My first post..and it's going to be a good one!
Incredible deal (in my opinion) to Canoa Coral By Hilton.
What I'm about to share is my actual experience with booking a stay at the Canoa Coral. PLEASE DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. Should you decide to mimick what I did it's AT YOUR SOLE RISK. My experience may be completely different than what you may experience if you copy what I did. You've been warned.
OK. I searched under every rock for a bargain resort stay in late Feb/early Mar. Looked first at Hamaca Coral (another Hilton property) in Boca Chica as I was there a few years ago (my first trip to DR). Anyway, Feb/Mar appears to be prime season and daily all-inclusive rates were running ~$260/day for two. I then won an auction on Skyauction for a 1-10 day stay at Hamaca. My cost would run only $92 per day. What a bargain! However, I quickly learned that all my request dates for Feb/Mar kept coming back as unavailable. In fairness to SkyAuction they immediately refunded by bid price. Got all excited for nothing.
Next, I tried Hotwire.com. Choose Hotel option and searched La Romana. Only two hotels came up. My travel dates are Mar 2 - 7. Both listed as all-inclusive resorts. Searched the internet and found only a handful of all-inclusive resorts in La Romana. Back to Hotwire. One of the two listed resorts included a key for beachfront property, the other one did not. Process of elimination. Now, the beachfront resort is listed as a 4-star the other resort 3-star. The star rating is Hotwire's and should not be used as a comparison to other site ratings. Hotwire gives EXAMPLES of brand names under each star category. Look up 4-star and it gives HILTON as an example. No promise, however. Process of elimination. The 4-star beachfront property priced at $91/room/night when I requested a 5-night stay, 1 room double-occupancy! Get this..the 3-star not beachfront property listed at $172/night! What gives, I ask. Now, I visit Hilton's website and the for exact stay the cheapest room runs $240/night. I have $91 staring me right in the face! Next screen. Taxes and fees added driving the price to $112/night. Still, less than half what I've seen elsewhere. BUYER BEWARE! Once you book thru Hotwire you basically stuck with the reservation. No cancellations, no changes, etc. Next, Hotwire offers a Package option (airfare & hotel) to La Romana. Under Packages Hotwire will show the name of the property but your flight time, stops and carrier are a BIG mystery. Under the HOTEL option you don't learn of the hotel/resorts name and address until AFTER you book/pay for the trip. Now, under the PACKAGE option I ran the same dates and low-and-behold TWO all-inclusive packages to La Romana show up! The first is to the FOUR STAR Canoa Coral (just as I expected) while the other is to the THREE STAR Dominicus. Again, the 4 STAR prices almost $200 less as a package than the Dominicus which Hotwire considers a 3 star! Process of elimination and support. I'm thinking the only way the 4 star package is substantially less than the 3 star cost is it MUST be the hotel that's hidden under the HOTEL option but pricing at $91 vs. $172 (actually the later includes taxes and fees and a fair comparison is $112 vs. $172). Now back to the Hilton website. Amenities are a copy of what shows up in Hotwire. Further support. Time to pull the trigger! Go to HOTEL option and pick the blind 4-star for 5-nights Mar 2-7 for $112/night with taxes/fees. Nervously await confirmation screen. Guess what? I got a 5-night stay at Crazy Joe's all-inclusive "resort". JUST KIDDING! Guess I had a lucky day. It did confirm a booking at the Canoa Coral by Hilton! $112/day. Had to brag and hopefully someone else will at least investigate as I did if you're willing to roll the dice. Again, just sharing my experience. Please, no hate posts about how you DID end up getting booked at Crazy Joe's. One LAST thing. My first rate quoted started low at $91. Then it creeped up to $93, then $94. Erased cookies. Then back to $93. Used my friends computer and low-and-behold $91 comes up from which I booked.
Have fun in DR! Flying JFK to SDQ. Got a $290.55 r/t non-stop.
CTUSA
Incredible deal (in my opinion) to Canoa Coral By Hilton.
What I'm about to share is my actual experience with booking a stay at the Canoa Coral. PLEASE DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. Should you decide to mimick what I did it's AT YOUR SOLE RISK. My experience may be completely different than what you may experience if you copy what I did. You've been warned.
OK. I searched under every rock for a bargain resort stay in late Feb/early Mar. Looked first at Hamaca Coral (another Hilton property) in Boca Chica as I was there a few years ago (my first trip to DR). Anyway, Feb/Mar appears to be prime season and daily all-inclusive rates were running ~$260/day for two. I then won an auction on Skyauction for a 1-10 day stay at Hamaca. My cost would run only $92 per day. What a bargain! However, I quickly learned that all my request dates for Feb/Mar kept coming back as unavailable. In fairness to SkyAuction they immediately refunded by bid price. Got all excited for nothing.
Next, I tried Hotwire.com. Choose Hotel option and searched La Romana. Only two hotels came up. My travel dates are Mar 2 - 7. Both listed as all-inclusive resorts. Searched the internet and found only a handful of all-inclusive resorts in La Romana. Back to Hotwire. One of the two listed resorts included a key for beachfront property, the other one did not. Process of elimination. Now, the beachfront resort is listed as a 4-star the other resort 3-star. The star rating is Hotwire's and should not be used as a comparison to other site ratings. Hotwire gives EXAMPLES of brand names under each star category. Look up 4-star and it gives HILTON as an example. No promise, however. Process of elimination. The 4-star beachfront property priced at $91/room/night when I requested a 5-night stay, 1 room double-occupancy! Get this..the 3-star not beachfront property listed at $172/night! What gives, I ask. Now, I visit Hilton's website and the for exact stay the cheapest room runs $240/night. I have $91 staring me right in the face! Next screen. Taxes and fees added driving the price to $112/night. Still, less than half what I've seen elsewhere. BUYER BEWARE! Once you book thru Hotwire you basically stuck with the reservation. No cancellations, no changes, etc. Next, Hotwire offers a Package option (airfare & hotel) to La Romana. Under Packages Hotwire will show the name of the property but your flight time, stops and carrier are a BIG mystery. Under the HOTEL option you don't learn of the hotel/resorts name and address until AFTER you book/pay for the trip. Now, under the PACKAGE option I ran the same dates and low-and-behold TWO all-inclusive packages to La Romana show up! The first is to the FOUR STAR Canoa Coral (just as I expected) while the other is to the THREE STAR Dominicus. Again, the 4 STAR prices almost $200 less as a package than the Dominicus which Hotwire considers a 3 star! Process of elimination and support. I'm thinking the only way the 4 star package is substantially less than the 3 star cost is it MUST be the hotel that's hidden under the HOTEL option but pricing at $91 vs. $172 (actually the later includes taxes and fees and a fair comparison is $112 vs. $172). Now back to the Hilton website. Amenities are a copy of what shows up in Hotwire. Further support. Time to pull the trigger! Go to HOTEL option and pick the blind 4-star for 5-nights Mar 2-7 for $112/night with taxes/fees. Nervously await confirmation screen. Guess what? I got a 5-night stay at Crazy Joe's all-inclusive "resort". JUST KIDDING! Guess I had a lucky day. It did confirm a booking at the Canoa Coral by Hilton! $112/day. Had to brag and hopefully someone else will at least investigate as I did if you're willing to roll the dice. Again, just sharing my experience. Please, no hate posts about how you DID end up getting booked at Crazy Joe's. One LAST thing. My first rate quoted started low at $91. Then it creeped up to $93, then $94. Erased cookies. Then back to $93. Used my friends computer and low-and-behold $91 comes up from which I booked.
Have fun in DR! Flying JFK to SDQ. Got a $290.55 r/t non-stop.
CTUSA