Amazing ocean with nice clear waters... very cool and refreshing this time of year.

The restaurants, hotel grounds, and room where all very nice, clean! Great variety of cuisine from seafood, chinese, and international gourmet restaurants as well as a great buffet with delicious dominican food.

The drinks were very good not water down at all. Try the mojito and caipirinhas! highly recommended. They serve the
national beer Presidente which @ other cheap hotels don't.

Overall great hotel and service with one of the best beaches in the island for sure ... that is if you're looking for a calm ocean and serene relaxing vacation :)

Tip of the day:
If you're looking to be adventurous take a small plane from the private airport in front of the hotel and go and visit the capital's colonial zone. You'll just pay $75 each way and get there in 25 min!!!

We just spent a week at the El Portillo and we liked it overall. Just as some people already noted, this is definitely not a 5 star hotel.

The resort : Very clean, very spacious and well maintained enough. The cleaning staff definitely works harder than the waiting staff! We had a standard room in villa number 2, close to the beach and very quiet. Beautiful palm trees all over the beach and very well maintained luxurious gardens. It's good to know that you can ask the staff to climb and cut coconuts and prepare them for you. Of course, a dollar or two would be appreciated.

The food and beverages : OK, not wonderful. The A la carte restaurants were good in general, the buffet lacks variety in my taste but my boyfriend liked the food. I guess it really depends on your taste. Anyhow, this is not really a priority when you go on vacation, is it? Drinks were average, ask for more alcohol in them if you don't like sweet stuff... Red and white wines were better than some places we visited before, they don't give you headaches the day after, they were quite dry. Beer is good, draft is Presidente and in your mini-bar (included in your room), you get Brahma. Definitety a better choice over the drinks. Don't expect too much from the waiting staff though, they don't always seem to know what they are suppose to do. Lack of experience but hey, you're on vacation, and there is nothing to stress about so give them a break. Staff at the A la carte dining is really good and efficient compared to the one at the buffet.

THE BEACH now : definitely the best part of our trip. You can swim and dive right there and there is a lot to see. Tropical fishes to be seen and you don't have to go that far to see them. Remember to bring some bread with you, it's worth it. We recommend diving in front of the water sports club as the coral reefs over there is much more well preserved than the other side. If you don't like to swim and dive, you can take long walks as the beach goes on and go, one way or the other. You can even reach both pueblos, Las Terrenas and El Portillo, walking mostly on the beach. You'll sometimes have to get to the road to avoid getting wet but you can make it mostly by the beach.

Lastly, we would like to mention that it is very windy in Las Terrenas. Everyday, as of 2 PM, the wind starts to blow and it is not always fun to stay on the beach. It is good as long as you don't literally burn under the sun but for the swim and dive, it is not always feasable. With that in mind, you should have lots of fun at the Portillo.

This resort looks nice from the outside. But it is not a 5 star resort like they claim it to be – it is far from that. The rooms are terrible. They are not very clean and a lot of things are broken and simply do not get repaired. The food is OK, but most drinks are a joke. The beach is very small and very crowded. At least the staff is nice.

I was very much looking forward to leave this resort. My advice: Don’t go there.

My wife and I (early 50’s) traveled to Gran Bahia Principe El Portillo from March 3- 10 with my 78 year old mother-in-law. We had read about the Samana area for the last couple of years and were interested in seeing what it was like after trips to Puerto Plata, Punta Cana, Jamaica and Bermuda. Price was right and reviews on this and other sites were good, convincing us to book.

Flight - Went down on the afternoon flight with NoliTours/Skyservice out of Toronto. Flight was full and reasonably on time although the plane into Toronto from Samana that we boarded had arrived a few minutes late. Trip down was about four hours if I remember correctly. Decent flight on an Airbus 320, three seats per side, 30 rows in the plane. We were given a snack of a heated bun with some unknown filling in foil as well as a cookie, water and soft drinks. Bar service was available as well, $5 a drink. We were also given a rum and fruit drink shortly before we landed free of charge. Movie down was Enchanted. All in all, a decent flight. Still not a lot of leg room but I’ve seen worse on Skyservice.

Airport to Hotel - Had to complete a separate immigration all in Spanish form in addition to the one we filled out on the plane when we arrived. There’s one woman yelling out English translations for the form but it’s fairly easy to decipher. Luggage pickup was simple enough and then you go thru another luggage scan. My bag was picked to be opened but after 30 seconds we were on our way to the bus after meeting reps outside. I had read the trip to the resort was quicker at night but it still took us about 90 minutes. Lots of slow downs for potholes and small towns but an interesting ride. I’m used to seeing deer crossing signs up north by Algonquin Park. The cow crossing signs in Samana were different. Be aware there is no washroom on the bus so use the facilities in the airport. Check in was on the bus which saved time. We arrived at the resort around midnight so no welcome show, song or drinks. Beautiful lobby, fairly quick safety deposit box rental done when we arrived ($31 for the week). Found our two rooms and went to the Italian a la carte in the Pueblo Principe area near the resort entrance where they have drinks and late night snacks. Surprisingly good Club sandwich and cold Presidente at 1 am, nice way to start a trip. They have cold cuts out but there is also a separate menu for sandwiches available if you ask.

Rooms - We had two standard rooms in the Villa 15 a one minute walk from the lobby and in the middle of the resort. King bed, balcony, tub with shower in the tub, all the usual amenities. Nice room, no complaints. Lots of hot water for showers or Jacuzzi tubs, lots of bottled water left for you in the fridge along with Brahma canned beer and pop. TV worked but no English sports channel which we’ve had in every other resort. I missed my morning sports fix while my wife was getting ready. The rest of the channels were the usual mix of Spanish and English. How often do you watch television on vacation anyway. There is a mixture of two and three storey villas, beautiful landscaping, palms and multiple other types of trees everywhere.

