Santana Beach Resort (small review)

[W. Mejia.]

I just came from Santana Beach in San Pedro, the food was good, the best I have tasted in a all inclusive, but, the service was poor, the personnel was poorly trained and needed some lessons in good manners, there was even and incident where one of the guest had a discussion with the guy attending the grill because he was verbally abusing some of the costumers who lined up for seconds. Well, after tasting the grilled chicken and pork chops you had to try seconds .

The installations are nice, clean and well kept, the hotel has a small plaza in front with a nice representation of a Typical San Pedro Victorian style barrio with an English style cathedral and a colmado.

The beach area is beautiful, however they haven?t kept seaweeds from invading the area, I stayed in the pool area the rest of my stay after being bitten by some sort of small animal.
Oh, BTW, they need to fumigate, there were all sorts of insets flying and crawling all over the place, not to mention the ?JEJENES? a mosquito like insect that bytes like crazy.

I think this resort is nice and economic with very tasty food and drinks, but they need to work in some areas.

 

[Jim Hinsch]

Thanks for the review. I was considering visiting this resort because of their promise of great water skiing but they took a long time to answer simple questions by E-mail and ultimately altogether stopped responding to my inquiries. Any more detail you can provide with be appreciated.

 

[Mike]

Can you give me more info about "being bitten by some sort of small animal"

Thanks.
Mike

 

[rabble rouser]

jim, water conditions directly in front of hotel are perfect for water skiing as it is in north-east corner of a small bay, however this sheltered area is very small and water becomes somewhat rougher as you travel west. there is no boat traffic to speak of in this area and it is also currently the only hotel for several km. along the coast. from what i saw jan/feb this year they have neither the equipment for skiing at the resort nor anyone from town to supply a boat/skis. perhaps this is why they didn't answer you.

 

[Jim Hinsch]

Re: Santana Beach Resort - water skiing

Are you a water skier? I ask because unless you ski a lot, you may not be aware of whether or not the conditions are perfect or not. Nothing personal, but I've had various water sports companies tell me the conditions were perfect in Barbados, 7-mile beach in the Caymans, the bay at Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and Sosua Bay on the north coast of the DR. While the water was often dead calm in all 4 areas at least in the early morning hours, each was subject to swells from the open sea. This won't affect a 2-ski water skier moving at 28mph, but it makes it pretty much useless for a high-speed slalom skier, who will hit 55-70mph during cuts. You'd think if anybody knew about water skiing conditions, a water sports company that pulls skiers would. Are you still sure conditions are perfect there for water skiing? If there is an above water reef, which they say there is, there is a good chance that it stops the swells, provided it is long enough. The minimum area for skiing is about 1/2 mile long.

According to their E-mail, they have a 22' Yamaha boat with a 115hp Yamaha outboard and a top speed of 44mph and a 16' Glasstron boat with a 115hp Yamaha and a top speed of 50mph.

They offered me to ski with Eric Holsteinson, who personally guarantees that I will have an enjoyable time, but the ski area is the River Soco next to the hotel rather than the sea in front of the resort. In an E-mail from Alex Urgell Fornes of the resort, I was told that Eric Holsteinson is the slalom champion in the Dominican Republic. I inquired what competitions he had participated in to make him the slalom champion in the DR, and they did not respond. I resent the question, along with a request for directions on getting to the resort, and again, no response.

Equipment is no problem. I live in the DR 25% of the time and keep all my stuff there.

A visit and resort review is still in my plans. Do you have any idea on the travel time to this resort, for example, from Santo Domingo airport?

 

[Tom]

Re: Santana Beach Resort - water skiing

Jim

USS Arleigh Burke is currently deploying for a drug Interdiction cruise along Haiti, DR and PR. Maybe we could convince the Navy to let you ski behind her, I'm certain that would fill your need for speed

 

[rabble rouser]

Re: Santana Beach Resort - water skiing

jim, here are the answers to your questions (in reverse order).

the village of Santana is no more than 1 hr.(depending on time of day of course) from SD airport, resort maybe 3 minutes further on.

jan/feb this year there were no motorized water sports available nor any offer to arrange any such sports(even scuba) at the hotel. if they are suggesting waterskiing on the river itself, i would be very concerned about safety aspects unless i myself was extremely familiar with the course.

