Eden Bay/Caliente Caribe
We arrived around 4 pm on Friday after an excruciating ride from Puerto Plata with another couple, Bear & Patty. Patty is apparently a travel agent as well as having been just about everything else at some point and NEVER stopped talking even when her husband tried to get her to. She harangued the poor driver constantly and even coerced him into stopping for more beer and for her to get a chicken. Her husband Bear tried to get the driver to leave without her.
My DW was disappointed to arrive and not be met with the expected cold Rum Punch we’d heard so much about. I was surprised to see our luggage sent up to be taken to our room by a tiny little maid who was barely bigger than our snorkel gear bag so we carried most of our own luggage up. The room was very large & spacious, the view from the balcony was excellent. Being tired from travel we retired to our room shortly after dinner.
Saturday, we woke up just in time to still get breakfast after which we spent most of our time down at the Beach Bar watching the scenery, that evening though the serene tranquility was disrupted when Hurricane Dawn & her group from Illinois/Wisconsin blew in. How one woman can be so obnoxiously loud is beyond me. Most of the guests spent a lot of effort avoiding the areas that they “took over”.
That evening when we returned to our room we found that housekeeping had taken our gradient measurement glasses we use for our glucosamine supplement. We called the Front Desk, thinking the maid had mistaken them for something from the bar, the staff promised to look into it and try to get them back to us asap.
Monday, my DW had us scheduled for something called a Marine Mud Wrap, which involves getting rubbed with oily salt, covered with some strange slime, wrapped in plastic for a bit then a shower. Ok, now I know what it feels like to be the Guest of Honor at a Cannibal’s Feast. My first and LAST time with anything like that. I took several showers to get clean.
Monday evening there was a mass walk-out from the Pool Bar, surrendering the area once again to Dawn’s shrieks & howls. This time however, several guests made it known to the management that it was becoming more than just a nuisance.
Tuesday we were scheduled for a Swedish Massage, again a first-time experience. We waited for a bit until the masseuses showed up, after lying down on the massage table, more slime was liberally applied. My masseuse apparently thought that the more pressure she applied the better it would be, several times I thought for sure that my head was going to pop thru the face cradle, afterwards we headed back to the room for a shower, well actually two to get the oil slick off. While we were recuperating in our room, we got a knock on the door, two maintenance men came in without any explanation, looked over our hot water heater, spoke to someone on our phone and then just left. We never did find out if there was something wrong or what that was all about.
Later that evening we attempted to make an outside call only to find out that our phone couldn’t dial out. We called the Front Desk who promised to check into it and get back to us in a few minutes. Twenty minutes later, we called down again only to be told that apparently our phone couldn’t receive calls as well. At this point I was pretty fed up with the lack of response from the Front Desk staff so we went down and asked for the Manager. Fortunately, he was an American so the language barrier wasn’t a problem. We explained the several problems we’d had and he promised to look into them immediately.
Wednesday my DW was the first to spot several whales just off the Beach, it was just after the beginning of lunch so most guests were present and got the chance to watch three whales cavort & put on quite a show. The Manager was able to locate our little measuring glasses and returned them to us at the Beach Bar, he also told us that he’d spoken with Guest Services & Maintenance Managers about our other issues.
Thursday was the rainiest of all the days, the deluge that evening had floods everywhere, apparently one couple had to be relocated from one of the villas due to flooding.
Friday was our departure day, a most interesting ride back to the airport. The locals drive like there are no rules other than who’s quickest or biggest. At one point a tractor trailer hauling a large excavator was stuck trying to turn onto the main highway. This blocked better than one full lane, which made little difference to most drivers who used the shoulder or even off-roaded to get around.
The biggest problem with staff at the resort is the language barrier, but they are trying to improve that by having lessons for the upper level staff. Most of the service staff try very hard to understand and are learning English on their own. One in particular, Indihara the bartender mostly at the Pool bar, is very willing to teach Spanish to anyone who’d like to learn. She explained that teaching her language is helping her learn ours.
They also have constant problems with the power & TV service. For most of our stay the TV was useless, which disappointed my DW on Saturday & Sunday when the NASCAR races were on, fortunately we have TIVO at home and were able to watch them once we got back.
I think that once they get the infrastructure problems worked out this will be a top-notch resort. Their strongest points are they have an excellent, hard working staff who, for the most part, will go out of their way to please. The food is delicious and the menu is nicely varied. We especially liked the seafood dishes.
Our favorite staffers:
Indihara, bartender & evening restaurant
Bryan, Activities Director
Julio, bartender & day restaurant
Julio, bartender Pool Bar
Orlando, bartender Pool Bar
We plan to go back next March, which reminds me, there were lots of signs about getting 30 – 50% off on our next stay but when we asked about it, they had no information.
Most enjoyable part: Spending a week wearing nothing but a smile, doing only what we felt like doing
Worst part: Hurricane Dawn & the slime treatments.
