great. We didn't spend much time there but it was above my expectations. It was clean. At first when you walked in it was a bit musty, but it's because you're in a tropical place, open the door or turn on the fan and the air and it was gone quickly. It was cleaned well daily. There are no doors except to your room, so each night as we came home it was interesting to see what had come in the common hallway during the day. We found a frog, a lizard, a hermit crab, but they each were just seeking shelter from the sun I suppose. No big deal and the hall was swept and mopped daily to clean the sand and leaves that were tracked or blown in.

The beds were probably the biggest concern. They were hard. I fell asleep quickly each night but about 4 in the morning I had to roll over and about 5 I had to roll to the other side and at 6:30 I had to get up because my old body was sore of laying there. I'm used to a soft pillow top mattress in the states, so I didn't sleep in as much as I thought I would.

I've read a lot of reviews and some reviews say the food is terrible. Well, it's not. Think of eating at Chuck a rama's or Hometown buffet 3 meals a day for 7 days. That's the best I can explain it. They have some great food, some good food, some not so good food and it's up to you to make what you want of it.

The Fish every day was the best. Put the butter/garlic or whatever it was sauce on it and it was great.

They almost every day had some type of beef, pork, fish and always chicken. The chicken was almost always over done though - I think it's just the way the dominican's cook.

They had lots of veggies cooked in a lot of ways, I ate mashed potatoes for breakfast, carrots for breakfast, and even some cold beef or pork dishes sometimes. Break fast was always great, different kinds of eggs, omlets, veggies, and lots of BACON!

I do admit after 7 days in the same place it was nice to eat at a burger king. They try to give you a variety but after 7 days, it all starts looking and tasting familiar.

We did the stake house one night and the stake was good, but you can't cook a 3/8 inch stake rare no matter how you cook it. The beef was always a little tough but good flavor. All in all I think they did a good job.

The waiters were always very friendly and helpful. I got to know a few of them and was happy to slip them a couple bucks because they were very attentive to getting us drinks and clearing our plates.

That's one thing I did after reading the reviews, I took $100 in $1 bills and it came in very handy. I probably gave $20 to various drivers and luggage handlers from the airport there and back but the rest I gave to whatever staff seemed to go out of their way and they seemed to sincerely appreciate it. I'd always ask the bartender for a non-alcoholic drink and he'd make me one or two up fresh and I'd give him a buck per drink. I couldn't figure it out though because sometimes they'd just go to the dispenser for a pina colada and give me that and I'd ask-no alcohol? He'd say yes yes no alcohol. The ones out of the dispenser always seemed to taste better though.

We tipped the maids about every other day and they were good about putting pepsi's in our little fridge. At the end I found out though it's a couple guys that go around restocking the drinks and the bar in the room although we didn't even use that. So I'm not sure who got the tips. When I saw the maid in the hall I'd give her a couple bucks and the next day a towel swan showed up in our room.

One evening as the people go back to their room and the maintenance guys come out to put all the lounge chairs on the beach back in a nice neat row I came upon an older dominican gentleman named Cesar raking up some leaves. I gave him a couple buck and said good job and thank you. He said Gracias a couple times and seemed very appreciative. A couple days later I'm laying on the beach and he comes by and asks in broken english if I want a drink? He pulls a big green coconut from his wheel barrow and with a few wacks of his machete he hands me a tropical coconut drink. He seemed to remember me which I was impressed. Warm coconut water doesn't compare to a pina colada, but I thought it was a very nice gesture on his part.

I talked with two very nice tour guides, ours was Jaquiline from GOGO tours and I also became friends with Irma - now at Club Caribe tours who was very friendly, helpful and just a delight to talk to. Irma helped me understand a lot of the Dominican way of life. From what I understand, most employees at the hotel get around 250 or 300 dollars a month - doing the math I figure between 10 to 15 dollars a day depending on days. So tipping a buck or two can significantly increase their daily wage. I asked if the Hotel treats the workers good and they said yes, because they provide the Dominican's a job at an ok wage but they pay typical wages and work long hours so even though it's good for the people there, it's not like they're getting rich or anything.

But Jaquiline and Irma (pronounce eerma - and roll the r just a little) - I could never do her name justice but she was sweet and pretty and very nice anyway - but they were very helpful with our way around. They understood I'm not a rich american, but that I wwork hard to save up money to come to their beautiful island and they weren't out to take me but to help me enjoy my stay and truly be very friendly and helpful.

We did the Jeep tour and had a blast. Our Guide was Elvis who has been doing it about 20 years. He was very personable and helpful. Originally we were going to do the monster truck tour, but decided on the jeep tour and were glad we did. After seeing a poor domincan home, a stone carving factory (actually a hut where a buch of guys whack at stone with machete's and carveing it and sanding it smooth), and then how an old Domincian lady makes cocoa and coffee, and taken to a couple souvineer places we had lunch on a very nice hill top looking over domincian jungles and cane fields. The lunch wasn't much to speak of, rice, beans and ove done chicke, but it was good and filling. We didn't get to go in a school because they were closed for some holiday - I never caught exactly what it was but nobody seemed much to care what holiday it was. The Jeep tour ended at a Dominican Republic state park called the 7 waterfalls or something. After about a 20 minute hike you come to the base of these falls. You climb up 7 different falls ranging from several stories high to about 6 or 9 feet. After you get up to kind of a dead end where you would need ropes to go higer you get to slide/jump down these falls. You actually have to swim up this river with the rocks going up both sides of you about 20 feet. It's a real trip!

