Playa Naco Golf & Tennis Resort

3 readers found this review helpful

There were me, my wife some children 11, 13, 18, 21 and the oldest two's boyfriends 19, 22. Well we moved here after we left luperon beach resort (see review of that place) and after what we had been through this place was heaven, nice staff who actually talked to you and made you feel welcome. The hotel is close to the shops and bars if you want that, the beach is fantastic all sand and some good waves (good means can get high) kids loved it could never get them out of the sea. Rooms are reasonable 2 double beds nice bathroom TV with about 8 - 10 English channels. Food is fine there could be more choice but what you get is very nice and you should find something you like and the deserts are good. entertainment staff are great we were there in the quite time but they were still fantastic as were the rest of the staff if you wanted anything doing it was done almost straight away if you’re playing table footy they will come and give you a game or sometimes just turn up and start putting your drinks on the table, which was nice. my wife and the younger 4 did the dune buggy trip and they loved it while me and the older 2 did the waterfall trip (I did this last year and enjoyed it so much I did it again) to be fair you do much more than just see the waterfalls you climb up them then jump back down, but you also see some petrified wood carvings to buy if you want then a mock cock fight and some food and a gallery and cigar factory, it's an all day trip and very good to. the wife and kids came back 3 hours late and covered in gunk but they said they would do it again 1 of them was on a quad bike the rest buggies, the bathroom after they got back looked like a bomb had gone off so be warned you will get dirty. All in all I wish we had spent the whole holiday here and never even seen luperon beach resort. Would go again.

If this is a 4 star then a one star must be tent with spam for lunch. The food was extremely limited, repetitive and bland. One small buffet table, one bread table and one fruit table (always the same 4 fruit offerings). Day time snacks were available on the beach at noon, again limited to deep fried chicken , spaghettie and some onion dish. Bar service was slow, often with one bar persone for the whole beach area, so a neverending line up all day, same for the pool bar. Staff on the bars were lesse than engaging, either overworked (seemed to be the case) or uncaring. Drik quality was poor - the only difference between the mixed drinks mix was a colouring added to the ice/slush. All alcohol was a low end generic brand from the same company, I think all they did as well was add colouring to the generic brand to make various lables. The the service staff were quite friendly ( dinning room and room service), front desk staff were not overly helpful, took three days to get our light woking in the bathroom.
While it is one's personal choice to smoke the facility pemitted it anywhere at any time. FEw ashtrays on the beach and no signs to encourage the use of same so the beach wa littered with cigarette butts, I mean littered and no clean up that I saw in my two weeks there, the butts just kept accumlating.

What a shame to read all those terrible reports of Playa Naco. My son got married there 10 years ago, and I have to say at the time it only had 3 star rating, but it was 5 star holiday, I have never been to such a clean resort, where nothing was too much for the staff. The food was fantastic, snacks, 24-7 plus drinks 24-7, full entertainment day and night if you wanted it. Mainly around the pool area, if you did not want that, then the beach bar and snack bar were open, plus BBQ lunch times, what more could you want. Infact I was looking to go back, but after seeing those terrible reports and notice its now changed to the DREADED TIMESHARE resort then no thank you. Why did they have to turn a 5 star resort into whats looks like the old UK 1 star rated resort. They are not doing anything to encourage holiday makers from UK are they.......

I put 2005 THE YEAR IN AS IT WONT TAKE what should have been IT WAS 1999 AND IT WAS A PERFECT HOLIDAY THE SECOND WEEK WE WERE THERE WE HAD A HURRICANE BUT IT PASSED WITHIN A MATTER OF DAYS THE STAFF DID A WONDERFUL JOB THE REASON THE PLAYA NACO IS NO LONGER IN THE BROCHURES ITS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY TIMESHARE AND THIS HAS SPOILT IT SO THE STANDARDS HAVE DROPPED ,IT WAS THE FIRST TIME WE HAD BEEN TO THE DOM-REPUBLIC BUT WE HAD A WONDERFUL TIME AND LOOK FORWARD TO GOING TO THE SAME AREA BUT DIFFERENT ACCOMADATION AS I SAY PLAYA NACO IS NOT IN THE HOLIDAY BROCHURES, SO UNLESS THEY PULL THE STOPS OUT THEY WILL NOT GET MANY TAKERS AGAIN, WE ARRIVED ON THE 20/09/99 AND DEPARTED 14 DAYS LATER DIDNT WANT TO GO HOME HAD WONDERFUL TIME FOOD WAS GOOD ACCOMADATION PERFECT BUT TIME HAS PASSED ON SINE THEN Regards Carole,

Right off the bat, I will say that we cannot recommend our hotel to anyone. It is badly run and has too many problems to even mention.
When I read "Trip Advisor" reviews on the hotel they sounded either "great" or "horrible". I couldn't understand that, but here is why.