Beach and Pools - the beach is beautiful. I loved the beach in Punta Cana at the Bahia Principe for the white sand and the chance to walk a long way to see other resorts. The sand at the El Portillo is more golden. The resort beach I would estimate to be 500 meters/yards whatever your choice of measurement is but then you can go for miles in either direction without running into another hotel. Beautiful for walking and felt safe. Occasionally had to sign a waiver from a guard with a gun over his shoulder acknowledging you’re leaving the premises and understand the risks but I never heard of anyone having any problems off site. Palm trees line the beach on and off site. At the west end of the beach where the Los Alos snack bar and water sports are was quite crowded. It’s closer to the pool and bars and more sheltered from the wind than the other end. We usually chose the property line on the east end of the beach. Lots of palapas and chairs available all day at that end with palm tree shade available as well. I loved the snorkeling with all the coral. Lots of different coloured fish, mainly small in size. I found the snorkeling better at the west end of the beach. Water temperature was great and bottom was sandy. No drink service on the beach, not a problem for us. We had a maximum 50 yard walk to get a drink.

It was great beach to watch the kite boarders or whatever you call the guys on what looks like a mini surf board with a huge kite pulling them across the waves. It was very windy most afternoons and down the beach to the west end, there were lots of kite boarders. We walked down the beach to the next point (5-10 minutes) a few times to see them up close and it’s quite amazing. There’s a school for boarders along the road into town so you can see all types of skill levels. Amazing speed, great aerial tricks.

The main pool is a decent size though not large. We didn’t go there too often except to escape the wind in the afternoon a few times. A good number of lounge chairs available, all with pads. It was difficult to get a chair by 11-12 but when I would walk by to go the beach at 8:30-8:45, still lots of available chairs. A fair bit of towel/chair saving but not as bad as other resorts I’ve been to. There are three bars to use from the pools and beach. A pool bar, beach bar and snack bar/bar at Los Alos at the west end of the beach. They ran out of tomato juice a few times which bothered the Bloody Mary people I was with but they easily found other drinks they liked. The Presidente on tap was cold and plentiful all week.

There is a quiet pool near villas 11-12 that is apparently new within the last year. Small pool, maybe 40 lounge chairs, several palapas and seats and tables as well with a bar here. I think the bar closes between 5-6 pm. We liked to go here for a swim and drink at the end of the day to get away from the activities at the main pool. Lots of people loved to participate in those, we tended to go more to the quiet areas.

Food/Restaurants – the buffet restaurant has seating outside on a patio which we used almost every meal. It was warm enough to eat out there at all times which we really enjoyed. The buffet had a good selection for all meals. I loved the fresh fruit available at all meals, also liked the smoothies in the morning. They cook fresh omelets in the morning and pasta at lunch and dinner. They also have a guy carving a roast each night. They had outdoor grilling going on a couple of nights. Dominican lobster on the grill for the Saturday night gala which was great. A great rib roast inside that night as well with mounds of shrimp available. That was the best buffet meal I had during the week. We also went to the Gourmet, Seafood and Oriental a la cartes. I would rank our meals in that order but all were good. We like our red wine and what the restaurants serve wasn’t great initially but we got used to it as the week progressed. My mother in law said it tasted like her home made wine so she was happy. The others liked the white wine at some meals. Champagne was available for all breakfasts, with or without orange juice.

Overall the food was good, certainly never went hungry and always found something we liked. I didn’t think the a la carte meals were as good here as they were at the Bahia in Punta Cana but still very good.

Staff – great staff from the animation, to the servers to the maids. We were away from the room early and came back late so we never actually saw our maid but she did a good job with the room. She left only one towel figure which disappointed my wife but if that’s one of the only complaints, you’ve had a great holiday. Leonardo was our favourite server at meals.

Excursions - we didn’t do any formal trips, just went into town one day. We spent a couple of hours walking around Las Terrenas, and that was about all we needed to see. Interesting to watch the motorcycles and cars not collide which is what you expect to see happen frequently given the driving habits. I saw one guy go by on his motorcycle holding a lamp with shade in one hand with his approximately five year old son on his lap. We heard the El Limon trips and the national park trips were good. Some saw whales in Samana on a trip. We were there to relax and we did a great job of it.

Trip home: We were lucky to get asked by Jean Robert, the Air Transat/Nolitour rep, to go in a smaller van through the mountains for the trip back to the airport. It was daylight and we saw amazing mountain sights and views and a very interesting trip through many small towns. It was a great way to finish the trip, especially after arriving in the dark a week before. Nice duty free store in the airport. Flight home was on time. Lots of people charged extra for their overweight bags coming home. The check in guy tried to say our carry-on luggage was included in the 20 kg limit, even going to the point of weighing one carry on bag but we still stayed within the weight limit anyway. That isn’t the Skyservice policy as far as I know so it would be worth arguing if they tried that and you were overweight.

Final thoughts – We loved the people and the staff we met on this trip. It was good to meet people I had “met” through reading their reviews and comments on Tripadvisor and Debbie’s. Great people with a common interest in having a good time in a beautiful place. We have never returned to the same place in out travels but we would seriously consider returning to the GBP El Portillo. The size of the resort is just right for us, the location is beautiful, everything was great. I don’t know how much longer Samana will remain the quiet area it is now but we will be sure to return before it becomes too developed and loses the charm its isolation provides now. We would recommend this place for anyone, a good mix of ages, nationalities, etc.

If you made it this far, thanks for working your way through this long review.

Fugs