Negligent Kids Club Staff and Chemical Imbalance in Pool
Aug 2022
| AndyCastle12
We stayed at Dreams Punta Cana Resort in April but have been in discussions with both TUI and the hotel about several issues we faced at the hotel. However, a dismissive response from the hotel has now caused me to have no option but to bring to light these issues and make others aware of what they could face when staying at Dreams Punta Cana Resort and Spa.
Childcare – Resort Kids Club
A good quality kids club was high on the list of priorities for us. However, very early on in the holiday we left our girls in the care of the club and advised the carers that they would need to ensure they applied sun cream. When we arrived to pick up our girls they were very visibly sun burnt. Their skin was hot and sore and both of our girls advised they asked for help with sun cream but that help never came and they never had any applied. One of the staff members told us that they had personally sprayed sun cream on our girls but this was fabrication. We made a complaint to the management and filed an incident report. We were taken to the doctors on site and then to the spa where they provided some cream to apply to the burns. The doctor advised the girls to stay inside out of the sun for the rest of the day and the following day where it was cool to allow their skin to recover. Spending the majority of the following day indoors meant that we ‘lost’ a day of our holiday not enjoying the hotel facilities and having fun. We had to be extremely careful with the girls skin for the rest of the holiday, their skin was so sore, we could not cuddle them for a few days and they ended up pealing which is not good at all for a 7 and 8 year old. We lost faith in the kids club’s ability to care for our children and so this essential facility for our holiday was not possible to use.
Room – Condition and Lock Out
The rooms in this hotel do not match 5 star levels of expectation. There is no sound proofing whatsoever. We slept incredibly poorly throughout the whole holiday, despite going to bed at the same time as our 7 and 8 year olds on most nights. You could hear people showering in next door rooms, hear the flushing of toilets, hear furniture scraping the floors, stamping footsteps, corridor noise, and plenty of noise from nightly entertainment including wedding parties. It was relentless.
On top of this, one night we came back late from one of the evening shows to discover that we had been locked out of our room. This at 10pm. I had to leave my wife and kids outside the room, very tired, to go to reception to remedy. I was given new key cards and headed back to the room. Same issue again, not working. Again, another trip to reception and they gave me new key cards again. No offer to come to the room to provide assistance and check what is happening. Same thing happened again! It was only on the 3rd time back to reception that they arranged for maintenance to come to look. He discovered there was a faulty connection in the lock and managed to get us into the room – at 11:20pm and with our kids crying outside of the room because they were so tired and were scared they couldn’t get to their teddies.
The following day, access to the room was fine. Then, after dinner that evening, guess what?......locked out again. Same process all over again but this time the concierge came to our room and was very helpful in waiting and dealing with maintenance. The issue was the same, a faulty connection with the lock. Again, another inconvenience in the holiday, another late night trying to get into our hotel room and all quite upsetting how these basic things aren’t dealt with.
It wasn’t until day 10 that we finally got some things in our room fixed. The drawers were falling apart, we kept mentioning to concierge but there was a communication issue as daily, we would come back and guess what – not fixed. The headboards on both beds banged again the wall every time you turned over or adjusted your pillow – fixed after 10 days but 2 days later banged again. The beds we kept asking for them to be put together, but they said it was not possible. Day 10 – it happened! Disappointing to not sleep as husband and wife for 10 days. The balcony door didn’t lock properly. We had to ask for hangers to hang our clothes on 3 separate occasions, it seems the hotel don’t have enough – some of the ones that came were very cheap and not suitable. There were not enough hooks to hang towels – 4 people sharing a room and 1 hook in the bathroom? Towels didn’t dry which meant we needed towel change more often than needed – NOT good for the environment. It mentions pillow menu – great but they didn’t have all of the pillows on offer. Some of the ones that came were very old and not very nice to put your head on. We had to keep asking if there were any more and eventually got some after 10 days.
Daily housekeeping was hit and miss, we had to ask for the minibar and snacks to be replenished. Had to ask for the floor to be cleaned properly. Had to ask for the beds to be changed! We were staying for 2 weeks, surely they needed changing after a week. Bins not changed daily.
