Victorian House on its own would have been fine- but not special. Unfortunately it is linked to the hotel next door - the very downmarket tour-operator based -Sosua Bay Hotel. The accommodation -a one bedroom suite- was very good as would be expected of a highly rated RCI resort . What was not mentioned is that the Victorian House shares facilities and its 3 quite good speciality restaurants with Sosua Bay Hotel and its tiny beach. The sun decks at Victorian House were rotten and closed off as unsafe. We had to go through Sosua Bay Hotel to get to the pools/beach/sea and also for all breakfasts and lunches in a self-service communal restaurant- and bars- with poor quality spirits and cocktails. Grossly understaffed with resultant slow service at most times. Sosua Bay was a tour-operator dominated hotel and unfair that the residents at Victorian House had to share with Sosua Bay with poor quality food, service and crowds. Limited sunbeds and have never stayed at a place where towels were placed on the sunbeds before breakfast to ensure a spot in the sun.

Our stay was further marred by the abundant number- around 20 at any one time!-aggressive Lifestyle Holidays Timeshare salespeople. They were at every corner and always tried to stop you coming out of the restaurants especially. They pursued people relentlessly with walkietalkie contact to each other to avoid missing a potential client or more accurately- victim-- even saw one answer his walkitalkie whilst standing at the urinal in the hotel lobby's gents!! That's dedication to the job. They came down to the pool area, onto the beach and even drove round the town on golf-buggies trapping their prey.

The beach for the 2 hotels was very disappointingly small- only big enough for around 2 dozen sunbeds crammed tight together-have seen larger hotel lobbies-but with a narrow public and very crowded beach adjoining.

Victorian House is best avoided until it sorts out extensive renovation of its own sundecks and regains access to the sea. It needs to separate totally from the package-tour based Sosua Bay Hotel. But then it will need its own larger pool- only childrens one at present and will have no beach access. Sorry but cannot recommend this hotel to anyone and same with Sosua Bay Hotel.

If you want a good priced/value package holiday to Sosua, then go 300 metres to the Casa Marina Beach/Reef which are joined and both offer great facilities and good beaches with similar quality food and drinks to Sosua Bay-ie basic. We were there last year for 3 weeks and no problems- just a good time and wonderful value package with Thomsons. Much more space at Casa Marina and possibility to find somewhere quiet to relax but entertainment when wanted. If you want the sun at Victorian House , you have to go over to the sun decks or tiny beach at Sosua Bay Hotel and suffer the horrendous noise and constant loudspeakers throughout the day around overcrowded pools, with harrassment from Lifestyle timeshare salesteam thrown in for good measure! Lots of smoking in and around the pool with just a few non-smoking tables in the main restaurant. Cigarrette ends all over resort and beach as a result.

If you want more upmarket accommodation and service with the best beaches, then go up the road to Cabarete and in particular the Azzurro club if doing RCI exchange. You will not be disappointed there. The Sans Souci complex also looked good with very reasonably priced self-catered option and direct beach access. We have no personal experience there- but great beach front location.