115 hp. on a 22' boat seems underpowered to me, on 16' it would probably be adequate-i guess it depends how many hours are on the motor-why yamaha motors though, is nothing else available?

water directly in front of the hotel is sheltered by an "above water reef". i have described this before in other posts. it is a massive pile of rocks running south and to the east off the beach. behind this the water is absolutely calm but as i said the area is very small, skiing would have to be outside the "reef". directly in front of the hotel it is still calm, no swells but the further west you go the more exposed you are to wind and surf; i'm sure you are familiar with conditions at san pedro de macoris.

yes, we are a family of waterskiers but apparently we don't ski as much as you do.

 

[w. Mejia]

Re: Santana Beach Resort - water skiing

Hi, for what I saw there, water sports are not their
strong point.

I was not very interested in water sports, but I saw a shack
renting scuba gear.

And about the seaweed, it was in the water at 2 AM when I gotbitten, but don't let that get in the way, I am sure
they haven't kept seaweed out because turist season starts
in december.

 

[Jim Hinsch]

Re: Santana Beach Resort - water skiing *PIC*

Great info.

For my classification, the boat needs to be able to maintain 36mph. The boat pictured at http://www.geocities.com/waterskibocachica/picture/side.jpg is a yola with an 85hp and can maintain 33mph pretty well (measured using GPS) with me pulling hard. Not ideal, but OK. I suspect 115hp would do the job if it is in good order.

Why Yamaha? I don't know, but that's what they say they have, and from my experience, that's what most of the smaller boats in the DR at 45-115hp use. I've seen some Yamaha Enduros around as well.

Why would you be concerned about skiing on that river? River skiing is not at all unusual here in the USA. I've skied the Rio Chavon (pictured below) at Casa de Campo and it was really great skiing (the boat wasn't too good though). A water ski school I attended this summer, Ski Paradise, owned by 7 time USA champion Gordon Rathbun is on a river (see http://www.mastercomputergroup.com/acapulco/skiing.html).

You mention a course. What course are you talking about? I'm not aware of any course being set up.

I'm not familiar with any swell-free conditions along the DR coast in the sea or ocean except in the reef protected lagoon of Boca Chica, but I'd be excited to discover another area that has them.

 

[Jim Hinsch]

Re: Santana Beach Resort - animal bite

Did the bite make a vertical slice on your toe? Once my feet were dangling as I treaded water and something bit my foot. It put a vertical slice in my toe that drew blood. I never saw what it was, but I think it was a crab or lobster claw.

 

[Lucy]

I was sorry to hear about the bad experience at Santana Beach. I was there in June and I had a great time. I found the personnel to be friendly and helpful. I was there with my husband and two boys and had a great time. I did however stay away from the beach after the first day. There was some tiny insect in the water that I couldn't see but felt the instant it bit. I was not our imagination because we could see the bite marks. Like a mosquitos but in the water. I did however see the employees fumigating every morning and every evening. As for the water skiing I did not see anyone doing that. They had scuba gear and other aquatic stuff. Water bikes and such.

 

[rabble rouser]

Re: Santana Beach Resort - water skiing

jim, i only expressed concern about skiing on the river (and river skiing is not unusual in Canada either) because this hotel did not appear to be set up to run a water sports program. anyone can drive a boat but there is some skill/knowledge required in pulling a skier yet they seem to be unwilling to provide info on the person running the program.

as for me, i would want to be sure that there aren't water hazards floating down the river. do i worry too much? probably, but we ski on a lake that used to be logged many years ago and once in awhile a dead-head comes floating to the surface-i just don't like surprises. in addition, the eco-dinosaur that i am thinks that the river's shore erosion from boat wake is not something that i want to contribute to especially as a visitor in another country.

now a tech. question for you. most of my pictures are slides(they work the best for presentations)-is it possible to scan them to post here or so people can see what this part of the country looks like?

 

[w. Mejia]

Hi,

Well, at least now I know it was not my imagination, there was
something in the seaweeds.

People tell me it most have being a gelly fish.

The incets that byte you were "Gegenes" it's a tiny incet that bites like crazy.

I had a great time, mainly because of the people I was with.

 

[Jim Hinsch]

Re: Santana Beach Resort - digital images

Floating objects are for sure, real hazards on any river.

There are slide scanners. Any Kinkos should be able to make JPG files out of your slides, but best results would be obtained from any photo processing lab. Just send your slides in and ask for digital images in the same way you might ask for prints from slides.