It’s a Caribbean Butlins …. complete with the birdie song !! (Bahía Príncipe)

Name: mickm9

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Product:	Bahía Príncipe
Date:	12/06/01 (2195 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Hot and sunny, Beautiful setting

Disadvantages: Poor entertainment

Depending on your experiences of Butlins the above comment could be construed as either being positive or negative. It’s not really meant to be either, its just that walking around the Bahia Principe complex the manner of the set up reminded me of an up market version of this popular English holiday camp. This was mainly based on the way the apartments were set out and the way the “entertainment” and main areas were all in a central location. However, I will explain more similarities as I go through the review.

So, where am I talking about ? Well, its an all inclusive complex called the Bhia Principe in Rio San Juan on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic, for those of you familar with this island or just simply looking it up on a map its just up the road from Sosua, supposedly one of the bigger "towns" in the Dominican and Playa Dorado which is a huge man made resort made up simply of lots of all inclusive complexs.

So anyway, thats the geography out of the way, back to the opinion. First of all I want to take you back to the airport and the transfer where there is some information which you will find useful if you visit this place yourself.

When you actually arrive in the Dominican you have to pay an immigration tax, this has to be paid before you go through passport control. Believe me when I say you would be well advised to rush to the counter where you pay for your form, it’s on the left as you go in and the queues are horrendous. This can be paid in sterling, US dollars or Dominican pesos. It costs either £9, $10 or 200 pesos per person. As you can see from these prices it is marginally cheaper to pay in dollars.

Once you have your form it is then a bit of a pain to fill in with quite a bit of info needed. There are only a couple of tables provided for this (but no pens) so like I said above try and get in the queue first otherwise you end up sitting on the floor doing it.


You then go through customs in the normal way showing your passport and this form, they then stamp it and give you a section back … DO NOT LOSE THIS !! You need it to get back out of the country (which incidentally costs you the same again)

As with most foreign airports there are numerous porters around willing to carry your bags. Usually you can just tip these what you want but in the Dominican they are expected to be paid a set price which is £1 per item, they are not as pushy as most places and a polite no will ensure they don’t hassle you too much.

Once on the bus a rep from the Bahia Principe resort will place a plastic band on your arm, this denotes your level of all inclusive (there are 2 – more about that later) They will also at this point actually allocate you a room number which I found quite unusual. I thought perhaps this was to speed the booking in process up but it isn’t. Basically what it is for is for you to put the room number tag on your cases as soon as you leave the bus, these are then left where they are, porters then load them onto little buses which deliver them to your room.

The actual booking in process is much the same as you experience in normal resorts and didn’t really cause us any problems, they were pretty helpful and seemed to have a good understanding of English. They also supplied a very detailed map which showed exactly where our apartment was, finding it was therefore not the nightmare you sometimes experience.

When we got to our apartment our luggage hadn’t been delivered and although in theory this service is quite a good idea it was a bit frustrating as we had to wait nearly 45 minutes before they got round to us. This meant that we had to sit around in our travelling gear when we would rather have been out in shorts exploring the complex. So take another tip and put some light clothes in your hand luggage in case this happens to you.

Again,
when these porters arrived they expect to be tipped a £1 a bag and they were actually quite rudely miffed when I only gave them £1 because that was all I had.

OK, what’s the apartments like? They are very spacious with only minimal furniture, this includes the bed/s, 2 bedside cabinets, a chest of drawers with 4 drawers, a fridge and a couple of comfortable chairs. As well as this there was a large in built wardrobe with more shelf space and hanging rails. There was then a separate bathroom which again contained only the necessary, toilet, sink, bath and shower.

Every room has its own balcony with 2 plastic chairs and a table. Although the views from most of them were only overlooking the backs of other apartments, this though isn’t as bad as it sound’s as there was gap of about 30 – 40 yards and nicely spaced between immaculately kept gardens and pathways.

Some of the optional stuff you can have in your room is a safety deposit box which costs 30 pesos (about £1.30) a day, the keys for this have to be got from reception so it might be an idea to get them when you book in. I would certainly recommend using this box as I was not very impressed with the security of the patio doors. The locking mechanisms weren’t very secure at all, in fact ours was easily opened by simply pushing the door back and forth ! Also, the maids seemed to leave the balcony doors unlocked every day as well for some reason. I’m not suggesting that the place is a burglars paradise, in fact far from it as there were always loads of staff wandering around who would more than likely have spotted someone climbing onto balconies, however, it does give you that extra piece of mind because you never know.