The hotel has three types of room, the good, the bad, and the ugly. If you are travelling to the hotel during the off season there is a good chance that you will be given one of the good rooms around the pool. You will probably have a good time and write a good review of the hotel.

If these rooms by the pool are all booked up or, if the manager thinks that you won’t complain, you will probably be given a room in the #900 building. This is a square concrete block building with a dark dingy central courtyard housing the lobby, Mexican restaurant, and the so-called "gift store", with very little in it. This building has two upper floors of rooms. These are the bad rooms. They are small, poorly appointed rooms with tattered old wicker furniture, big clunky old wooden bed frames with only a mattress on them. (There are no fitted sheets in this hotel and the top sheets just about reach from one side of the bed to the other).
These dingy little quarters would have been bad enough, but to top it off, our toilet didn't flush, the ceiling fan ran at an astounding 30,000 RPM (Just guessing there, it could be even faster) and the noise from the guests and staff wandering through the lobby below all night long, was somehow amplified by this unique structure in such a way that it sounded like the people were actually walking through your head.

Now, if the hotel is packed, as it was the whole time we were there over Christmas and New Years, you are in for a real treat. You will be offered a room in the #1000 block of rooms, or what we like to call the cattle shed. Upon our arrival (and after a two hour wait) we were led across the road from the lobby to the truly ugliest part of the hotel, a two story building surrounded by a high fence with barbed wire. The long dark hallway seemed to go on for an eternity, it had a feeling more of a tunnel, with little light at the end of it.
We were shown a truly depressing room in which the sliding patio door was rusted wide open, allowing all manner of bugs, as well as the loud humming sound of the hotel generator outside, to fill the room, but it did have a charming view of the smelly cow pasture on the other side of the fence.
We respectfully declined that room and we were shown to another room further down the tunnel which was equally if not more depressing. We returned to the lobby to say that we were not satisfied with that room. "What's wrong with it?" the man at the desk demanded. We told him that the patio door did not lock, the glass was missing from the bathroom window, there was no shower head, which probably didn't matter because there was nothing coming out of the hot water taps anyway and we were not likely to take a cold shower. The desk man looked at us and said, "Is that all?"

So, after about four hours we were given a room in the #900 block ("echo chamber"), in which we spent two sleepless nights before our Sun quest agent was able to transfer us to one of the good rooms by the pool. When I say "good rooms", I mean a standard size room where the toilets flush, there is hot water, and the fan and air conditioning worked normally.
However, the room had the same tattered old wicker furniture, a rock hard bed, no windows opened, and there was a door to an adjoining room which allowed us to hear the tenant in there coughing all night long. In fact, there was a crack in the door big enough to have peeked through to see the next-door tenant but I put some duct tape over that, which will probably remain there until the hotel closes.
Hopefully that will be soon.

Just returned from two weeks at Playa Naco Hotel, did I enjoy my holiday I don't know how to describe the time spent there! One of those annoying all inclusive places where you wear a colour coded wrist band, unless you're lucky enough to 'lose' it somewhere.
Booked two weeks before departure for 4 adults and 1 child. Out of 4 restaurants, only one was open. No child club, no child play area. No entertainment day or night. No nothing!! How do you describe nothing? As for the meringue lessons and scuba lessons promised - where were these? But apparently it was 'off season' so we kept being told and that was supposed to halt our disgust at not being told this two weeks ago when we booked?! Apparently high season starts 1st November, funny because I've been in the Caribbean the last two years in November and it's been just as quiet, perhaps there's only one season all year. Wonder what the hotel staff get paid for doing in 'off season' then?
Luis Cepedo, General Manager and 'Animation' (er, that's entertainment to the rest of us), and his two helpers, seem to get paid for doing nothing, day after day. Yes, no entertainment, sorry 'animation', day or night, except, of course, at the weekend when we were invaded by Dominicans who apparently can stay every weekend of the year for what we English pay for our two weeks. (Best of luck to them I say!).
After a week everyone (English & Americans) got together to complain. The hotel agreed to open another restaurant but served exactly the same food as in the buffet restaurant, so all we got was a change of scenery. Lunch at the beach bar was actually quite good in fairness the hotel and is right on the beach. Breakfast was substantial enough avoiding the ants, mosquito's and birds. The evening meal, although always very nicely presented, appeared to be yesterday's left overs regurgitated, day after day and coupled with the ants and leaking ceiling in the buffet restaurant after the almost daily downpour around teatime, was enough to put anyone off the food, and so we ate out 3 times.
According to Playa Naco website there is also a Dominican Chocolate House, we could see it from our balcony but hasn't been open in two years.
Drinks were included but wine and cocktails (no fruit or umbrella's) were served in plastic vending cups. Food was only available at meal times and no snacks in between which meant that very young children couldn't get food after lunch until 6.30 pm by which time they were falling asleep.
After the complaints, Luis started offering evening entertainment of just one hour each evening: one hour of Mr Macho, one hour of Karaoke, one hour for any woman stupid enough to get up on stage and wiggle her bits in front of the entire guest list, one hour of pop quiz, one hour of 'culture' quiz, and three nights where there was one hour of local dancers. One of these night he organised the dancers in the upstairs theatre and promised to follow this with a disco till 1 am, (there is a nightclub, theatre and disco at this hotel though none were open), but the records (not a proper disco) were switched off at 11 pm and as the bar downstairs (the one and only bar) closed at 12 anyway there was never going to be any chance of a disco till 1 am.
Good points for this hotel? We upgraded direct with the hotel to a 2-bedroomed duplex apartment and they didn't charge us for it! This accommodation was superb though we were bitten to death the whole holiday in the bed even though we sprayed everything every night. The food, though repetitive and regurgitated, was well presented and I'm sure in 'high' season when everything is fresh each day, it could be quite good. The hotel was directly on to a superb beach, and what few customers they had had been spread throughout the hotel so there was absolutely no noise from neighbours.
Other hotels in the same holiday village (approx 14 similar all inclusives within walled grounds), although more basic in accommodation all boasted superb restaurants serving lobster and steak and a full entertainment programme even though they too had very few guests - no one else complained except guests of Playa Naco.
Playa Naco has the basics of a good hotel, accommodation, scenery, location, get the other main bits right, the food and the entertainment and the Animation team, and you could find yourselves scoring 8 or 9 out of 10.

