What We Love
- Take a moment to relax with a cocktail at the epic Lighthouse Bar, located right on the beach.
- Destress with a beachfront massage, Turkish bath & other goodies at the spa.
- Enjoy a variety of family-friend fun, including sand castle building competitions, mini-golf, horseshoes and more.
Things to Know
- The resort is approximately 90 minutes from the airport.
- Maximize your vacay hours by checking pick-up times on scheduled transfers.
- Meals and drinks are included in the price of your vacation.
Resort Details
Customer Ratings & Reviews
TripAdvisor Traveler Rating
13316 reviews-
Iberostar Hacienda our second home.
We just recently visited this wonderful resort. We have been visiting this resort signs it was open and it was our 20th visit. When we arrived we were warmly greeted by the front desk members Hector and Cynthia. They treated us as a family. The rooms in the hotel were recently updated to a modern style. We were pleasantly surprised to see the old employees Angel and Davi from the buffet, Lenny from the entertainment and Carlos from the bar.. The service everywhere was excellent. We loved the grounds and gorgeous beach. Make sure to be on the beach early in the morning if you want to sit closer to the ocean. The food on the buffet was pretty good with the different evenings team nights. This time we only visited from the specialty restaurants the steak house , it was good. We enjoyed the new addition to the light house. A few things we recommend to improve : 1. It should be assigned smoking areas near the beach and near the lobby. And smokers must use only this areas . Smoking is very dangerous for people who don’t smoke. 2.The evening entertainment is used to be much better. We missed the shows with the audience and live orchestra.3. Would be nice to use mix music in the evening in the lobby( Spanish and European ). You have a lot of European guests. . 4 we missed the reception for repeated guests. We highly recommend this resort and planning to return soon.
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Detailed review of a great resort
I traveled to the Hacienda Dominicus with my wife, two boys (9 and 10), and in-laws (we are from the United States and my in-laws are from Argentina). Overall I loved this resort with one glaring exception that would most likely prevent my return here. The Grounds: A Overall the resort grounds are immaculate; from the tranquil duck pond where peacocks are regulars, to the pools, to the main area. The whole place is delightful. The Beach: A+ Near perfection. Calm turquoise clear water, clean white sand. It rarely gets better than this. Yes, you have to wake up on the early side (by 7:30) to claim a good spot, but that is similar with every resort. The Staff: A Nearly every single staff member we encountered was courteous, helpful, and seemed to really enjoy their jobs. Special shout out to the brother bartenders at the Star Prestige Beach Bar, Manuel and Carlos. Every drink they made was perfection and my kids looked forward to their daily “Carlos Especial”. The Room: A- Because we booked our trip last minute, we were not able to get adjoining rooms and had to share a premium poolside room with out kids. There were some issues when we checked in, which they remedied immediately and gave us a coupon for a free couples massage. The room was a pleasant surprise, and comfortably fit my wife and me in a king bed, and my boys in their own beds. The mini fridge was a bit barren, but otherwise it was great. Star Prestige Upgrade: B+ The Star Prestige area on the beach gets an A. The beds are great, and the bar is wonderful. They make their own lunch there everyday. The drink situation in the evenings is a bit inconvenient… You can only get top shelf liquor and better wine at the Star Prestige bar, so if you’re having dinner, you have to go the bar to get your drink and then walk all the way back. You should be able to get your drinks at the restaurants by having the band. I would still say the upgrade is worth it. They put a hard sell on joining their Star Prestige Vacation club, which we looked into, but ultimately declined to join because it didn't fit out lifestyle. The Food: C- This is the unfortunate part that would make us hesitate coming back. The food, with the exception of the lunch at the Star Prestige Beach Bar, was just awful. The food at the buffet is terrible (even the pasta was bad), and didn’t change night to night, other than NYE and one Asian themed night. The only restaurants that were even passable were La Colonial and Geisha. It’s too bad they don’t put a bit more effort into this because it would make the resort nearly perfect. By the end of our stay, even our kids, who live for junk food, were craving decent food. The Spa: F This does not affect my overall grade because we got a free couples massage, but man was it awful. The masseuse (if she really was one) spent 50 minutes smearing gobs of oil on my back. I was counting the minutes until it was over and the only reason I didn’t get up and leave, was because I thought my wife might be enjoying hers, but she hated it as much as I did. Yikes. Dressel Divers: A+ If you’re a diver, this place is fantastic. Special shout outs to Marcelo, Rocky, and Matthieu. Can’t recommend them enough. Overall I give the resort a 4 out of 5. Besides the foot, my only other complaint (and it's minor) is that the music is way too loud everywhere, particularly at the beach and beach bars. I didn't mind it, but it drove my wife nuts. The resort loses a star because of the food situation, but if that is not an issue for you, I highly recommend it. Misc tips: If you love to dive or snorkel, do the day trips with Dressel to Saona and Catalina. Both are stunning. If you can charter a private boat, spend time on the beach at Catalina Island. Wow, is it beautiful!
