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| Lifestyle Vitalis Garden Club |
Lifestyle Vitalis Garden Club: Lifestyle Vitalis Garden Club Reviews |
| Total User's Score 3.4
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| Based on 7 reviews |
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| Lifestyle Vitalis Garden Club |
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Just got back from 2 weeks all-inclusive at the LifeStyle Vitalis Garden Club. (4th — 18th July 2007).
Just want to point out a few things before people start booking:
1. The Garden Club cottages are well past their sale by date, which is why they are being knocked down in August to be replaced by new Penthouses. The Cottages are very basic, with most experiencing air-conditioning problems, ants etc etc.
2. NO AIR-CONDITIONING, in any bars or restaurants, so if you fancy dripping sweat into your soup, or being eaten alive by insects in the evening, then you'll be fine.
3. Reservations for the Italian & Mexican restaurants, they have to be booked the day before and that's if there are any spaces left once priority is given to the remainder of the resorts.
4. The Tropical Buffet will not allow you to eat there as part of your all-inclusive package, while the Seafood and the Chinese restaurants require you to pay in the evenings when they are open.
5. ADULTS ONLY?, are you kidding me, the pools at the Tropical part of the resort were overrun by noisy, screaming children, jumping all over you whilst you were trying to have a quiet drink at the pool bar.
6. In-Room Security: You will be charged $20 per week for the use of the safe in the room - it means you are charged to stop their staff from stealing your property.
On a brighter note, the weather was superb and considering what we paid for the holiday we cant moan too much, you get what you paid for, but you have to be prepared for a few white lies about the resort when you are booking the holiday.
Make sure you take plenty of high-factered sun cream, as the local shop is very expensive, take plenty of insect repellent and avoid the free-gift- its just locals conning you into time-share.
Good Luck
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| Lifestyle Vitalis Garden Club |
D & M
Ottawa, Ontario
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| March 2007 |
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| Just got back from the Dominican a few days ago after having stayed at the Lifestyle Vitalis Gardens. We knew reading the reviews before leaving that this resort at best was a three star hotel, but decided to take my chances anyway. I must agree with most of the reviews that I have read, that this is not a place to go if you are looking for a fancy vacations. The villas are very basic and definitely not the cleanest and if you don't mind the lack of hot water, then this will meet all of your basic needs. The grounds are beautiful and fairly well maintained and you can access the beach by manipulating your way through another part of the resort. We arrived with the understanding that could access any of the services, such as the restaurants and bars at any part of the resort, but this was very misleading since I was turned away from some of the bars and restaurants at the resort. You could of course pay extra if you wanted to access the "specialty" restaurants on the newer part of the resort. The beach area is fairly small so we spent most of our time at the pool area, you just have to be up by 7am to claim use of a lounger, since there were not many at the villa pool area. I must say that the most frustrating part of the trip was the lack of service provided by the front desk/reception are. After travelling 12 hours from Ottawa, we arrived at the resort in the wee hours of the morning at the same time as 2 other bus loads of people. It took us approximately an hour to fight our way through this crowd of very tired, frustrated people who were anxious to get some sleep. There were only 2 people working the recption desk which was extremely unorganised (another 15 minutes to get someone's attention), as you can imagine there were alot of angry people by this time. The villa we stayed in was somewhat clean and no signs of insects which other people did encounter. The food was average, same stuff everyday, just a new name given each day and a different sauce. It's what you typically get at a 3 star resort, no surprises there. Fortunately for us the weather was beautiful the entire week we were there, and since my intention of going was to relax and enjoy the beautiful weather the rest of the week seemed uneventful. However the day we had to leave was as much a nightmare as was the morning we arrived. We were requested to vacate our rooms by noon which would not have been a problem if we weren't leaving until after midnight. Only 1 courtesy room was made was provided for two bus loads of people to get cleaned up in before our departure. So as you can imagine this in itself presented a problem, and the manager of the resort refused to open a second room for other people to use. You can be sure that we will not be returning to the Villas for the simple reason of the disrespect the management showed towards travellors on this trip. We have been to several other resorts in the Dominican and Cuba 3,4,and 5 star resorts and this one definitely rates at the bottom. Do yourself a favor and pick somewhere else to go!