We booked this through our timeshare company and I must say that I was very surprised to see all the negative reveiws. We arrived late and the airline delayed our luggage so we were pretty tiered and hungry by the time we arrived. They checked us in immediatly and brought us a drink and some snacks to munch on till dinner. They knew that we didn't have any clothes and there for could not "dress" for dinner so they were kind enough to let us eat in the buffet even though we looked like hell just spit us out. The host at the buffet asked if we would be more comfortable if he sent food up tot he room so that we could rest. We said thank you but would like to serve ourselves. The food was really good. Being a chef I'm very picky about eating out and all inclusive places never impress me but I had to give this resort a thumbs up. The desserts were outragously good. It is the north side of the island so it does have a rain forest like atmosphere and does rain almost everyday for a few minutes. They were doing some construction on the hotel as it was damaged by an earthquake not too long before we arrived (2 weeks or so). We rented a scooter the next day and went to town to shop for some clothes to get by until our things arrived. When we got back we showered and dressed for dinner. When we got back from dinner our room had flooded and our suitcases that had arrived were wet. The manager came and apologized non-stop. She had our things taken to be cleaned and actually put us in the penthouse suite which was unreal!! We were very satisfied and didn't even have to ask for any kind of compensation. they took care of us all week. The locals were great and helped us out a lot ( hubby speaks some spanish ) you do have to be a little careful with money and I don't recommend jewelry be worn other then plain wedding band. This is a poor country and I don't recommend flaunting. All in all though the locals are friendly and helpful just don't be too trusting...you never know. This area is nothing like Santo Domingo it is pretty safe in comparison. The beach is public and we weren't bothered too much at all comparing to some other areas of the DR and espescially to some other islands in the carribean. We loved the shops in the area behind the beach and it was always well patroled. We got some souviners and a great painting that we bought from Daniel who spoke english very well. Do not atempt to buy drugs of any sort as it is NOT tolerated in the DR at all. You will be placed in prison. The beach is nice and the chair rentals are reasonable. Watch your belongings as it is a public beach. The pools are really nice and the swin up bar serves great drinks. Tip the bar tender here and there and you will always have great drinks and he will even remember what you like. The housekeeping is also very good and we always had fresh towels and plenty of drinks in the fridge. I got sick for about 2 days from a virus I caught ( I think it was a rhino virus) and got sick all over the bathroom. The house keeper was made aware of it and cleaned it up right away. She also got me some ice and wet towels to keep on my head. I couldn't belive it when she came back an hour later to check on me and even got me some ginger ale ( hard to find in DR ) that she got from the market. Needless to say we took very good care of her before we left. The girl from the front desk even came to see if i was ok as did the manager. They make you feel like family at this resort. I will always remember this resort fondly.

We had a fabulous time at the Victorian House, so don't believe all the negative reviews here. We had a great 2 bedroom unit with an ocean view. Complaint about a leaking air conditioner was taken care of quickly. We had no other maintenance issues. This is the Dominican Republic, so power does go off periodically but a backup generator kicks in very shortly thereafter & we hardly noticed the service interruption. Yes, you must ward off a time share presentation, but that was accomplished pretty quickly & no one pressured us after a firm no interest was expressed. Food exceeded our expectations and was quite good overall. We never had dinner at the spots requiring a reservation because we were out & about all day with various activities & didn't want to be locked in to a mealtime, so can't help with a review of those restaurants. The only problem we had with our stay was not related to the hotel, rather to our bad choice of in town car rental: Freddy's Rental Car. Save yourselves the hassles we had & rent a car somewhere else if you're going to be driving around. After driving east as far as Rio San Juan, and west as far as Luperon, we decided we made a great choice of base camp by choosing to stay in Sosua. Sosua has all the charm that Puerto Plata does not and is much quieter than Cabarete. It's also an easy cross country bus ride to Santo Domingo via hourly departure on Caribe bus, so not much problem if you are going to be seeing the country.

RCI members beware. This is by far one of the worst resorts in the network. Lifestyle vacations is taking over this resort, their sales people hound you throughout your vacation (staring at you as you eat, hustling you on the beach, calling your room for an appointment, the list goes on). Now for the resort- We were told that the resort over booked, and instead of our 2 bedroom unit (sleep 6) we were being offered 2 second floor connecting hotel units. We explained that this was unacceptable since there were 5 members in our party and the rooms were too small to place an additional bed. They offered a third room with a balcony ( for a 12 year old child). We refused to accept their offer and called RCI. Suddenly our unit was available !!!.We only had to wait an additional hour for it to be ready. The unit was clean however the sofa bed was broken, there were no washcloth's and there was no hot water for the entire week. The swimming pools were adequate however the beach is a public beach- again more harassment. By the way you can buy a 2 week Villa membership
for $ 50,000.00 for 45 yrs and get great financing through the Bank of America @ 14.99 %. Never again.