I have just got back from two weeks in Playa Naco. The hotel was clean, apart from the pool, a few bugs but nothing more than the average hotel.
The food was vile and everything tasted of cinnamon, but the Tex Mex and Caribbean restaurants were good and there were a few friendly waitresses around.
The hotel was extremely biased towards local visitors, of which 90% of the guests were at times.
I was shoved around at meal times by local women and the staff very rarely served us if there was a Spanish speaking guest waiting too.
The room was good, air-conditioning a touch noisy, and the hot water temperamental, but overall ok. We were woken by the maid everyday at 7.30 and woken again every half an hour afterwards until we got out of the room which became intensely annoying after a while.
The hotel was ok, very dull in the evening and definitely not 'English speaking' friendly.
Would return to the Dominican again, but not Playa Naco.

On first arrival the resort did not look that bad but within 2 days we had to be moved rooms as we found faeces on the bed and bedside cupboards.
The next room they gave us was spacious but smelt musty and the beds were damp, We had roaches running round the cooking area and little insects all over the kitchen worktops. We complained about this and was basically told 'well you are in a tropical country'.
The third day there i went down really ill with dioreah and sickness and was ill all holiday, going for three weeks didn’t help matters.
The food was awful partially cooked or raw in middle, rehated food for breakfast from evening meal and there were insects and birds just helping themselves to it. None of the food was covered.
The staff hardly spoke any English and were quite abrupt if you complained as for the waiting staff we had to wait sometimes until we were on pudding before even being offered a glass of water.!!
The plates and cutlery were filthy, my list could go on and on.
We came home and I was still ill so had to see my gp who confirmed after testing that I’d had been and still was suffering from salmonella.
Suffice to say I will not be going back to Dominican Republic again.

I returned from the Dominican Republic just this morning. I read some of these reviews with my mum before going and have to admit we were quite worried. We have never have any bad problems with holidays before and travel often. It took a few days to get sorted into the hotel, but once were we had a great holiday. I really don’t know what people are talking about when they say the place was covered in insects we saw one cockroach in 2weeks.
The hotel is spayed every Wednesday. 5 of us travelled, we ended up with a two level apartment, in wonderful grounds. New Italian Management took over in dept 2004 and it is the only hotel I have ever stayed in that we could see a member of the management team everywhere checking things out. There are 3alacart restaurants all with excellent food and the buffet is served on the beach twice a week, the food is not excellent but no complaints and the setting is lovely. There is a shopping mall with restaurants, shops and bars. Entertainment in the hotel finishes at 11.20 but they have a disco and the local mall within the complex approximately 4min walk.
It’s not a 5star resort but there have been alot of improvements, all the staff are lovely, helpful, game for a laugh and speak English. There are alot of Dominicans in the hotel at weekends but we found that it made the entertainment better as they join in whereas as the British don’t normally take part. All in all you’ll have a great time don’t be afraid to talk to people.

After reading the previous comments I have to say that we were moved from a hotel in Caberete that sounds as bad as the reviews written here.
This hotel has new management and can honestly say that if the reviews are true it has improved 100% The rooms were large airy and spotless, no problem with aircon, hot water or bugs.
The cleaners were constantly around the resort. The food was although repetitive which you expect in all-inclusive but well cooked, hot and very tasty. The staff were friendly and helpful they made you feel very welcome.
The drinks were not watered down at all, beach was spotless and being constantly cleaned by beach staff. The General Manager was seen many times during the day checking things out.
So if you have booked this hotel be assured you will have a wonderful time here.