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| Lifestyle Vitalis Garden Club |
Peter & Chris
Bridgewater, NS
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| April 2006 |
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| A group of friends travelled to his resort on March 31st with Go Travel Direct from Halifax on Zoom Airlines. The resort was very well kept with lush gardens and cute little "huts" in clusters of 4. We had a King sized bed that was very comfortable. The room was adequate but not a clean as in Cuba. We were very late getting checked into our rooms and had problems with the air conditioner all week long even though they tried to repair it. The service was excellent in the restaurants, a la cartes and the bars. There was anything you wanted to drink. The Domincans were very friendly. We took them many gifts and they were very appreciative of everything. We had no problems making dinner reservations and the report of only 10 people being allowed per resort is incorrect. A group of 11 made a reservation without any problem at all. The food was excellent at the buffet. The hamburgers and fries at the beach restaurant were under cooked but after the first trip we asked them to make the fries well done and were the best homemade fries I had ever eaten. They also had homemade nachos, cheese sauce and homemade salsa which were to die for! A few pet peeves that we did have about the resort was there wasn't enough tables and chairs around the pool bar to sit at after dinner, the beach was quite a hike from our resort with lots of stairs which would be a challenge for older guests and the shows were also a good distance away and were rained out 5 out of 7 nights. There is no enclosed show area. The reports of no glass in the huts is being rectified (we had glass) and there was lots of hot water and water pressure in the shower. The huts are all at ground level and there is a bit of a gap between the door and the floor so some people had cock roaches and we had a gigantic centipede attempt to share our bed one night. I'm sure you heard me screaming back in Canada! All in all we had a nice vacation for the price, except for the fact that most of our group had the "Puerta Plata Splatter" at some point during the week. My husband is still sick and found out this morning he had food poisoning. Go Travel is a wonderful company to travel with and Zoom Airlines staff are top notch. They still serve complimentary meals, soft drinks and wine. A good time, but, next year - CUBA all the way! If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me via email - Hirtlec@mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca
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| Lifestyle Vitalis Garden Club |
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we (lesley and vince) just got back from garden club, and strongly suggest
you know what you're getting in to before you decide to go there
a majority of the review comments here are accurate, howvever can be avoided
bugs - we brought raid, saw none
cold water, no pressure - room changes are available with no argument
rain - it's beside the mountain, what do you expect?
things that were not mentioned....there are vendors ON the resort
neighbouring. they call to you as you walk to the beach
the hamburgers at the snack bar are frequently undercooked, but they will
let you in the kitchen to cook it yourself
it is a public beach...people will walk right up to you to sell you things
food is basic. if you are picky, this is NOT for you. settle, and revel in
the fact that you are in the sun and not cooking it yourself for a week
reading these reviews taught me one thing - they are written by people who
went somewhere they were not prepared to go
this resort is BASIC. if you want more, go elsewhere
the worst for last - in the week that we were there, two huts got robbed. a
shovel was taken and smashed in the window. we met both couples that this
happened to, and both were told by the resort not to call the cops. the
first couple (that we met in the lobby on their way out, hi guys!) was
strikingly calm. neither of the two couples had a safe, as there were not
enough at the resort for all the rooms.
the best, by far, part of the resort was one of the entertainment staff,
alexander. he went way out of his way to take us in to town with him, and
make sure every of our needs were met. the only reason i would ever return
would be to reunite with him.
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| Lifestyle Vitalis Garden Club |
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This was our second vacation in the Dominican Republic. The previous trip was in April 1999, when we stayed at the Bahia Principe, San Juan.
After reading the negative reviews, we (Allyson & Dan) agree with most comments, and would not recommend this all inclusive hotel package.
The Lifestyle Vitalis G.C. was chosen after some scrutiny of vacation web sites, and cross referencing flights with other travel offers. We also had a Plan B; if there was little to do at the hotel, we would revisit the quaint seaside towns of Sosua and Cabarete.
