Our first time at the Melia Caribe Tropical was 4 years ago and we stayed at the Royal Service side. We fell in love with the property and the staff. When it came down to deciding where we would get married, we knew that the Melia Caribe Tropical was going to be the place. We had a total of 55 guests at our wedding each staying in Deluxe Jr. Suites, which by the way are really nice! Variety of food is good, drinks all around, the main pools are huge and never packed. Grounds are beautiful and well maintained. The resort is big, but we didnt mind the walks at night under the stars. Rooms were always cleaned and staff very friendly and helpful. Our wedding coordinator Evelyn Reyes did a wonderful job in making our wedding a dream come true, she listened to what we wanted, helped us cut costs down and was honest with us. If you are looking for a place to host your destination wedding with family and friends, this is the place. All my guests were in awe with the resort and many are already thinking of going back. Mil Gracias Melia Caribe Tropical! Keep up the good work!

The Melia is an absolutely beautiful resort. As you can see from our wedding photos, everything was wonderful. They staff was amazing. Pedro Peralta was our personal consierge in Royal Service for the duration of the trip and he was awesome. He personally drove us around the resort to where ever we wanted to go and he even set up romantic jacuzzi services in our room as a surprise a few times. Evelyn was our wedding coordinator and she did a fantastic job planning everything from the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, photography staff selection, reception, flowers, cake and etc. She did a wonderful job and I am so pleased. The Melia is a great resort and there is so much to do there since it is so big. Apple and the Melia even upgraded our wedding group to Royal service at no charge and even others were upgraded to larger rooms/suites. Great job Melia staff. I will definitely be returning.

This resort was beautiful we had our wedding their and even though the rooms were so far from the dining and beach they had these awesome trains and golf carts that picked people up to take them where they needed to go. The scenery was absolutely amazing it was well manicured, even though food selection was limited for breakfast and lunch dinner was in abundance they had Thai, Dominican, Mexican, French. Seafood, American and a Buffet, Steak and Lobster Grill and Japanese which those had a $39 charge for. Overall our wedding was amazing there and the staff was very friendly and helpful.

Evelyn, my wedding planner on the DR side was great!

The resort is both beautiful and large. There are several lounge areas and two pool bars. One of the pool bars is in the VIP (Royal Service area).

Check-in was a bit of a pain since the lobby isn’t enclosed, so it’s not air conditioned. Certain parts of the Dominican airport are not air conditioned so standing in a hot lobby behind several other couples waiting to check in is less than comfortable.

We were told to leave our baggage at the front lobby and the bell boys would bring it to the room. This was a completely foreign concept to me, but it was nice not having to lug around our heavy bags, and once we actually walked the grounds and located our room, I understood why they bring you your bags to your room. You will waste a lot of time walking the resort, or waste a lot of time on the train, which makes multiple stops. The other option is to flag down a golf cart and tip the driver for a ride, but this is not always easy to do.

Reservations: We visited the resort during the peak season, so making dinner reservations was a complete joke. You couldn’t call before 9 a.m. When we did, the line was busy. We would get through around 9:30am, only to be told that there was no open spots anywhere in their 11 restaurants.

You are not allowed to make a reservation more than 2 days in advance, unless you are Royal Service, and then you can make your reservations a week out.

If you don’t manage to get dinner reservations, you must eat dinner off-site at the mall next door, unless you are Royal Service member. Then you can at least eat at the buffet that is open until 11p.m.

My biggest complaint in addition to the difficulty of making reservations is the fact that even if you do get a reservation, you must call back after 2pm to confirm again, and that still doesn’t guarantee your time. Our reservations were pushed back several times without the staff telling us in advance. So, we had to stop what we were doing in order to make our dinner time, and when we get there, we are told our time is not 8:15pm, but has been moved to 9:30pm. Guest Service is less than helpful, unless you are member of Royal Service.

Food: The buffet food was okay but I had a hard time finding healthy dishes. Even the vegetables are cooked in oil or butter, and the salads are doused in dressing or oil. A person gets sick of eating fruit everyday.

Dinner was either just okay or excellent. It probably depends on what you order, and who’s working in the kitchen on any given night.

As for tipping, the money that we saved booking this vacation could have been pilfered away with all the tipping you’re expected to do. After you pay your $10 at the airport, you may have to visit the bathrooms. I shocked to see a bathroom attendant who wanted to be tipped for handing me a paper towel. I’ll get my own damn paper towel; thank you very much!
Then you are faced with either fighting off the guys who want to be tipped for getting your bags for you. You will be expected to tip your bus driver who brings you to the resort, and the bell boys who bring your bags to the room.

You can tip the bartenders but I don’t think it made a difference either way. We never had to wait too long for a drink anyway. Besides, there are enough bars in the place that if the wait is too long at one, you can walk a short distance to another lounge where there is less of a wait.

We didn’t tip the bartenders most of the time, nor the waiters, unless the service was extremely good.
Tipping the maid service doesn’t seem to help one way or the other. I didn’t notice if the room was cleaned earlier because of it, and we didn’t receive anything extra in the mini fridge. At one point, I actually had to leave the maid a note to refill the coffee!

What you read about the absence of washcloths is true, unless you are Royal Service. Read on for more details of what the Royal Service is actually all about, and then you can decide whether the $70 in free resort money is worth about 2 hours of your time.

