Holiday Village Golden Beach |
Rating:  |
Phone: |
Website: |
| Location: North Coast |
Fax: |
E-Mail: |
| City: Puerto Plata |
Contact: |
Value for money: Horrible |
| Food: Horrible |
Decor: Average |
Service: Horrible |
| Comments: |
This is a copy of a letter that I presented to the Manager of the Holiday Village Golden Beach Resort in Puerto Plata. I had an opportunity to discuss these issues with him on Friday January 26 and the claim was that he had never received the first letter decribing how to fix the hammock problem. However he did thank me for the effort and time that we took to do all the work that we did and he promised to move on it right away. Remember this is on the 2nd last day of our 2 week stay here. I have the pictures available on request.
The letter is as follows
Thursday, January 25, 2007
I wanted to mention a few things about the Holiday Village Golden Beach Resort. The first is that I highly doubt I will be back, I have stayed at other resorts in this complex and others in La Romana as well as other locations throughout the Caribbean and I have to say that in no other place did I feel like an inconvenience but here I felt that way to the staff at the Resort and to the First Choice/ Signature staff on site. I am vacationing with 2 other couples whom I work with as Safety Professionals in a large industrial facility in Canada and a third couple that was only able to be here a week and we all feel the same way. We feel that this facility does not take the safety of its guests as one of its priorities. An example of this would be that we had raised a concern about the hammocks that are common to all the rooms, one of our party was on his hammock and the hammock fell to the ground due to the poly coated wire suspending the device slipping through the U-bolt fastener. Luckily, there was not an injury but that does not say that there was no risk. We identified the issue and recognized the solution and tried to report this to the staff at the VIP and they assure us that someone would be there to repair our hammocks….this did not happen. Day 2 we went to the signature desk and requested this be fixed…they said they would make maintenance aware and get it fixed….this did not happen. And so on for the first week, then we tried talking to the signature rep manager and still no action so we drafted a sketch that detailed the way to repair these hammock supports and left this at the desk for the manager….still no results. I even emailed the head office of Signature in Canada, during all this time we could not use our hammocks and we also explained to everyone we talked to at the Hotel and the signature reps about the risk involved for everyone who uses these at this facility. Nothing was done.
However, you will be happy to know that we did manage to get a “tool man” to repair one of our hammocks this morning to our satisfaction and instructions.
I have seen several other things during my two weeks here that give me concern….There are fire hose stations on site with no hose, there are missing fire extinguishers, there are missing smoke detectors in my room. Walking around the site we have noticed workmen leaving hoses and material in busy walkways where this is causing a tripping hazard for guests. Gratings off of sewers along roadways late at night that leave a hazard that would break a leg if someone stepped into them. I was looking at the supports on the ventilation in the buffet hall, this hardly seems adequate in light of the material weight and the methods used to attach this to the ceiling structure. In the light of these few things that I’m mentioning here I question the safety of the bungee and zip line, the harness and the people running these devices. Further, it has been noticed that there have been a few guests experiencing some respiratory distress after visiting the tower bar and the Italian restaurant; both of these have mold issues that effect different people differently, some can become quite ill so I have given you a chart for different molds and how to clean it.
Please see the pictures with this document for reference.
I will be sharing this with my travel agent and recommending that they do not book anyone to this facility in the future, I will also be posting this on the internet for all as a review.
By the way, the service was poor, ala Carte was shoddy and the food below par.
Thank You
and good luck
Jim Loxton Room 0.22
519-337-1704
721 Ross Ave.
Sarnia, ON. Canada
N7T1K3
|
| Author E-Mail: jloxton@cogeco.ca |
Review date: 01/30/2007 |
|
Comments |
| The first week was new exciting but it soon started going down hill. We upgraded our room to get vip treatment. We were told an adult vip pool and bar were for us only. soon we started to see people with different coloured wrist bands on in this area. No staff picked up on this matter. The food soon started to go down hill with many visitors having stomach upsets. Even though it was all inclusive they charge $6 us for international drinks which is not stipulated. The staff were more intrested in tips instead of doing there job, even a glass of water ment they waited at your table for a few seconds looking for money. We had lobster one night and the waiter never came back with the $15 us change. I feel this is a 3 star resort/ haven holidays with the sun. Even after paying for excursions the guides, drivers are taking you more places to get money out of you. I have been to many places in the carribean but would never recommend this resort or the dominican republic. It is very pretty but spoilt by the motivation for money and service |
| Author: Philip Burford |
Posted at 17:26 01/31/2008 |
| well i am from scotland and worked in vancouver last year as a scaffolder i was amazed at the lack of safty in your country compared to the u.k,i advise you never to visit the u.k,as on returning home you might not get to sleep when you see how unsafe canada is |
| Author: charloe |
Posted at 22:23 12/12/2007 |
| Dude! don't forget that you are in the dominican, not a WSIB/health and safety governed country. you have gone way overboard with writing a letter. you ruined your holiday by auditing the resort rather than enjoying its beauty. next holiday you should loosen the vice a little and enjoy yourself. |
| Author: hart |
Posted at 8:37 03/30/2007 |
My husband, myself and our 2 children age 1 & 3 stayed at this hotel during january of this year for two weeks.
I have to say that we really enjoyed ourselves and thought the hotel was great. The first choice staff and in2action guys were great and so friendly.
We had a couple of problems with water not working in our room and also towels not being delivered and the hotel staff sorted this out straight away.
The children and my husband were kept entertained all day and mostly the hotel was clean.
Our room (family room) was a little dark and tired looking but was satifactory.
There was some kind of illness going around whilst we were there and my youngest and my husband both had extremely high temperatures and aches all over. They were both shivering and at first i thought they has sun stroke but we were not the only ones with it. It lasted about 3 days then we they were fine.
The food was ok the first week but the second week it was not so good but then the hotel seemed to fill up.
I'm not sure it's a 4 star but a good 3 and we had an excellent time and would go back again. If anybody wants a more detailed report feel free to mail me. |
| Author: natalie macpherson |
Posted at 14:59 02/4/2007 |
| Yeh I guess you can say my job never quite went away and my hard hat was not quite what you would call beach wear. But I did try to remember that this is a third world country and that was demonstrated quite well if I cared to watch the workers anywhere in the DR but I would think that the safety of the guests in this resort should have some level of safe environment. Dialogue with the various of management and the empathy conveyed by the signature crew on site was just a waist of breath. As I am not really a cronic complainer and have travelled for years I expected a lot more from Holiday Village. I am sure that if you asked someone else of their opinion on this resort you would get a simular story that might involve raw sewage backing into their bathrooms, leaking roofs, bugs, poor entertainment, lack of service everywhere and so on. Don't believe me ....go ahead book in for a week or two and waste your money too! |
| Author: JIM |
Posted at 16:46 02/3/2007 |
Heh, no kidding.
Did you where your hard helmet at the buffet!! |
| Author: tyrone b |
Posted at 19:14 02/2/2007 |
Sounds to me you took your job with you on your vacation!
Relax and enjoy theres still a chair or two around!! |
| Author: Guychew |
Posted at 19:06 02/2/2007 |
|
|
