By T W Coombs (photo credits to @gracecmbs)
At Dreams Resort and Spa in La Romana you have the choice of
seven restaurants and 5 bars with three evening bars. So as you can imagine the
heart and liver are about to take a mild kicking. But if you want to keep
slightly healthier then there is a well equipped gym to burn off the
overindulged night before. We never tried the gym but did look at it once.
We frequented three of the a la carte restaurants on more
than one occasion and due to tastes didn't try the others. I am a fan of Asian
cuisine so I am going to start with Himitsu, we ate here about three times over
the course of the ten night stay and they did the best pork dumplings, light
but filling, along with a great satay chicken.
All the dishes were small and quite light but still filing, plus the
type of noodles differ on the same dish over two visits which kept it
interesting. Next up was the Italian
Portofino, which served great Italian style cuisine and not an American version
they really went all out and the tastes were sensational. From pasta to stuffed chicken breast they had
everything. The first time we tried
Portofino we arrived at ample dining time 7:30 pm and there was a forty-five
minute wait, now at home you go ‘no thanks’ but where are we going, nowhere,
and thankfully this is when we found the comforts of the Veranda bar, our soon
to be best friend Mareta and the Cosmo count started full steam ahead.
We had tried a couple of the various cocktails over a few
days but the Cosmo won above all the rest.
And if anyone gives me a Dirty Vodka Martini ever I will smack them in
the face dramatically and shove the glass somewhere not so magical. It was foul
and I unsure why anyone would ever drink them.
I like an olive but not like that. Anyway.
Another Cosmo.
This brings me nicely onto the cigars, there is a shop, well
more of an emporium of cigars in a room that was basically a Humidor due to how
warm it is in there. I bought a couple
on our stay and came home with a box of 10.
They are very nice and have a hint of vanilla which is surprising and
give the whole smoke a nice sweet smell.
The majority were made in the Dominican Republic with a small selection
on Cubans, but if in Rome and all that, I could have gone to Cuba to smoke their
cigars. And by the way the Dominicans
make nice cigars, so try them if you can.

Another Cosmo.
The beach is amazing and how you expect a Caribbean beach to
look and feel like, white sands clear water and sun loungers as far as the eye
can see...hang on, what?....yes that is right, photos of couples on the beach
with not much around them is a slight lie, there are a lot of sun loungers,
which is great because you don’t need to get totally covered in sand when
hanging out on the sands. I am not a
beach person and go for one reason only, snorkelling. And with the clear waters it really is a
great place to snorkel plus there is a small reef just off the beach so there
are plenty of fish of all sorts, starfish and plant life all within the roped
swimming zone. Outside of the roped area
you are on your own as water sports and canoes are about so do watch out. But if you are like me you will nearly drown
whilst following a huge gorgeous looking fish and colliding your snorkel with
the rope and sucking in part of the Caribbean Sea. Then realising I am not that good and
treading water, who knew, certainly not me.
Another Cosmo.
In all the holiday was what we wanted, the true luxury
relax, we even had a massage at the spa, I won’t go into details but I am not
wearing little cotton stretchy pants again, at my normal spa, oh yes I have one,
I get to just wear my boxers. Bloody stretchy tight pant things are not a good
thing when trying to relax. The massage
was nice though and un-knotted my shoulders.
If you get a chance to go here I would recommend it, but be
careful of Mareta and his Cosmo making skills, I think my head still hurts and
was nearly a month since I have been back.
Oh go on then....another Cosmo.
Ps. The weather was nice in March, even though a bit cloudy, but we did have one day where the heavens opened for a few hours, but was still fun...as you can see.