The direct flight from Toronto was uneventful though completely full and no room to spare, on Skyservice Airlines. They offered a meal and complimentary beverages, alcohol not included. Everything else is $ extra.
** Consider the duty free when arriving in the Dominican, as this hotel offered only draft beer, and a few mixed drinks. Remember this when you are still hungry & thirsty, and visit the confectionary store across the street at the Tropicale Hotel, for some overly priced chips, drinks or cigarettes.
Upon arrival from the airport, the Vitalis was actually a disappointment after seeing the other hotels ahead of ours. We asked for a quiet room, and were provided with a cabana near a paved road, on the quieter side of the property. For the noise and light, we had brought and used earplugs and eye patches nightly.
The water pressure was weak, the room a bit cramped, and there were some unexplainable bites, perhaps from bed bugs, or sand fleas.
During the seven days, there were several blackouts, and during the rains, the tiled floors were very slippery in the reception, pool, and restaurant areas.
** At night, the paths that wind around the property are poorly lit. This resort is not recommended for high heels, or individuals who have difficulty walking or in need of assistance.
Of the three daily buffets, the breakfast was half decent as you could choose to have an omelet prepared, while lunch and dinner were daring. The ‘a la carte’ meals were slightly better, though the morning line up for reservations ritual was a bit odd.
The restaurant and bar staff was hot and cold. While some were very pleasant, others nonexistent.
The nightlife was limited as well. There was only one ‘disco’ on the property of yet another hotel, with even finer amenities.
For the record, this hotel is not on the beach. It is approximately a seven minute walk to the sand, after walking through another, nicer hotel, along the way. Yet another unavoidable comparison, get what you pay for.
The grounds were maintained daily; though there was garbage lying around after the poolside population dwindled by dusk, to prepare for dinner.
The excursions our Sunflight representative offered were interesting, though expensive.
The locals also offered tours and excursions, though no refunds. Consider this when the day of your horseback ride with the local carrier is delayed due to rain. And your flight home is the next day.
For what it is worth, the Garden Vitalis Hotel represents a typically accurate example of below average accommodation, and rereading the fine print. A valuable learning experience indeed.
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| Lifestyle Vitalis Garden Club |
Jeanette
Canada
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| February 2006 |
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My husband & I have just returned from a week at the Hacienda Garden Club where we and 2 other couples vacationed. Although this resort is very beautiful and filled with lush gardens and friendly people...I would definitely not recommend it! We had several problems during our stay, not to mention it rained severely for three straight days. The main issue was the lack of communication and service from the front desk staff, we had several problems with our rooms and it took the first three days to get moved to new ones, we still had problems after that as well that varied from sand fleas (my husband was attacked with over 100 bites!), leaky roofs, no phone service, no television reception, cold showers, no towels/bottled water, rock hard mattresses, no water at all, and repeated attempts at resolving these issues were ignored. They seem to have the staff that speaks the least amount of English on the front desk, the most important area, although the rest of the resort has many english speaking staff that were extremely friendly and helpful. We had to get our Conquest representative to come and translate for us before we finally had our rooms changed and services provided (although they never fully resolved our issues)..I must mention that Conquest was great and made our transfers easy and provided us with a great representative (Alexandra) who was wonderful and provided us with plenty of valuable information, booked tours for us, and was there whenever we needed her (she even gave us a cell number where we could contact her at anytime, which came in handy condsidering our problems). Thanks Alexandra!