The beach is stunning and clean. Though if you walk past the resort a ways toward the gift shops, you will notice how dirty the shore looks, because this is the area where the locals hang. People that run the gift shops will approach you and ask you to visit their shops where they promise a “good price”. You can manage a bargain, but the haggling takes patience.

We took an excursion to Santo Domingo. I would wholeheartedly NOT recommend this excursion. The 3 hour drive ended up being 5.5 hours each way, and total was just under 15 hours. The advertised time says it is a 12 hour excursion. Apparently, that’s 12 hours Dominican Time.

The first stop was a hole in the ground, known as the Three Eyes. It is a cave, in which an earthquake created 3 lakes within. We drove by the Christopher Columbus lighthouse but were unable to go inside. You could only take photos. We stopped by a Sugar Cane Statue, and took a few more photos. Lunch was decent. Then onto the house of Diego, the son of Christopher Columbus, where we able to go inside and take a tour. From there, we visited the Cathedral, which is not air conditioned. We walked right by 2 museums and The Hard Rock Café, and were instead dropped in front of a tourist trap, a.k.a., Colonial Market. You are given 45 minutes to make your purchases. The prices are beyond ridiculous: $9 USD for a shot glass, $15 USD for an ashtray, etc. The prices are also non negotiable, but you get a 20% discount off most things because of the tour operator. Still, the prices are no bargain. I was disappointed that we were unable to go off on our own for a bit, and were unable to haggle with the local vendors for some good bargains.

Going to and from, you see poverty and the third world country that is the Dominican Republic. The tour operator never mentioned it, but I think it would have been worth mentioning. Overall, the impression I took away from the Dominican Republic is that they don’t really preserve their history, and don’t take pride in their country.

We took a snorkeling excursion via Scuba Caribe, which seems to work with the hotel. It is an hour and a half, and $29 per person booked via viator.com. You are taken out on a glass bottom boat to the coral reef, where you can happily snorkel for an hour.

Royal Service: You will be approached from the moment you walk into the hotel about making an appointment for this. My husband and me finally agreed, just so they would stop hassling us about it.
They tell you that the Royal Service is not a timeshare, because there are no black out dates. Options that are not used one year will roll over to another year. There are over 350 hotels and resorts to use the options with, and you can even use your MasGold points to pay for airfare.
The Royal Service rooms are equipped with a kitchen/kitchenette with granite countertops, and refrigerator comes stocked with drinks. The bathrooms have a Jacuzzi tub and granite countertops.
The VIP lounge area boasts a swim up pool bar, regular bar, and buffet that is also open for dinner until 11p.m. Royal Service members also get room service. If you are not a Royal Service member, you do not have the room service option.

At the pool area, Staff will bring you drinks and food at your request.

The price for Royal Service varies, based on the package that your salesperson thinks would suit your needs best. A downpayment of several thousand dollars is required, and the balance financed through a bank in the Dominican Republic at 13.4%. They do not do credit checks, and do not report to the credit bureaus in the US, so it will not show as open account on a credit check.

The pools close way too early at the resort: 6pm. If you take a walk on the beach, I highly recommend bug spray, as malaria runs rampant, and the sand fleas will happily make a meal of you.

Nightlife: There is Karaoke at least twice a week in one of the lounges, and live music until 10pm in another lounge on the weekends. The discothèque is open every night at 10pm-2am. I liked it but the whole place smelled of musty sweat. Gross.

This was our first stay at an all inclusive resort, and overall it was pleasant, but I would not recommend going during peak season. The sales tactics are also less than pleasant, but we did turn our $70 into $140 spending money at the resort. It seems you have to be Royal Service member to really have a hassle free stay there.

DO NOT GO HERE. My husband and I chose Melia Caribe Tropical for our honeymoon and here's the summary: 1) I got horrible food poisoning 2) They tried to trick us into a time share presentation.

I woke up my third morning there with terrible food poisoning (wasted two days of my honeymoon trapped in the room sick out of my mind). Once I had recovered, I couldn't enjoy the food anymore because I was so worried about being poisoned again. So I spent the rest of the trip constantly hungry.

As for the time share thing, they wake you with a phone call early your first morning gifting you a "welcome package" including breakfast at their fancy breakfast spot and a free spa session. Sounds great! But once they drive you across the resort it turns out to be an aggressive time share presentation. No breakfast until you fill out paperwork giving your income level and other personal details, plus you have to tour the space they want to sell to you. My husband and I declined once we realized what was happening and they acted as though we were the ones with a problem for not being willing to sit through this.

Additionally, the food at the buffets would sit out for long periods of time covered in flies (at one point I thought a carrot salad had black pepper covering the surface - nope! It was a thick blanket of flies). I saw children picking up food with their bare hands and putting it back at the buffet. The restaurant offerings are usually dry, lukewarm, and lacking flavor.

I would also like to add that management's response to my report of food poisoning is that I am wrong, I must have had sun poisoning instead. I had to go to the hospital yesterday because my symptoms have persisted for weeks, and the doctor agreed it was classic food poisoning. So thanks for the condescending email with a noted lack of apology Melia Caribe!

TLDR; Run away! Food poisoning, time share presentations, and an overwhelmingly negative experience all around.