A group of 6 of us stayed at Sunvillage from November 9-November 16th, 2008. We booked through Skyauction and got a great deal. We originally were assigned the standard rooms but we upgraded to superior. After looking at the standard rooms I'm glad we got upgraded because many of them were under the pool.
We arrived late and night and were greeted with cocktails. We had some trouble checking in but that was because a few people from our group had dropped out last minute. The superior rooms were very nice, had a great balcony and were roomy. The only slight complaint was that the room seemed to stay musty or damp the entire time. If I left a bathing suit or a damp shirt out to dry it took 3 days to dry. Also, the AC would drop and the tile would become very slippery. Other than that the room was fine.
The grounds were beautiful. Many pools to choose from all of which were clean. There were only two hot tubs though which I thought was a little odd. One at the beach by the bar and one at the spa pool. The one at the beach was either the same temperature as the pool or very hot. The beach was eh, lots of seaweed and a little dirty. If you are a beach person and want to do a lot of beach activities this may not be the resort for you. The staff was always friendly, always said hello. The bartenders were great. There were maybe 30 people at the resort the entire time so if your drink was empty before you even got halfway back to the bar they had a new one ready for you. At dinner they would always bring us shots and drinks.
The 3 restaurants were very nice. The italian being the best. The only complaint I would have about the food is the buffet. It was open air in that even though it had a roof there were no windows so flies or any other bugs could come flying in at any time and land on the food which was not properly covered or kept at the right temperature. I think the extra money to fully enclose this room would make a big difference. A few people got sick but it really wasn't that big of a deal.
We went to the casino one night which was pretty dead. They have a free shuttle there. There were maybe ten people in the casino and dwindled to just our group and another couple after midnight.
We did 2 activities outside the resort. The 27 waterfalls booked through Iguana Mama which was amazing. If you ahve been to Dunns River Falls in Jamacia this one is 10x better. A decent amount of work, we climbed, jumped and swam for 3 hours straight. The tour guides really did a lot of work. They had to pull you up most of the waterfalls, but that's what made it exciting. You know that not everyone can do this tour. Also, we saw other tours that only went a little ways in the river and then came out, so only book with Iguana Mama. Also, since this was the low season for this part of the DR they allowed other people to go in our group on a day that they usually don't have that tour available, and they were the only people in the group which was nice. We also did the cable car, it was $30 roundtrip from the resort and $12 pp to go up the cable car. I feel like for the money this really wasn't worth it. It was a great view and it probably would have been better if we had more people in the cab to cut that cost. The botanical gardens at the top also didn't have that many flowers.
The only other complaint I would have about the resort was the prices in their stores. At the cable car the cost was 700 pesos or $12US. Then later on that day we tried to buy a T shirt for 450 pesos and they told us that was $14US. They basically just made up prices for their products.
Overall it was a great trip. I don't think I would come back because there really wasn't much to do outside the resort, and I prefer a lot of activity during my vacations. But if the price is right like it was this time, maybe I would.