You can also purchase the use of a mini-bar as well, a fact which I found strange as it is an all-inclusive resort and I would have thought if they had this option it should have been free. Alas though it wasn’t so I didn&
#8217;t bother with it and just brought drinks from the bar back to the room if I wanted one.

Another strange quirk was the fact that there was no remote control for the TV, believe it or not if you wanted one you had to hire it. These were found at the same place as you hired umbrellas and towels. Again strangely you couldn’t just hire one or the other you had to get all three items or none at all.

So anyway, in summary the rooms were functional and all you would really expect, they were not the best in the world but they were comfortable and they had very efficient air conditioning units which turned out to be a godsend.

One last thing about the apartments, the maids had a habit of placing numerous little flowers around the room and in the bathroom every time they cleaned. Although this was quite a novelty and romantic the first couple of times it did become a bit of a drag every time and these ended up getting thrown in the bin on a regular basis which spoilt the initial effect somehow.

Well, that’s the apartments sorted, now what about the setting. This is where I got the first of the Butlins comparisons. Basically the apartments are set out in 5 straight lines radiating from both sides of the reception area, there is a line of 3 storey at the back, then 4 lines of 2 storey blocks. As I mentioned earlier the view from the majority of them was the back of the next line.

The above wasn’t as bad as it sounds because they were separated by beautifully kept gardens full of tropical plants and palms which on a night came alive with crickets and other such creatures that come together to make that distinctive “foreign” night time sound. As an added bonus these gardens were also home to a lot of humming birds and it was amazing to see them in action whizzing between and hovering in amongst the bushes ….. I guess that’s something Butlins doesn’t have !!

Anyway, I&
#8217;m digressing …. running centrally down these lines of apartments and through the gardens are “mini-roads”. These were just about big enough for the small staff vans and trailers to drive up and down. Branching off these were smaller paths which went between the blocks and joined the whole pathway network up. Once you got used to these they were very easy to navigate as the blocks are very clearly sign-posted and although it does look, and feel, like a bit of a maze at first you very quickly become used to it and end up finding the quickest way around.

An interesting aspect of these paths was the fact that they were home to hundreds of little lizards. These fellows were only on average about 3 inches long and had a habit of standing that still you didn’t see them till the last minute when they would scoot away in front of you. This didn’t bother me but I saw my girlfriend and numerous other people jump back startled a number of times.

If you didn’t fancy walking around either because of the lizards or simply because you couldn’t be bothered there was several “buses” that went back and forth around the complex. These were simply little vans with trailers on the back, if you wanted to hop on one all you had to do was flag the driver down and tell him where you wanted to go.

Incidentally for those of you who may request, or want, a sea view there are the only a few which actually overlook the sea. As I said earlier the rooms are allocated on the bus so make sure you say you have booked a sea view. I don’t know whether it will help at all but I do know that a couple of parties tried to change their rooms at reception and they were having none of it. As far as they were concerned the rooms allocated on the bus were the ones you were having.

Right, back to the tour, I’ve explained the basic layout of the apartment blocks and although it is not all as strictly regimen
ted as it sounds it is in the main the way it is laid out. What I’ll do now is take you on a walk around the complex highlighting the different areas and telling you a little about them as we go.

Incidentally one thing I did notice was the easy accessibility of everywhere for disabled people with numerous ramps strategically placed around the complex for those in wheelchairs. The only places that couldn’t be accessed were upstairs apartments which could only be reached via the stairways.

The beach is within easy walking distance of every apartment, we were in the last but one row away from it and still only had a 2 minute walk before we hit the sand. The beach itself was a little bit of a disappointment in as much that it wasn’t the white sand, clear blue sea image you usually associate with the Caribbean. It was very sandy though (just not white !) but it wasn’t very wide, in the main there was only space for maybe a couple of rows of sun-beds between the gardens and the ocean. This meant that it did tend to feel like a bit of a busy street with people walking back and forth among you while you were sunbathing.

The layout of the sunbathing areas was (apart from the width aspect) excellent with plenty of palm trees and permanent umbrellas for shade if you wanted it. There was also more than enough for the amount of people there, apparently the complex was about 3/4 full but there was always loads of spare beds.

