We stayed at the Melia Caribe Tropical from 12th September to the 3rd October 2005. This was our second trip to the resort having spent our Honeymoon there in September 2003. After reading some of the reviews, we, like many others were a little apprehensive about this visit, thinking it must have gone down hill very fast since our last vacation when we couldn't fault it at all. we're glad to say that apart from two minor complaints we found the resort just as accommodating and spectacular as on our last visit.
The check-in took about 20 minutes, not bad considering that a very large party had arrived just minutes before ourselves. It must be said that throughout the holiday the reception desk staff were both very helpful and friendly, with their grasp of the English language being excellent.
The first complaint we had was that the Sol Melia Vacation Club staff pounce on you the minute you've checked-in, after a 9 1/2 hour flight (plus sitting on the plane at Manchester airport for 1 1/2 hours before take off - due to fog), then a 45 minute coach ride from Punta Cana airport, this is the last thing you need when you are feeling exhausted and just want to get to your room, shower, find a restaurant, then crash out for the evening. So, whilst thinking we were just going to get directions to our room from a friendly member of staff, we found ourselves agreeing to attend a presentation later that week by the SMVC (my wife is still baffled by the fact that we agreed to attend without me losing my temper - just shows what fatigue can do).
The second complaint was finding that the Tropical side of the resort was virtually closed down for refurbishment, this included the bar and shops, this left only 1 shop open which was on the Caribe side and was very expensive. There was also only 1 restaurant open on the Tropical side of the resort, La Gondola, which had been turned into a Buffet only restaurant for this period. The loss of the other restaurants on the Tropical side, the Agora, Pagoda, Le Gourmet and Los Atables did limit your dining choices a little, but there were still 6 A La Carte restaurants to choose from, the American Grill, Los Panchos, Ma Maison, Capri, Hokkaido and El Guarapo, plus El Turey for breakfast and lunch, the food in all of them was excellent with plenty of choice to cover all tastes.
Albeit, we still overheard some people moaning about the selection of food on offer, whinging English and Americans who were obviously too stuck in their ways to try anything new. These are the same sort of people who could be heard complaining about the standard of English spoken by some of the staff, this is after all a Spanish speaking country, do they think every hotel can employ hundreds of staff who are fluent in English when their standard of education is way below our own, they should be congratulated for learning another language even if it is just "hello" and "how are you". Some of the workers are not only capable of speaking good English, but also French and German as well. Would we be able to speak fluent Spanish to these people if they visited our country? We think not!
The people who complain should try speaking a little bit of Spanish, a couple of words will work wonders and the locals will love you for at least trying to communicate in their tongue, even if like me you pronounce most of the words wrong, which had the wife in stitches laughing at my attempts.
Speaking in a very loud voice, which seemed to be some peoples way of trying to communicate, is not going to help a non English speaker understand you any the better, nor as we witnessed one American 'gentlemen' doing with the omelette chef, is grunting and waving your arms around aimlessly, we couldn't understand him and we speak the same language apparently, well very similar anyway!
Just mentioning the subject of food again, we had no problems at all making reservations for A La Carte restaurants, the telephone service was excellent and we always got a booking close to our desired time.
The standard of service was very high wherever we went, bar-staff, waiters, waitresses, maids, even down to the men cleaning up the seaweed on the beach, all were friendly, courteous and helpful, with a cheerful "hola" from everybody. But hats off to the El Turey bar-staff, especially Nilsson and Juan Soler, both of whom made us laugh with their constant singing, dancing and joking, it was a pleasure to sit by the bar at lunchtimes and witness their performance.
The evening entertainment in the lobby bar was on the whole quite good, with most of the singers and musicians being of a reasonable standard. The nightly shows in the concert hall were also of a reasonable standard with the "Las Vegas - Paris" production being a particularly spectacular extravaganza.
If you want to dance until dawn then this is not the resort for you.
The size of this resort is immense, so you need to decide what is more important to you, being near the restaurants and lobby/reception area or near the pool and beach, then request a room in that area when making reservations. We asked for the pool /beach area and were allocated block 24 which was in an excellent position for us, 30 seconds from the El Turey restaurant, 45 seconds from the pool, 1 minute from the beach and also 1 minute from the nearest train stop.
The 15-20 minute walk to the lobby and restaurants in the evenings through the grounds and gardens was a pleasure, they are beautiful and immaculately kept and the wildlife, especially the birds, makes walking through the grounds a delight, with the sight of baby Peacocks bringing a smile to everybody's face.
Alternatively the land train which runs every 15 minutes is very convenient.
The beach was beautiful and during our stay relatively quiet, it was also fairly clean, it would be cleaner if people were not so lazy and put their rubbish into the many waste bins dotted amongst the palm trees, instead some tended to leave empty water bottles and half-empty plastic cocktail glasses by the sun-loungers, obviously expecting some poor resort worker to run around after them and tidy up, there were a couple of days when we had to remove this rubbish so that we could re-use the said area, just because your on holiday doesn't mean you have to turn into an idle layabout, you wouldn't leave your own property in such a mess, I hope?
Don't forget a $1.00 tip also goes a long way in this country, it is not essential, it just helps to give some of the hard working staff a better standard of life, some of the staff work unbelievably long hours, we saw some waitresses serving on at breakfast time and also in the restaurants in the evenings, remember this is a poor country and these people work for a pittance compared to ourselves, so a $1.00 tip here and there will be greatly appreciated.
Overall we had a another excellent vacation at the Melia Caribe Tropical and are planning to return again in 2007.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