Some other bad points about this resort are: even though they advertise you have access to all of the bars and services of the four sister resorts that is not so as we had trouble figuring out which bars we could get drinks at, where to get snacks, etc. It took about 4 days to get our bearings and the correct information (after being asked to leave several areas), they do not provide you with a clear description of the inclusive facilities (you have to figure that out on your own), also booking a la carte dinners is near impossible! We didn't even use one of our a la carte dinners due to the hassle...they have everyone gather in a herd at 8:00am (who wants to get up early on their vacation?) to wait to book reservations for that evening (you can not pre-book) and after waiting in line for an hour the tables were all gone by the time I got to the front (they only accept 10 people per resort as all the four resorts can book for dinners) considering there are hundreds of people...this system was very poorly organized and you could always see that several tables were available each evening but they would not let you get in and were quite rude about the whole situation! The restaurants we did try were okay, the Chinese was good, the Seafood was not (my husband ate the Mahi Mahi and was sick with nausea/diarrhea and spent an entire day in bed!) we did not get in to the Italian which we heard was the best of the three. The buffet was okay but got boring after a while, we ate lunch almost everyday at the Blue Lagoon snack bar by the beach just to have a change but wasn't that great either (one of our travelling companions found an elastic and a piece of tinfoil in her spaghetti!) There is plenty of food but it all tasted the same everyday...note that the desserts look delicious but are very bland! Not to mention that there are several birds flying around your dinner tables, stray dogs looking for scraps everywhere as well as cats that resembled disease-infested horror scenes! Ugh! The beach was beautiful but full of sand fleas and huge waves (not a calm beach at all!), tour vendors and timeshare salespeople were hassling you constantly but local vendors kept to there own huts which was nice. We had our hair braided by some lovely local ladies on the beach and enjoyed that. Note: there is a great Canadian bar/restaurant called "Chris & Mady's" down the beach near Ocean World that was fantastic (pretty bad that we were willing to skip a free meal and pay for one due to the crap at the resort!) If you are looking for a late night snack..go hungry! The "24 hour snack bar" is gross with soggy fries and half-cooked burgers...Yuck! I should also mention that this resort is not ideal for children as there is not much to do and elderly/diasabled persons would find it very difficult to get around the rocky paths...there is a lot of walking!!!!!
On a positive note: There are no more friendly people in the world than Dominicans and they love Canadians! Don't stay on the resort, go discover this wonderful place because there are some wonderful tours and adventures out there. If we wouldn't have left the resort our entire trip would have been wasted! We enjoyed the Banana Republic Catamaran Tour which was a giant floating party with a waterslide, diving board, open bar & lunch, snorkeling as well as karaoke, wonderfully energetic staff and a hysterical "Mr. Banana" contest; we also enjoyed a 4 hour taxi tour of the city with Carlo (don't pay for the guided tour, a taxi will take you for cheap and it will be great!) we got to see a lot of historical sites and do some shopping and get a feel for real Dominican life; also we recommend riding the cable car (but not when it's raining!) and enjoying the botanical gardens at the top; also the Monster Truck Safari was great and took us into the outback on a fabulous tour! In summary...get out and discover this country...it is filled with great people and lovely sights. (Keep in mind that bartering is a way of life with vendors and it can become quite overwhelming!)
Positively speaking on the resort: clean pools, clean grounds, beautiful landscape, bar staff fantastic (try the Banana Mama! Yum!) Air conditioning was good!
My final summary: Go to a different resort for sure! Use Conquest Vacations (ask for Alexandra!), fly with West Jet and get out and experience the tours offered and/or a taxi tour to different attractions. If you have booked this place....hurry up and change it if you can to save your vacation from becoming a giant headache! If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me directly and I will answer you as soon as possible. jeanettejoudrey@hotmail.com
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| Lifestyle Vitalis Garden Club |
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| We were at this place in Jan 2005, I travel alot in Cuba and D.R. This place is nice and we stayed in the villas. I would have to say Our highlight of the trip was the traveling in the outback on some of the excursions. There is also a nice Ocean world to the right when you step on the beach. I would highly recommend it. We went through traveldiscounters .ca out of Halifax Nova Scotia. The weather was the only down fall with a bit of rain, pack a small umbrella. The alacarte restraunts were great and I prefer the BRUGAL rum to any in the world. The rooms are nice, but really if you book this spot and spend time in your room your missing out. Me and the exgirlfriend broke up or I would be back in a heartbeat. I plan to go about 5 times this coming winter, so any single women out of Nova Scotia that want to go, please email me and I can send lots of pics. Rob rmackay@tavel.ca
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