Sublime Samana Hotel & Residences

“A mostly sublime vacation”

We just returned after a week at this lovely hotel. We were a family of 4 with 2 kids, age 8 and 11. Overall, we had a wonderful time. The beach and pool areas are amazing and the hotel setting is beautiful. There is only one other hotel on the large and deserted-feeling beach. Sublime Samana ha... more

We just returned after a week at this lovely hotel. We were a family of 4 with 2 kids, age 8 and 11. Overall, we had a wonderful time. The beach and pool areas are amazing and the hotel setting is beautiful. There is only one other hotel on the large and deserted-feeling beach. Sublime Samana has a large enough footprint that you never feel you are competing for space. The hotel doesn’t cater to kids, but they definitely welcome them and there is a reasonably priced kids menu. There are a few things that it’s worth knowing about before you book: -We stayed in one of the 2-bedroom rooftop casitas, which was huge. There were 2 ample-sized bedrooms, a kitchen, a sitting and dining area, 3 bathrooms and a whopping 4 balconies (a large one off the sitting area, a large rooftop balcony with a hot tub and two small ones off the bedrooms). There was way more space than a family of 4 could use. My understanding is that most or all of the casitas are privately owned and some of the owners permit their casitas to be rented out. From what we saw, this means that some of the casitas are better maintained than others. Some, for example, have beautiful furniture on the balconies, BBQs, etc and others are more sparse and more run down. We booked through the hotel, but I think some of the casitas are rented out directly by the owners on Airbnb. It might be worth checking there because you may be able to see photos of the actual room you are booking. -Hot water was hit and miss (as other reviews have noted) and the rooftop hot tub was never that hot. If you are renting a casita solely for the rooftop hot tub, you might want to consider a different/less expensive room option. That said, when we called to ask for the hot water to be fixed, very friendly repair staff showed up almost immediately and temporarily solved the problem. It just felt like a drag to have to call each time the water was cold. -There are two restaurants. The food at these places was fine and a few of the dishes were really yummy, but after a week of meals there, the selection starts to feel limited. The restaurants are also pricey and dinner was always a minimum of $200, despite ordering the less expensive items on the menu. Keep in mind that there is also an additional 28% in tax and service fees added on to each bill. There is a more casual restaurant (separate from the hotel) on the beach within walking distance, but otherwise the closest restaurants require a US $20 cab ride each way (including a place that according to Google maps was 5 min ride away). If we return, we would likely rent a car to make it easier to explore other food options. We also learned at the end of our trip about an app called Komida which is basically like Uber Eats and allowed us to order very reasonably priced pizza - there are lots of other choices too. We also went into town and got groceries and cooked a few meals ourselves. -The staff are lovely and really friendly. They largely speak Spanish. This was not a surprise for us, given that we were in a Spanish-speaking country! We speak enough Spanish that this was not an issue for us at all. That said, we witnessed a few very disgruntled guests during our stay. The problems largely seemed to stem from misunderstandings over orders at the restaurants due to, what appeared to be language barriers. My advice - rather than getting frustrated or expecting staff to speak English, make the effort to learn to say a few basic things in Spanish so that you can communicate effectively during your stay. Or use Google translate! -The hotel is VERY chill. There are no theme nights, hopping bars, cooking classes etc. There is a wonderful yoga class twice a week, but that’s the extent of it. This was perfect for us as we wanted to just read books on the beach, swim, etc but if you are looking for action, this isn’t the right place for you. Finally, there are 2 things that the hotel could do to vastly improve the experience, from my perspective. Both are very easy fixes: The first is to provide free water at the restaurants. Given that you can’t drink the tap water, I would expect a hotel at this level of sophistication (and price point) to have filtered water available all over the place for free - the lobby, the restaurants, etc. This is what I have experienced at other similar-tier hotels around the world. Instead, bottled water was provided in the rooms but nowhere else, and you were discouraged from removing it from the room, so it had to be purchased. We heard lots of guests grumbling about this. The hotel should remedy this ASAP - both to have happier guests and from an environmental standpoint. Second - there is annoying music playing too loudly on the hotel grounds. It’s not thumping techno music like the kind played at all-inclusives, but is instead “elevator”/muzak music, that consists of bad covers of popular songs by artists like Celine Dion and Taylor Swift. It was totally unnecessary and drowned out the beautiful sounds of the birds singing outside our room. I encourage the hotel to ditch the music or at a minimum stick to instrumental music instead.

less

“Lovely stylish place - but service could be better”

At one level Sublime Samana has it all. Set on a lovely beach, in Instagram ready grounds. Huge suite with well equipped kitchen and living area bigger than at home. Nice big balcony to sit out on a showery afternoon. Although fully booked the hotel was quiet with never any problem getting a tabl... more

At one level Sublime Samana has it all. Set on a lovely beach, in Instagram ready grounds. Huge suite with well equipped kitchen and living area bigger than at home. Nice big balcony to sit out on a showery afternoon. Although fully booked the hotel was quiet with never any problem getting a table in the restaurants. That’s because many of the suites are actually residential units. It didn’t merit five stars because service wasn’t quite up to scratch. We emailed in advance to ask about pick up from the bus station but had no reply. We had to ask several times to get some shower gel in our room. I’m sure some of this was because no-one spoke (or understood) much English. I don’t expect them to speak English in the supermarket in the town but it’s not unreasonable to expect better in a high end hotel. Overall, needs more charm and customer care to match its undoubted attractiveness.

less

“Gorgeous place, disappointing food, but still a beautiful experience overall.”

