My wife and I recently returned home from a week at the RUA. I just read the reviews that were posted on Debbie's Dominican Republic page while we were gone. As I read the long, negative, review from the person signed "Canada" I had to wonder if they were at the same wonderful resort. The impression we received of the staff were that they were always willing to please in any way possible. Never once did we make a request that was not honored. We were warned by our Apple rep to get accustomed to "Dominican time." Which, according to her, is one USA/Canadian minutes to thirty Dominican. But we never witnessed any of the staff acting on "Dominican time." Any request made was honored in a complete and efficient manner; and it always came with a smile. The Dominican Republic people we encountered were extremely friendly and cheerful. They are a beautiful people in all ways.
The food was consistently good. The group that we ended up spending most of our time with joked about the dinners sometimes being mixed up when they were placed on our table, but we were more pleased with the opportunity to try lots of different foods. If there is one thing that needs to be adjusted, it may be the menus that made for some interesting translations from Spanish to English. But we all agreed that we would gladly provide our services of correcting the written translations for a free weeks stay!
The language barrier was seldom a challenge. We know very little Spanish, and never had a problem. The key staff spoke very good English. The housekeeping staff was much more limited in their English skills, but still knew more of the language than staff we've dealt with in large cities, like Chicago. It is important to keep in mind that we are North Americans traveling to a foreign country. It is a bit pompous for us to think that everywhere we go in the world English should be the primary language spoken. It is not the norm in Paris, Madrid, Moscow or Berlin (and especially Quebec), so why is it expected in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic? We never witnessed or experienced preferential treatment provided to someone based on nationality or language skills.
The assessment of the topless sunbathing in the review was most interesting. There was no topless sunbathers at the main pool the entire time we were at the RUA. In fact, there were very little at the topless pool. On occasion, women would be topless at the beach. The entire crowd must have turned over within the short time difference from the reviewers departure and our arrival, because the act of people trying to tear each others tops off would have been extremely uncharacteristic of the mature (ages 30 - 55)almost entirely couples crowd at the resort (and are they absolutely positive that they were Americans?).
We witnessed no fumigation being done during our stay. No doubt some must have taken place, because there were very few bugs anywhere. In fact, we never used the insect repellant that we brought. It wasn't needed. Knowing the layout of the bathroom and shower area, I am having difficulty determining how the reviewer did not notice a spider in the shower. Especially one the size that was described. Being in a tropical area, we would have found it interesting to see an insect of that size. But we never saw anything larger than a common beetle that was outside the door of the disco after a brief rain shower.
The grounds were impeccably kept. I strolled around to take picture one morning, and after a dozen or so photos I realized that all of the pictures included the staff cleaning, pruning or watering. I was most impressed by the cleanliness of the beach. Every morning a hoard of staff must have descended on the beach because there was never a piece of seaweed or trash. If you left the resort property one could see the amount of trash that washes up. But on the RUA property, the beach was beautiful and clean.
Obviously people experience similar things differently. For some, small items can seem large, which then turns larger items into mountains. It is all in our perception of the world. Our perception of the Royal Uvero Alto is that it is one of the finest establishments we've had the pleasure to experience. Most impressive is the fact that they have only been open a short time. Having personally created and experienced many large projects from inception to production, I am extremely impressed that such a complex operation is functioning at such a high level after such a short period of time. A most impressive facility that we would highly recommend.
(message cross-posted to Debbie's Dominican Republic page)
