First Iwould like to say I have stayed at many many all inclusives, a good many of which were 5 star and enjoyed none of them as much as Gran Caribe.

We met some fantastic Maritimers and even some folks from our home town and had a ball. The food was great,(very Canadianized) and the entertainment also very Canadianized.

There was Country Western night, Karaoke night, B B Q with dance on the beach night, etc.
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We were so busy having fun we never did get around to booking the a la carte restaurants. The buffet was also themed each night. Chinese night,
Mexican night, Italian night, etc. Very nicely done with lots of regular food also if you didnt like the theme.

The beach hamburger shop was nice at noon, with always a breeze.\

My daughter had an accident at the pool on our last day and dislocated her shoulder. She was taken by hotel staff immediately to the hospital(clinic)
nearby. What service. The Doctors were fantastic and the clinic
immaculate. There was one young man there who spoke english very well and he sat by my daughter who was terrified and talked to her.

The gentleman from the hotel stayed with her and stroked her head and whiped away her tears and even blew her nose. She is 32 by the way.

He is the head of security at the hotel and couldnt have been nicer.
When I tried to give him a little thank you in the form of cash he almost had a fit . What a man.

He lugged the girls to the hospital then the other daughter back to the hotel to get me then both of us back again and then came and got us after the daughter woke up. Also in the meantime the hotel is checking on everything and the other daugther got a call from go travel direct to see if there was anything they could do.

Thank heaven we were there when it happened because I cant imagine everything as well anyplace else, including here in our own city.

Service was very prompt. If you reported something like a slow toilet or and burned out light, you were guaranteed it was fixed before you went back to your room.

There is only one pool but it is very long and is almost sectioned off. There is the pool bar area and the swimming area with vollyball and basket ball in the pool and at the far end there is a more shallow end for children. There is also a separate whirl pool section.

Everyone was very friendly and as it is not an extremely large resort by the end of the week you were on a hello basis with just about everyone as they all seemed to congregate around the pool or on the beach.

Wonderful food, wonderful people, wonderful staff, wonderful booze, wonderful entertainment. remember, nothing fancy but very nice.

For people going to the Grand Caribe Resort I feel sorry for you. I spent hard earn money on that!!!!! I was very very dissappointed with this resort. The rooms are smelly, carpets are wet the food wasn't the greatest the staff made fun of us in there language. The A La Carte Restaurant reservations required but you can't be in a hurry we where served 1/2 hour pass our reserved time. They have a serious plumbing problem very little hot water no hairdryers in the rooms like they tell you in the brochure the elevators don't work properly half the time it takes longer for woman to get their drinks than men why????? Do not go on the Santa Domingo trip not worth the money they are asking. The Outback Safari was good we enjoyed that very much but as for the rest of our trip very dissapointing. I have travelled to the Dominican twice so far this was my third trip and beleive you me never again.

I just got back from a week trip to Gran Caribe Hotel in La Romana - We have opted to take the Malaria medication, my kids (15 and 19) are still taking them for the remainder of the preventive treatment but I opted to stop... I have not seen a single mosquito in La Romana at the Gran Caribe. By the way the week was great! the hotel was excellent price/value ratio. We were a group of 8 ( 4 adults and 4 teenagers) we had a very good time.. none of us had upset stomach, tourista or anything like that.. we brought bottled waters from Canada and we stayed away from tap water (even to brush our teeth) we carried Purel (antibacterial soap - no water required) in small handy bottles and we used as often as we could. We ate almost everything - I personnally stayed away from ice cubes in my drinks - the 7 other in my group didn't bother to do that and they were fine. The food at the Italian restaurant is worthy of 5 stars... the entertainement ( we had a band from Quebec) was a delight specially the last night at the Beach Party with fire by the sea - the rooms are OVERSIZED - only thing this hotel has to change very quickly is the carpet and update the washrooms in the room... Pretty clean overall - the Belgian Chef was the reason you felt confident about cleanliness... Before every buffet or serving you could see him doing a round checking everything making remarks if need be, he made sure hands were washed, ranges and grills clean as a whistle ...and they were. I booked my trip with Go Travel Direct - The people were extremely friendly and helpful... thanks a lot to Tina our rep at the hotel she would go the extra mile for you. Zoom airlines were a pleasant surprise! Nice big planes, good services and ON TIME!!! to the minute, we even left La Romana on our way back 10 minutes earlier. Go Travel were organized with buses and stuff on the way back. One glitch though... we were told that for $25 extra per person we would be upgraded to first class and get free drinks... well the upgrade was good but we had to pay for our drinks - we were told it were misinformed. Attention: Zoom airlines are subcontracted by Go Travel so make sure the information you are getting is from each source, they do not follow each others rule...

We have just returned from the Grand Caribe Hotel in Juan Dolio, DR. We were there with our 2 children ages 3 & 6 from Jan 7-14th 2005. The hotel was rated 3.5 by Go Travel Direct, and as far as facilities go, that is what it deserved. The rooms were very spacious, but basic. There was bottled water left in the room for us daily, but no fridge or ice machines to keep them cold. Our room was always cleaned and made up by noon. There were issues with the washroom facilities located down by the beach and in the hotel lobby. There were washroom available close to the pool that were above the buffet restaurant that were always clean and functional, as was the washroom in our room so it wasn't really an issue for us. If I had to rate the service I would give it a 4.5 stars the staff that worked there were wonderful. Most of them could speak enough English to assist us with whatever we needed. The entertainment team was always around getting the guests involved in whatever activity they had going on at the time. Each night they held a "mini-disco" for any children that were there, some nights it was only my 2 kids there and they did it anyways. The food at the buffet was great, there was always good selection for my picky 6 year old to enjoy something. There was a BBQ grill available daily that served Hamburgers, Hotdogs, Pizza, fries and fresh fruit. The Mexican restaurant was so-so, the salad bar they had was delicious but as far as the main courses went, I'm glad I filled up on the salad bar. We didn't have a chance to book a reservation in the Italian restaurant as it fills up quickly and you can only book for the next evening so you need to get to the reservation desk bright and early. The hotel grounds were beautiful and very well kept and the pool was kept very clean. The beach was gorgeous and always plenty of chairs available. There are a lot of vendors on the beach trying to sell you all sorts of stuff, if you aren't interested just give them a firm "no gracias" and ignore them and they will go away. DO NOT pay what they are initially asking, for the most part I was able to talk them down at least to half of what they were originally asking for. We went on the day trip to Saona Island, worth every penny, it was breathtakingly beautiful. We also went on the half day to Altos de Chevron, it was enjoyable, but I wouldn't suggest it for younger children they were quite bored. We would definitely visit the Grand Caribe Hotel again in the future.