Hotels Near Kathys PLACE Plaza in Samana

My wife and I have just returned from Vista Mare in Samana, DR and have nothing but good reports. We have stayed at another Xeliter property but this one is tops. It is primarily because of the staff. True, the property is stunning from a physical point of view, but alot of times a holiday is made by the people. On check in, Terbis was welcoming and friendly, and after three days of our ten day stay we wanted to be closer to the ocean and he went out of his way to find us the perfect room just above the beach. The entire staff, from the bartenders to the cleaning staff and even the maintenance crew will always greet you with a sincere ”hola”. The operations manager (Freddy) was tremendously helpful in planning our day trips and was always around to tend to our every need - pretty rare in this day and age. The manager (Alberto) bent over backwards on the last day to allow us a late check out to accommodate our 10:00pm flight back to Toronto. Again, read other reviews about the beauty of the place, but for us, it was the friendly and welcoming people that made our stay, so much so that we bought wine as gifts for Freddy and Terbis when we left - that doesn't happen often! Enjoy.

We drove 3 hours to Las Galeras and were told at the the gate that we could not enter the resort. When giving our reservation number and showing our email confirmation we were told their system was down and they did not have our updated reservation information. They then were able to find my husbands reservation but did not let us through the gate because it was booked for 1 person. They would not allow my husband to go through the gates even after his name was confirmed at the gate. We were then told to cancel and modify our reservation. We modified the reservation and the management refused to answer the gate attendant’s call to allow entrance into the resort. We waited over 2 hours for the management to answer while we tried to find new accommodations ( but because it was at the last minute, there were no hotels with availability.) The lack of professionalism to make us wait at the gate instead of figuring out their mistake at the front desk was baffling. When we were finally let in we asked to speak with the manager/supervisor. The person at the front desk (who we thought was the management we were speaking to) and security guards said they didn’t know the managers name nor what time they would be at the hotel. We were told we should come back tomorrow morning. The front desk attendant by the name of Johanny was extremely unprofessional. She was unable to get into the front desk computer to even check our reservation but asked us to modify our reservation a third time. Johanny told us Wyndham could honor our first reservation but charge us an extra $140 to add an additional person. However she had already told us to cancel and then refused to take payment. My family and I have stayed in many Wyndham resorts before and have never been treated so poorly.