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4th time back... already thinking about the 5th
Our 4th time back with family and friends! This place just keeps getting better and better. The beach is unbeatable.... the perfect calm turquoise waters and soft sand. Perfect for children and floaties. The prestige bar on the beach is one of our favourite places in the resort and a big reason as to why we keep returning. MANUEL AND CARLOS are the BEST! The make this resort superior to all others. Friendliest and hardest working duo! Vitamina!!!!! Avena and Alexander are always making sure we are hydrated and well taken care of! They always take such amazing care of all of us. They are extremely hardworking and their drinks are perfection! They offer snacks (fruit, pastries, cheeses and meat) as well as lunch (paella with lobster, barbecue, seafood soup, salmon and veggies). Every day is a different selection and it is always fresh and delicious. Chef Christopher is the best! The evening bartenders Christian and lessi(?) are lovely and it's worth staying on the beach until sunset! This time we were in building 3 the family suite: 2 connected rooms. They were wonderful (newly updated as I believe all rooms are new or newly refurbished). House keeping was great and the mini bar had coke, sprite, beer, sparkling water. The rooms have glass refillable water bottles and refill stations on each floor. There are 3 buildings on one side and 4 on the other (4 and 7 are closest to the beach... 4 is closest to the prestige section of the beach. 4 and 7 are also the newest). Each building has a unique and cute outdoor courtyard in the centre. The food was amazing! Lots of options for everyone. Tons of seafood which is not always the case in other 5 star resorts. Drinks are also made with fresh fruit! Lots of juice and smoothie options for kids. No straws are available so bring some silicone ones if this is important to you. The resort is clean and well maintained. The landscaping is beautiful. Lots of unique birds including peacocks walking around. What makes the resort even more special is the people who work there; always friendly, polite, and ready to go above and beyond. Carlos and Leidy in the star prestige lounge are always looking at ways to make your stay better! Victor, Edwin, and Danehisy at the buffet are incredible! Danehisy was so kind and helpful when our daughter was ill; she showed us so much compassion and kindness!!! Thank you Iberostar for another amazing vacation. We will be back next year!
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Disappointment
If you are looking for a quiet vacation, quality food and friendly staff this is not the place for you. We arrived on December 24 th at the end of the day. No one had contacted us to tell us we had to book a restaurant ahead of time. So that night we had one option left only. We went straight to the concierge to book restaurants for the other nights of our stay, he had almost it zero availability apart from either extremely early or late. And zero availability for the first 3 days of our trip so we ended up at the buffet 3 days in a row, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The food at the buffet is quite mediocre, and more of less always the same. They have a theme for dinner buffet each night but the quality level is still pretty low. There is nothing in the bathroom apart from soap and shampoo: no cotton swabs, no comb, no shower cap … We requested cotton swabs for our family. They brought 2 small vanity kits with one cotton swab per kit. So we called and ask for more, once again brought 2 boxes, this happened several times. We ended up going to the hotel store, they had a small box of cotton swabs for $5, we bought one. You would assume that such a hotel would provide the minimum for their guests, clearly not! Don’t expect to hear the sound of the waves! There is constant super pound music on the beach because this is where the hotel decides to have all their activities, gym classes, dance classes … it feels like an ongoing bad radio on non stop! And when the hotel music of off for 5 minutes, guest also bring their own speakers so you have to listen to their music like they own the place! It says that you can not reserve seats at the beach, yet, if you arrive after 8 am you will not have a seat! The towel situation is as good as in a motel! You can only have one towel per guest for the whole day! They count, and they will tell you ‘NO’ like you are 2 years old if you ask for another one .This is ridiculous!!! They are drinks in the mini fridge of the bedroom: coke, sprite and beer! If you want anything healthy like water or sparkling water, not happening. They provide super heavy glass water bottles that you can use during your stay ( they don’t look Like they have been washed) and you have to refill them at the different water fountain in the hotel. Apart from A few waiters/ waitresses at the main buffet restaurant The staff is NOT friendly at all, specially the ones at the front desk. We even had one hostess who was sick and kept coughing non stop. If your employees are sick, they should be able to stay home and recover so your clients don’t get sick because of them. Clearly some people must like this standard and atmosphere because they have a lot of returning customers. We were expecting high standards and hoping for quiet at the beach instead of blasting music all day long. We are just very disappointed!