Pool – Chemical Imbalance
We had noticed in the first few days that our swimming costumes were changing colour with white parts turning yellowy green. However, in the second week of our holiday, our daughter’s hair started turning green on the end. We reported the incident and sent photos to the concierge for their information. We visited the spa/salon on site to speak with them about what could be done and they provided some additional conditioner but this did not make any difference.
Since returning home we have been to two hairdressers and they have confirmed the hair has gone green due to too high chlorine levels and unbalanced water conditions.
In addition, one of my daughter’s came out with a facial chemical reaction/rash. It was uncomfortable for her and itchy. The rash can be confirmed as either pseudomonas folliculitis or chlorine rash.
It is said that the hotel is child and family friendly but if they can’t keep a pool chemically balanced, it’s dangerous for children.
We couldn’t swim in the pool for the last 4 days of holiday due to staining to costumes, hair and skin rash. Combine this with the fact that our children weren’t able to swim safely in the sea due to the currents, this made it very difficult to enjoy these remaining days.
In fact, this was the final straw that led us to book a different hotel for the last night of our holiday and check out of the hotel early.
Facilities – Watersports and Snorkeling
A massively key part of our choice of destination and hotel was the ability to enjoy watersports and snorkelling. We booked this hotel mainly because of the watersports that were included. We were excited to be able to enjoy these all-inclusive watersports, teaching our kids to sail and kayak. However, the sea conditions do not allow this to be possible. Only on a handful of days was there a yellow flag and even then, the sea was choppy and with a strong undercurrent. When kayaking, you couldn’t get anywhere against the current. There was also nowhere to really go anyway. None of our family could enjoy a watersports holiday that we were hoping for because the conditions and the currents at this beach do not allow.
Snorkelling was dangerous for the kids due to the undercurrents. They were unable to swim safely in the roped area. There was also such a vast amount of seaweed and this combined with the swirling currents made visibility very limited. Snorkelling was only possible by taking an excursion to calmer waters, again at an additional cost.
Not being able to swim in the sea due to the currents and the swimming pool due to the chemicals when holidaying at 30 degress was beyond disappointing. The whole family love the water and couldn’t enjoy it.
Food and Drinks – Lacking Quality and Variety of Food
When you plan to go to the Caribbean you immediately think “fresh seafood – big prawns, tuna, swordfish, scallops and maybe even a cheeky lobster” – what did we have the choice of? Grouper – fried, battered, ceviche – only once did we see a choice to have some Mahi Mahi fish too. The fish of the day, every day, is grouper. It gets repetitive and you end up swaying towards the unhealthy options that are seemingly in abundance – burgers, hot dogs, pizza (not even a seafood option!) and buffet.
Restaurant service was hit and miss. It was always felt that unless you provided regular tips, you weren’t looked after or served with any kind of effort. We had broached tipping policy with management before our stay and they advised that it wasn’t necessary. However, we were made to feel uncomfortable on a number of occasions by not offering tips to staff.
The food was average at best in the majority of the restaurants. There was little of what you would expect and my wife, not being a big meat eater, enjoyed perhaps two meals during the whole holiday, and that is perhaps an exaggeration.
The fruit bar that was also a key appealing factor to the hotel choice was only open for 2 days out of our two weeks!
We returned from the holiday feeling dissatisfied with what we have had to eat throughout the holiday. There were a number of nights where we didn’t even bother to go to a restaurant on site because we didn’t want to be disappointed. We sat in our room and had cold (although should be hot) room service food delivered.
I am pretty appalled by the way in which the Dreams Punta Cana team have handled our complaint. We are in the luxury holiday industry and are fully aware of everything that is needed to deliver a great customer experience, both during and after the holiday if there are complaints that need to be addressed. You will be able to see from my past reviews, I do not make complaints unnecessarily and am actually more likely to post a 5 star review than a negative one. Dreams had the chance to deal with this privately yet they chose to refuse a compensation settlement to deal with the matter and seek to satisfy an understandably aggrieved client.
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