The ocean itself was a bit of a disappointment (I sound a right misery guts here don’t I ?) as it was a bit rough. This wasn’t to do with the weather but more down to the fact that we were on the Northern side of the island which faced the Atlantic which is a fairly rough ocean. This means that the sand gets stirred up close in-shore and gives the water a very murky appearance. It was though in fairness beautiful and warm and was almost like swimming in a warm bath, just no good for sn
orkelling !!

So, where did you get refreshments to go with your sunbathing and swimming? Well, there were three bars spread out along the beachfront, however, the central one was the only place you could get food. The range was pretty basic, hot dogs, burgers, chicken, pizza and chips being the only choices. The standard was average, we soon found that if you actually wanted something hot you had to keep an eye on the chef to see what he was preparing as the food was simply placed on display and left to stand until people asked for it. Hence if you didn’t time your approach right you ended up with cold food !!

The range of drinks available were as you would expect …. lots of rum (white and brown) and a pretty standard mix of spirits.

There was also in each bar a self-serve soft drinks dispenser and a lager pump. These were pretty disappointing with numerous instances of them either not working, being empty or dispensing warm drinks. On several occasions I found myself having to walk another few hundred yards to get drinks which is not really what you expect at a 4 star all inclusive resort !!

Another let down on the drinks front was the fact that the “slush puppy” machines did not work properly and instead of getting a nice cold thick mix you got a warm mush. Now this might sound like a pretty petty thing to pick up on but my girlfriends favourite drink on last years Jamaican holiday (see my other review) was Strawberry slush puppy and rum and the fact that she couldn’t a decent one here meant I got the blame somehow !!

An interesting point about the rum is the fact that I heard before I went that it was watered down by the staff, at first I didn’t believe this but I noticed the staff bringing the bottles out of storage one morning and putting them behind the bar. Now although I didn’t actually see them watering it down I was curious to note that all of the seals were broken. T
his was despite there being something like a dozen full bottles of the same drink, obviously this is no sure fire indicator of anything sinister but I cant understand why they would need to open the bottles before they even get round to emptying the one in use ?

Moving on from the bars I’ll now tell you about the restaurants of which there were three, four if you include the upgraded area which I’ll mention later.

I wont bother reviewing each of them separately as they were all much the same.

Firstly there is the Italian, which on an evening you can only use if you’ve booked at least a day in advance (and your only allowed to do this once a week) but during the day doubled up as a breakfast area.

The other “themed” restaurant is the Mexican, this applies the same booking rules as the Italian.

The third, and main restaurant, is situated in the centre of the complex and is open morning till night. Unfortunately the standard of the food in here did leave something to be desired. This wasn’t because it was not cooked well, far from it as the standard was quite high. It was simply down to the fact that the way it was displayed and set out meant that if you didn’t get it as it was put out you ended up with cold food.

The range was adequate with a few different dishes being available each night for a bit of variety, however, these were mainly meat based so if you don’t like meat (my girlfriend being a prime example) the choice was a bit limited.

The themed restaurants had a slightly different feel to them as they had waiter service. However, the fact that you had to pick your dish when you booked the day before left you feeling as if you were in some sort of fast food set up, at least it was hot though. I won’t waste too much time reviewing the food and service as it was pretty average. It might though give you an idea as to the size of the helpings when
I tell you we walked out when we were finished (on both nights) and headed straight for the main restaurant because we were both still hungry.

The main restaurant incidentally is where another of the Butlins comparisons manifests itself as the general layout and hustle and bustle of the place reminded me of the restaurant at Skegness Butlins.

Oh yeah, and the coke in the drinks machine in the main restaurant NEVER worked the whole week !!

The breakfasts portrayed much the same story of good choice but usually cold, it was in the main continental type of breakfast food with very little chance of a good old English fry up. There was though two days where they had traditional Cumberland sausages …. I ate enough that morning to keep me going all week !

Again though the soft drink dispensers left a lot to be desired. On a morning you got extra choice of milk, orange, grapefruit, pineapple etc but again the machines were usually either empty or warm.

