Puerto Plata - Hotel Riu Merengue
Picture of Hotel
Riu Merengue is a 5 star hotel that truly deserves every point of it. The level of service is exceptional, and they always want to make you happy. The look of the hotel is beautiful, eligant, and most importantly CLEAN! That is very important to us when we vacation to places like the Dominican. There are 5 bars to choose from at the hotel, which makes getting refreshments really easy and quick. I especially like their capuccino's, they are not as strong as the italian ones, but are very good.
The rooms are very clean as well, and look very eligant as well. This hotel is not a building. It is made up of 2 story bungalows with four rooms on each floor. The size of the rooms are a fair size, and you get the following services:
You have 4 liqours to choose from (Rum, Gin, Wiskey & Brandy), you also get domestic beer, coke, sprite, fanta, etc.... The voltage is 110 volts, but they are non-polar outlets. That means your plug must have 2 equal size pins. Most appliances in Canada have one pin larger than the other. I suggest you get a small adapter that you plug in polar plugs, and at the end of the adapter you plug into a non-polar plug. I found mine at the dollar store for a buck!
The Restaurants:
You have two restaurants to choose from, one is called La Roca (which is your main buffet restaurant), and the other (which I don't remember the name of it) is a a la carte dining. However, you must book a day in advanced for this restaurant before you can eat there. The main reason is that you have to pick your menu first. It is a fixed menu, but the selection is great. I myself had the peppered steak. However, I enjoyed the buffet dinner and everynight there as something different being cooked. Its not always the same selection as some people mentioned in their review. The quality of the food is exceptional. We ate like pigs, and we didn't get sick. There is really nothing to worry about here. Except, don't have too much of the passion fruit, especially if don't normally eat them back at home. This restaurant is huge, and has about 9 - 10 food stations to get your food from, and all of them have something different to choose from.
The Beach:
The beach is beautiful with a clean golden-sand beach, lots of shade (if you want shade), clear blue ocean water to swim in. The only downfall of this beach is that there are alot of pebbles, stones due to the corel reaf. Its a little painful going into the ocean without a pair of swimming shoes. I bought some at Wal-mart for only $7.99 a pair. But it gets much better on the right side of the beach. For you snorklers, there is lots of fish and corel to see by only swimming out about 20 feet.
Tours:
The tours I think are reasonably priced with Sunquest & Abla Tours. They are as follows
However, we didn't book any of these with the tour rep. Instead we met a Taxi driver by the name of Pablo Sanchez. Very nice guy. We met him once when we wanted to go to a Casino one night. He told us that he could take you on some tours himself and a great savings than what our tour rep had mentioned. For example, we went to Puerto Plata for a tour around the city for shopping, to the Ambar Museum, Brugal Rum factory tour/shop and an old fort tour. Plus a day at Susua Beach, which has great fea markets to shop from as well. This only cost us $80 CANADIAN which was divided by four people! With the tour rep, this would cost you $128 US divided by four people. If you want to go on any tours, or cansinos, etc..., please contact Pablo. Below is his phone number and address, and we also included a photo of him. He is very friendly, comfortable to be with, you won't feel awkward with him, and he speaks very good english.