With the help of Jaquline and Irma we also booked our own custom tour through a guy standing int he hotel lobby. Originally I thought my wife and I would catch a bus to the cable car mountain place - Telefocos or something like that. But we didn't feel like that big of an adventure so while we were standing there Daniel Aremonte came up to us and asked if we wanted a tour. Now I never reallly got how it works, but apparently he gets us a taxi, we pay the taxi and then we give him a tip. The Taxi works for what they charge and he works for the tip.

Now I'm kind of cheap and did't want to feel like I was being taken advantage of, so I wanted to understand the deal. I asked how much tip is appropriate he said whatever you feel. I asked what a good tip was, he said a million pesos. I said what's a bad one, he said One peso. ALthough I really didn't care for this range, after discussing it with my wife we hired him and the driver for an agreed price of $45 for the taxi for a tour of the telefocos - the cable car up the mountain and a short excursion into town for shopping. We headed up the cable car first.

THE CABLE CAR UP THE MOUNTAIN IS COOL! Daniel took us up there, helped us get our tickets, gave us a tour of the gardens at the top, took a couple great pictures of me and my wife in very good settings. He was a hobbist photographer and actually did a great job. After about an hour or so on the mountain we came down and went into town. Because of the holiday a bunch of stores were closed, but he took us to a place that didn't give us too much of the "Cheepy cheepy just for you" crap.

That's one thing that bugged me, they want to sell you stuff but start out about ten times what you want or expect to pay. We'd say no, they'd drop it 5 or 10 bucks, we'd say no, and they'd do that about 3 times and then say what price you want to pay?

Well, I want to pay a buck, but I never tried that. I just kept saying no until they got to the price I wanted or I just set it down and wander off. These shell necklaces I'd expect to pay $5 for started at $35 and finally came down to 6 or 7 bucks a piece. We got a few at that price but I didn't really like playing the pricing game.

Every single shop had the same crap in it. Dominican paintings which I guess if you get into domincan paintings are fine, but they are all the same high school painting of lizards, dominicans or bob marley. A lot of African inspired art that I though odd. I know domincans are decendents, but I thought they wouldn't have the same african masks - dunno just me. THen they all had the country stone (Triptofan or something) and then Amber that I was pretty sure was produced in some back room using epoxy. I don't know, there can't be that much amber on that island.

I thought I'd spend more money on souviners in their country if they had a little more variety or something that didn't seem like it had been laying there the last 10 years including most of the cigars.

Ok, ok, I'll get off our shopping adventure. Anyway, Daniel Aremonte and our cab driver Jesus hung around outside to take us wherever we wanted to go. They even drove us through town, down my the shoreline, past the historic fort - that my wife didnt' care to tour so we diddn't - but Daniel was very accomidating.

At the end of our trip I tipped Daniel Aremonte $30 american and whatever loose peso's I had in my pocket about 500 of them. So I think I paid him about $45 bucks too, but I was happy with that. and felt it fair for him and worthwhile for me. I suspect it was double what he was used to. I felt justified in that because He was very friendly, told us about his family, showed us pictures of his house, his wife, and pointed out his house from the top of the cable car. At first I was apprehensive, but I felt well taken care of and we got a personal tour for which I felt happy with the price.

Last thing is the beach and pool. My wife has stayed at a 5 star resort in arizona and said the pool at the Bachata was every bit as nice.

The beach was great and bad. IF you want to sit on the beach under the palm trees, watch the waves this is great. If you want to snorkel and see fish and coral, this is not great. The beach at the Bachata is rocky and if you walk out too far you are standing on sharp jagged rocks - I did it. You can move down the beach to the mambo or the merenge and find softer sand and great swimming area with a very wide sand area. Visibility in the water during our stay was poor, but a storm rolled through while we were there. I talked to some nice dutch people who went out on several excursions and said it was fantastic. Just like you see on national geographic with colorful fish and clear water, but you need to get out from the north shore to see the clear water. I tried snorkeling on the beach and I'm glad it's not one of the primary reasons I went.

The visitors at the hotel were mainly dutch, german, a few english and american. During the weekend the population doubled at the resort with mostly Dominicans. Now, I have nothing against them, but it was interesting most Dominican visitors at the resort almost gave an attitude that I was in their way. Not true of the people who worked at the resort. They were always nice and friendly and willing to help in any way. On our last day some dutch girls came in in a tizzy because they had missed their bus and were in tears yelling at the hotel staff. I was impressed the hotel desk called some guy over who didn't seem to take much crap from them but efficiently solved whatever their problem was. nearly everyone was friendly and we had a few great volley ball games and a good water polo game.

All in all it was a wonderful vacation. Great people, I really like the Domincians, unless they're first or last name is Cheepy cheepy. Then they just view you as a mark or someone to sell something to.

A big thanks to Irma and Jaquline who are very sweet and helpful.