more or less
- July 7, 2009
- Rated 3 of 5 by
a traveler from Travelocity.com
the hotel was very good but if you speak spanish everybody outside and inside the hotel will try to sell you anything (such as dominican rum, shirts, necklaces,etc). if you dont tell the maid to wash the bed sheets they left the same for all your stay. the pool was more or less (have some dirt in it). very good activities in the pool area. the beach was not good at all ( have a beautiful view at dawn but not good for swimming). always verify the A/C in the room and if its not freezing go to the front desk so they verify it. the taxis in the airport are $45.00 more or less but if you call the hotel they will transfer you to a tour person that will get you a taxi for $40.00. the persons that work in the hotel are very friendly. the food is good but if you try the buffet it will be the same everyday ( try all three restaurants including the one near the beach, for me its the best but only with reservation). beautiful hotel architecture all around. and for conclude if you are going to do something do it yourself if you can, because for anything you need help the people in the hotel will ask you for money (and Im not talking about taking the luggage to your room)
Will NOT recommend to anyone
- July 5, 2009
- Rated 1 of 5 by
a traveler from Travelocity.com
my friend and I booked a trip to Barcelo Capella, this hotel is a two star at best, not the 3/4 star quoted on your website. Upon arrival, our reservation was not found,we had to wait over 40 min for them to honor (we had a copy of our confirmation-they also stated that travel website always had glitches...FYI), then the room we were given had an a/c unit that made the noise of a freight train, we moved to another room, not as noisy but the beds were old (mattress had no firmness left), the pillows were lumpy, even after we requested new pillows, we were given another set of lumpy ones. We were not given any washcloths, had to ask for them to housekeeping about 5 times before we were given 2 and we did not get new ones for the whole stay of 5 days, even after we requested new wash cloths daily. Towels were hard to come by as well, we were lucky to have "nice" maids who would "find" us towels when we would come back from the beach to shower and we would find out we had NO towels in the room! The main/buffet style restaurant had very poor refrigeration for the food, we were afraid to eat anything that had to be kept cold, even a piece of watermelon was sour. We went to a wedding and the "rehearsal" dinner was at one of their "reservation" only restaurants, when we arrived, the mother of the bride was informed that there was no reservation in their name, even though she had worked with the wedding planner from the hotel and had reconfirmed the night before, after they tried to send us to the "buffet" restaurant (which everyone was fed up of) they said they would accommodate us and set up tables on one side that was empty. The food was mediocre there and we tried vanilla ice cream and that too was sour. Our group made reservations to the "other" reservation only restaurant, which we had heard was the only place that had decent food. When we showed up for our reservation, we were again told that there was nothing under any of our names. The waiter/maitr'd even gave his back to us, acting as if we were lying saying that we had a reservation, when we probably didn't have one...very rude. When the rest of the group showed up, he made it as if he was doing us such a great favor buy seating us (the place was empty anyway), then one of our friends showed up with a receipt she had gotten as proof of the reservation and even then, this employee did not apologize or anything, but continued with his "it's not my fault" attitude. Other things that were wrong with the room were: no pot for coffee maker (took three calls to get one), one lamp did not work, they replaced the bulb, then said it was the lamp not the bulb and "someone" would bring a new lamp, which was never delivered, the room was very dark without it. The a/c worked to make the room cold but something was very wrong with it removing the humidity from the room, our clothes felt damp, even the ones we had hanging in the closet, the toilet tank ran continuously, it was never fixed. the only nice thing about the hotel were the grounds and the proximity to the beach, although the street(beach) vendors were constantly bothering people, i even had to cover my face with a cloth to try to rest on the beach, they were relentless trying to sell their trinkets, even coming close to our faces with a cigarrette dangling from their mouth, blowing smoke on us, yuck!
A whole other problem was with the transportation, but since I had called to make the reservation and your operator could not get in touch with them and told me that the 809 # was a "toll free" number (it's not, it's a foreign number) and I should have no problem booking on my own, which I did and ended up not pre-booking. The person from the car service at the hotel was charging double of what you advertised online (they try to rip tourists off, luckily we are a little smarter than that), we ended up making arrangements with a local to drive us back to the airport...anyway, needless to say, we will not be booking again to go to this hotel and we will NOT recommend it to anyone.
Barcello Capella, Juan Dolio
- February 25, 2009
- Rated 4 of 5 by
a traveler from Travelocity.com
We really enjoyed our stay, Feb 8th to 15th, 2009. Check in was prompt and organized. We arrived before check in time, but were given our wrist bands and went for lunch and beach time. Rooms were great, in the 4000 section and bottom floor with a view of beach. Hotel staff friendly and knowlegeable. Very clean rooms. Food was typical. We have been in the DR before and knew what to expect. But lots of variety at the restaurants. No problems geting reservations at the al a carte restaurants. Did not use the French restaurant. Would stay there again.
Excellent 5 days, will refer to friends & family
- December 31, 2008
- Rated 5 of 5 by
a traveler from Travelocity.com
Was very pleasantly suprised and glad to have booked through travel website. We arrived on red-eye flight at 4AM and was expecting to hang around hotel till we could check in later, but front desk multilingal staff were very helpful and managed to get us into a room within 20 minutes of arrival. We did have to pay for a 1/2 day rate of $58, but got in the room 12 hours sooner than expected.
The grounds are spectacular w/crews out daily to groom plants and keep the beach and common areas very well maintained.
There are some vendors on the beach, just tell them no thanks and they move on.
The room was older on second floor of 3000 building w/no elevators, but we did have an ocean view and with small tips the maid gave extra attention including fresh flowers, extra towels, & bottled water & cokes. the phone was not working on last day, but was not a problem since we were checking out. the TV was satelite and did have limited English
channels, but expected in a Spanish speaking country.
I just want to say there were many nations represented, and if staff did not understand or speak English they would try to find another staff to help; on my dive trip only 2 Americans out of 16 but guides were multilingual.
Food was good, great variety and options for ala carte at 2 others restraunts, agree w/recommendation for Olas Grill for dinner
Checked out at noon, but able to eat lunch & dinner before shuttle to plane.