For a solo getaway in a remote location (it took me 4 hours in a hugely expensive hotel shuttle ($780 for a round trip) from Punta Cana) this was (WTF?) expensive but wonderful! (Fly to other airports which have cheaper transfers!) The location is indeed sublime, the scenery was stunning, and th... more

For a solo getaway in a remote location (it took me 4 hours in a hugely expensive hotel shuttle ($780 for a round trip) from Punta Cana) this was (WTF?) expensive but wonderful! (Fly to other airports which have cheaper transfers!) The location is indeed sublime, the scenery was stunning, and the private beach and gorgeous surroundings were pretty quiet and without a throng of busy tourists, so I felt relaxed and at peace my whole time here, which is exactly what I was looking for. As it's not all-inclusive (a good thing!) it might not attract the young large groups and families - although it would be perfect for weddings which I see they do host - so it was particularly tranquil during my stay. The room/1 bed apartment was huge, a beautiful double bedroom with living room, kitchen and long balcony, and good facilities in the bathroom/walk-in shower. There was free drinking water handed out every night to the room - so that problem, mentioned by a previous reviewer has been addressed. I took long, ambling walks along the stunning beach and noted the all-inclusive hotel next door on the right which had the 'pumped up music' blaring out, the loud salsa classes/competitions and the cramped-in sunbeds jostling for the best position in a smaller beach section, but it didn't detract from the peace at Sublime Samana unless you were right by it on the beach. Our beach section was large and with plenty of space to hide away with good sunbathing facilities: cushions, towels, umbrellas, bar and restaurant service. More of the good things: an arranged excursion hiking to the El Limon waterfall was hot, sticky and brilliant fun - and only $50 for the morning, which included a tour guide, and personal chaperone on the hike (others went by horseback: I don't recommend this tho, it looked precarious!). We DID experience the usual tourist trap of being guided through the locally stocked 'gift shops' full of 'souvenirs' - but it didn't detract and there were interesting items to buy. The beach restaurant was a gorgeous place to hang out, for breakfast or watching the sunset, or lunch, or cocktails - I basically spent most of my time on the beach nipping in and out of it. HOWEVER, sometime breakfast was randomly served in the restaurant away from the beach which was a huge let down. It makes no sense to eat in a hot, small, indoor restaurant when you have a gorgeous open air ocean-side restaurant right there on the beach - eating in that indoor restaurant you could be in any hotel, in any part of the world - but on the beach - you're transported to a place of beauty - and it's a perfect start to any day. The pools are great - one is reserved for adults only - and hardly used because they're perhaps on the small side. The cocktails are fantastic - strong and a good selection - I enjoyed most of them, often :-). Although my passion fruit martini was originally served with olives? Weird. The spa has a good range of services - again expensive - and I had three amazing massages - particularly the craniofacial with feet massage after the hike, and the hot stone massage for my tight, stressed back when I first arrived. I found the service generally a little patchy but otherwise good. Some staff members are better than others. Those at the beach bar/restaurant were always accommodating, friendly and good at their job (although you could tell other staff members were being trained up). The not-so good things: sadly the food SEVERELY lets this place down. When I arrived, I had the lobster ravioli which was a hard, thick, stodgy stinking thing, drowned in a overbearing porcini mushroom sauce, which ruined the delicate lobster (if it was lobster) (and who pairs strong mushroom with lobster, ever?) - please could someone take note that all you need to serve for this usually delicious dish, is very thinly rolled pasta (like at least a quarter of thickness to what I got) and a light brush of butter - perhaps some herbs and black pepper - no sauce at all, or at least way away on the side. And maybe smaller, more delicate ravioli parcels - - it's a gorgeous dish utterly ruined. I nearly cried! The tuna cerviche was unsophisticated - thick lumps of tuna with skin still on, too salty seaweed and too large a portion. Smaller cuts of fish please! The chorizo hotdog was not chorizo. The fries were limp and soggy. The orange juice was not fresh and full of bright chemicals. The decaf coffee was not worth drinking. The vegetarian cerviche was just a bowl of shredded veg including something rough and inedible like wood shavings. The shrimp cocktail had about 6 large, woolly and chewy old prawns (clearly from frozen not fresh) and a lacklustre rose marie sauce. Their own salsa/guac was okay - but not brilliant. The breads were stale as another reviewer mentioned - but the breakfast generally were okay with some fresh croissants and nice jams. The huevos racheros were tasty but I bet are not what fans of the dish would be satisfied with. The burratina was good - and I chose what to have with it (avocado, tomato and lettuce) and they made it up off menu (perhaps this was the way forward). They also did their eggs well - ie runny and creamy. The white fish cerviche was okay - but average. The salmon poke bowl, again, huge lumps, and over stuffed with soggy rice, and unsophisticated/indelicate/stodgy. SO - don't come here for culinary delicacies - and order off menu or through the Komida app for sushi! I recommend a beach sushi bar/fresh juice bar and evening cocktail bar to be installed - with small tapas - and a complete redo of a better menu - with more choice and less frozen stuff - and a chef who only has to google how to prepare and present things in a more delicious and sophisticated way. I volunteer to write the menu for you and to show you how to cook! But generally I loved being here, food aside (and I did make use of the Komida delivery app - glad I read about it!) and had a wonderful, relaxing, beautiful solo time in a gorgeous resort with that fantastic beach and location. Sort your food and menu out (please)!

less