One final point on the subject of restaurants, I mentioned earlier that there are two levels of “all inclusive”. If you chose to go for the upgraded version you got another restaurant included in the package which was restricted to upgrades only, these were identified by a blue arm band instead of the standard green. However from what we could see this restaurant looked to be a very similar set up to the others. This impression seemed to be backed up by the fact that there were always a lot of blue armbands in the other restaurants so theirs couldn’t have been that much better.

Right, enough whinging about food. Lets continue on our walk around, incidentally the reason I couldn’t give a more detailed description of the above restaurant is because on this walk round if you had a green band you weren’t allowed near the upgraded area by the security guards !!.

Right, let’s carry on, what about swimming ? Well, for those
of you who don’t like swimming in the sea there were 2 swimming pools on the complex, with another one being built. The main one was located in the centre of the complex adjoining the main building, it was a very unusual shape and quite large although it didn’t actually have a “deep end” as such. This I suppose is sensible in this type of complex where there is a lot of children.

I was quite surprised at the cleanliness of the pool though because despite the fact that there was someone cleaning up every day it did seem to be a bit dirty with a lot of very unsightly stains and floating debris. It did have a swim up bar which is a nice feature, however, for some reason not a lot of people seemed to take advantage of this which was unusual, perhaps they were as impressed as I was with the state of the pool.

The second pool was a lot smaller and a more traditional square shape. It was set well off from the main area and surrounded by thick hedges, this made it quite private and a lot more peaceful than the main pool area and was ideal if you just wanted some peace and quiet.

It wasn’t always quiet though as it was occasionally used for the free scuba diving lessons which you were allowed one of a week, this was a very popular offer and a lot of people would descend on the pool at these times. However, I didn’t take advantage of this so I’m afraid I can’t comment as to how good the lessons actually were.

Next to the second swimming pool there was also a “games” kiosk, in here you could hire various bits of sports equipment, table tennis bats, tennis rackets, footballs etc. They also catered for the less strenuous activities with several board games being available …… this included Connect 4 which was that popular you could never get it !!! (Not of course that I was sad enough to want to play it on holiday in the first place)

If you fancied something
a little bit more energetic than board games you were also catered for with several options. Firstly there was a table tennis table on the beach next to the main pool, alongside this was a volleyball court (one of 3 on the complex) on the beach itself. If football is more your thing there was also next to the main pool a beach football pitch, the goals of which also doubled up as water polo nets for the pool.

This was by no means the end of the sports facilities available, if you wandered around to the far end of the complex you came across a full size football pitch and a couple of basketball courts. Also in this area was about half a dozen tennis courts which seemed to be in continual use !!

Tennis for me however is just a little bit too much in the blazing sunshine so I settled for a game of “Crazy golf”. Unfortunately though the course itself was pretty disappointing with next to no obstacles, debris all over the place and ripped felt on what was supposed to be the “fairways”. We didn’t bother playing again.

You could, if you so wished, also hire a bicycle from the hut next to this crazy golf area. However, as there wasn’t really anywhere to go other than around the complex we couldn’t really see the point. I think a lot of people agreed with this as we saw very few people actually riding bikes all week, most just used their own legs or jumped on the very regular trailer services.

Despite my earlier comment about tennis being a bit much in the sun I did partake in a little bit of exercise while I was there and that was in the on-site gym. This in itself was fairly basic with only 4 exercise bikes, 1 multi-gym and a couple of standard weight benches to use with the weights. It also had the 2 or 3 obligatory posers who hogged the weight benches. These guys seemed to be either residents or staff and had the run of the gym including the choice of music which was usually some sort of heav
y funk sound. Unfortunately the culmination of these factors didn’t really make it a place you wanted to spend a lot of time in so I only had 2 or 3 short workouts all week. The amount of other people using it (one or two at most on each visit) seemed to reflect my own impression of the place.

So, that about wraps up the daytime out and about around the complex, what about the night ?

Now I realise that some of the comments above might sound a bit negative, however, the entertainment at this place was absolutely pathetic. It consisted of the staff performing the same old routines every night, and unfortunately despite their obvious enthusiasm the standard was pretty dire. It became a bit of a standing joke between me and my girlfriend that if we walked past the main pavilion at various times of the evening we would without doubt hear one of three songs and see the same people on stage doing the same dances. If I told you that these songs/dances were “maccarena”, whigfileds “saturday night” and the “birdie song” (YES, the birdie song) you will begin to understand why I wasn’t too impressed.