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Christmas vacation family of 5 with teens
Our family of 5 with teens/young adults stayed for 6 days over Christmas in a connected family room (2 rooms with a connecting door, 1 room with a king bed, 1 with two double beds). We got a private DAT transfer from the airport to avoid the Air Transat shuttle bus, our plane was late and luggage took a long time, but DAT was ready and waiting for us when we got through. Check-in was quite quick, though I don't think checking in online ahead of time did anything to speed up the process. I think I would not bother to do the online next time. We were assigned a concierge to help us book restaurant reservations. The concierge's job is also to tell about the membership, and we had a few high pressure conversations in that regard, which were not appreciated. We had help and a golf cart to take bags to our room, which was 2 floors up with no elevators, not a problem for us. The rooms were regular hotel rooms, quite spacious, with a balcony on each, and a pullout drying rack on each balcony. A fully closed bathroom in each room with sink, toilet, shower. A huge bonus was that they included a 3rd (single) bed in the double bed room as we had 3 old teens/young adults staying in that room, and sharing a double would've been pretty cozy! I was so pleased, as we hadn't asked for it at all. It fit very easily in the room and made everybody's sleep much more pleasant. The refillable glass water bottles in the room is such a great idea, I like how much waste that cuts out compared to the ubiquitous plastic bottles elsewhere. I also appreciated the canned soda water in the room fridge after a long day on the beach. Kids liked the glass bottles of coke and sprite. I do wish there were chips/snacks in the room, but that's a small detail. We had no trouble finding somewhere to sit on the beach any day, some days we were there just before noon, others we were down before 9. It was full, but each day we managed to find seats under a palapa. I really liked the activities happening on the beach, games and water aerobics etc. The ocean was beautiful for swimming, floating and playing in the waves. We did take our snorkel masks out one day and saw some schools of fish near the buoy line which was fun. We borrowed kayaks from the resort one day for a short paddle along the beaches. It's not really a walking beach - the sand it much too soft, and the incline of the beach at the water too steep to make it enjoyable. But we stayed in the ocean for hours, as did so many others. It was beautiful. Volleyball every day was a favourite of our kids. Buffet food was average - could always find something to eat. The a la carte restaurants were all quite good. We ate at Hacienda (Mexican), Sombrita (Greek/Mediterranean) and Spiaggia (Italian/Steakhouse). There were rarely lineups at the bars, maybe one person in front anytime we went for drinks. They serve all drinks in real plastic cups - way better than the paper cups and straws we had at another resort. At the lobby bar and coffee shop, drinks are served in glasses/glass mugs. No straws, which was fine for us, but others might want to bring an insulated cup with straw. Christmas eve there were drinks and appetizers in the lobby before dinner, "gala" dinner in the buffet, and then a party in the garden near the lobby. On Christmas day Santa visited the beach and handed out presents, we weren't sure, but it seemed like families signed up for this? There is a free book library in the garden area with 2 bookcases full of books. We had a great time, I really enjoyed the careful touches that the resort had clearly thought about, the coffee shop, reducing waste, the decor. We don't go to the same resort twice, but this is one I could see getting a repeat visit.