So what else was there to do on an evening? Unfortunately the short answer to this was not a lot, there was a night-club and a casino. These opened after 11pm when the complex’s “entertainment” finished. However, we never actually made it to either as we were usually that bored we had long since departed back to the apartment !

I did speak to a couple who went to the night-club and they confirmed we had made the right decision. Apparently the price of drinks (not included in all-inclusive) were extortionate, he mentioned £4 a pint with the quality of the music being along the lines of the aforementioned 3 songs !!

I didn’t manage to find anybody who had visited the casino so unfortunately I can’t really comment on that, I did though have a look through the w
indows during the day and it looked pretty basic so again I don’t think I missed much.

The night-club and casino incidentally are actually just outside the main complex on a “road” leading into it. This road though is still part of the whole complex with gates at either end to stop any non-residents getting in.

This road is lined on either side with purpose built shops in an array of bright colours, it does look very impressive at first glance but as with the complex as a whole it fails to deliver. We had numerous walks down this road on an evening and found very little to occupy us. There was a multitude of shops but they were quite basic and once visited there was nothing to draw you back.

The “gift” shops were the usual mixture of tat and over priced souvenirs with very little choice, in fact there was that little available I ended up having to buy bottles of rum as presents …… not very imaginative but better received than some of the other options would have been.

There was several other general shops on the road and a couple of café bars, curiously enough not all of these seemed to be open at the same time, nor did they seem to have any set opening hours. The spread of shops included a hairdressers, an internet café (never saw it open), a camera shop, clothes shop, ice cream parlour, medical centre, pool hall, sports bar etc etc.

Oh yeah, a word of warning about this sports bar to the football fans amongst you, this bar advertises the fact that it screens all the big game action live. However, I happened to be there on FA Cup Final day and was distraught to find that they couldn’t actually pick it up because they didn’t have Sky Sports !! Now only you die hard footy fans will know how frustrating this is so bear it in mind when you book your holiday dates !!

OK, back to the serious stuff …. one place that was open most of the time was the “
reps” office, this was where ALL of the various tour operators reps were based, it was at times a bit manic with about a dozen different reps holding court and a multitude of languages being spoke. I must admit though it was quite handy as you could always find a rep in here ….. it might not have actually been yours but they were all still willing to help which was good.

Another place that was always open was the reception area, this seemed to be a constant hive of activity whatever time of day or night you went through it. It was a big open plan area full of massive palms and tropical plants with lovely big comfy chairs spread amongst them where you could just lounge around and watch the world go by.

Reception did offer all of your usual services, one of which included money exchanging facilities. A word of warning … DO NOT CHANGE YOUR MONEY HERE !! The exchange rate is scandalous compared to the bank which is also situated in the reception area. I changed £50 at reception on the first day only to discover that if I had walked less than 20 yards to the bank counter I would have got almost £10’s worth extra of pesos (their currency), suffice to say I went to the bank every time after that.

Another thing you should be aware of as far as “getting ripped off” is concerned is the situation with telephone charges, the basic call charges are bad enough costing in the region of £2.50 - £3 per minute for calls to the UK. These rates can be brought down a little by buying a phone card from the rep, which we did. However if you use this card from your room the hotel will still charge you a connection fee of nearly £1.30 a go.

We weren’t warned about this charge (contrary to what the rep said when we complained) and ended up with £15 of unexpected charges on our account when we booked out, not a lot I know but annoying all the same !! So, be warned, if you buy a phone card, use the kiosks dotted aro
und the complex and save yourself this connection charge.


So, that’s about it. All in all I would have to say the Bhia Principe was a little disappointing and in hindsight we could have picked better. Yes, perhaps it is a bit unfair to compare it with Butlins but after my experience in Jamaica the year before (did I mention I’ve done a review on that?) it was certainly not what I expected and I couldn’t help feeling let down.

Still, it hasn’t put me off the Dominican but if I return it certainly wont be to this particular complex, in fact it will not even be to the northern side of the island. If I ever go again I’ll make sure it’s the southern side so I can find that tropical paradise advertised on the bounty advert (the one with the gorgeous woman in the bikini) and get away from the images of Butlins that kept popping into my head !!

Oh yeah, one final thing, they do have their own web site for those of you interested, its at
www.bahia-principe.com/sanjuan_ing/sanjuan.htm

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