Iberostar Hacienda Dominicus

111paradises wrote a review October 2025

Beautiful Resort – But Only Welcoming If You’re Light-Skinned

I would have rated this resort five stars for its beautiful grounds, amazing beach, and friendly servers and entertainers. However, I’m giving it one star because of a discriminatory incident that happened during my stay, which completely overshadowed the experience.

I arrived at Iberostar Selection Hacienda Dominicus on September 27, 2025, with my friend from Canada. I had arranged in advance for my Dominican boyfriend to join me starting that evening and had confirmed everything with the front desk ahead of time, including the price and his arrival time so security could let him in.

When he arrived that evening, instead of being greeted like a guest, he was told by the guard to use the workers’ entrance. He explained that he had a reservation and was meeting me, but the guard didn’t believe him and made him wait several minutes before finally calling reception. Only after they confirmed the information was he allowed in. Once he got to reception, the staff there were polite and helpful, but the situation left a bad first impression.

From that point on, I noticed a clear difference in how he was treated compared to me and my Canadian friend. When I was alone or with my friend, staff smiled and greeted us warmly. But when I was with my boyfriend, certain management-type staff would turn their heads, look him up and down, and check his bracelet as if they didn’t believe he belonged there. It was subtle but obvious enough to make us both uncomfortable.

The next day, September 28, things escalated. While I was still getting ready in the room, my boyfriend went to the beach to relax. Not long after, he called to tell me he had been approached and accused of being an intruder. He tried to explain that he had a reservation, showed his bracelet, and said he was waiting for me to come join him, but they told him his bracelet was fake or stolen and didn’t listen. Instead, security and a man who appeared to be a bar manager immediately forced him to go to reception. No one else on the beach was being questioned — only him.

As I walked toward reception, I saw them coming up together, with security leading him as if he had done something wrong. People were staring, and it felt humiliating — like we were being treated as delinquents simply for existing together on the resort. When the man who appeared to be the bar manager saw me and realized I was white and foreign, his expression changed immediately. He went from suspicion to panic and started apologizing, saying he was a Christian and meant no harm, but that his boss had told him to investigate. That statement confirmed my boyfriend had been singled out solely based on his appearance.

At reception, the assistant manager came over to "verify" the situation. The same front desk employee who had checked us in confirmed right away that my boyfriend was indeed registered. The assistant manager nervously apologized, saying “Sorry for the inconvenience, you can go back to the beach now.” The security guard, however, didn’t say a word — no apology, no explanation. In fact, he looked visibly unhappy that everything had been verified.

We were both shocked. Not once during this whole ordeal did anyone ask to verify my registration — only his. After that, my boyfriend felt uneasy being anywhere on the property without me. He felt watched and is still upset about how he had been treated.

It’s heartbreaking that a high-end resort like this would allow such discriminatory behavior. The beach and amenities are beautiful, and the servers and entertainers deserve credit for their kindness, but management and security need serious training and accountability. No one should ever be made to feel unwelcome or singled out because of the color of their skin.

Date of Stay: September 2025

juanpablocH1221FB wrote a review October 2025
Sachse, Texas

Iberostar Selection Hacienda Dominicus review

I chose this hotel with expectations of a nice beach where I could swim and snorkel right there without having to go on a tour, stay in a beautiful upscale facility with a great pool + wet bar and eat great quality food.
After balancing the good and the bad, I left dissatisfied and will not come back to the Iberostar Selection Hacienda Dominicus, I will explain in more detail below.

Room:
Good-> Very spacious, modern and clean. I got room service 2 times a day. Everything functional. No complaints here.
Neutral-> Nothing bad for me, but another guest told us that when they arrived, they were assigned a room in building 2, not that great of a room. It rained the first day and the room got inundated, the bed got drenched. They had to be moved.

Facilities:
Good-> Beautiful design, decor and layout. Very clean all around.
Neutral-> There were employees doing maintenance work all the time, making noise with powered tools and kinda ruining the views. I got hit on my leg with the grass edge-trimmer debris at one time. I understand that maintenance is part of the beauty, but it felt like too much.
There is a dedicated café shop with gourmet types of coffee and pastries, but it smelled strongly like sewer in there (every day) making you think twice before getting a delicious coffee.
Bad-> The children’s pool was closed but no work was done on it, just closed. The main pool was closed for the entirety of my stay with no warning. I asked and I was told that an emergency occurred (sounded like a cheap excuse), major work was done to it and that is not an emergency type of work, it was planned, screw me…
Building 4, which is next to the pool area, was under major remodeling (or demolition) with heavy duty machinery. The extreme construction noise from Building 4 and the noise from the main pool work made it impossible to be in or around the hotel facility. The options were either the Lobby area or the beach, very hard to be in the smaller pool.

Food:
Good-> Just the Ribeye and buffet at the Spiaggia restaurant for dinner. We ate there all nights but one.
Neutral-> Some fruits, cheese and cold cuts were tolerable.
Bad-> 90%+ of the food was not fresh and very low quality, couldn't really eat it. Less than 10% is tolerable when hungry. We tried eating at The Sombrita restaurant, we ordered the Chef Recommendation (mix of fried fish, shrimp and calamary). We had to get up and go eat at the Italian restaurant, the oil used to fry was very old and burnt, the calamary looked like cooked last week and reheated on the microwave and then fried again, I couldn’t get the taste out of my mouth.
At the buffet (other than cheese, eggs + bacon and some cold cuts) the food wasn't fresh, flies on the food made it undesirable and in general the taste, temperature and texture of the food felt like old leftovers, soggy/gummy, gas-station quality food.

Beach:
Good-> Beautiful Ocean front where you can swim, snorkel and kayak right there. The Lighthouse bar is beautiful, relaxing and great for a beach break with drinks and a breeze.
Neutral-> The music at the Lighthouse is loud at times, and you can’t talk with the person next to you (or relax). They say you can Kayak for free up to 1 Hr. per day, but you must pay a small fee of $20.
Bad-> The beach got so overcrowded that I had to go down at 5:30am to grab a good spot with shade near the water. Then, by noontime you had 5+ rows of sunlounges between you and the water covering your view of the ocean.

Date of Stay: October 2025

V1300GZbradleyh wrote a review October 2025

9.6/10 7 night stay September 2025

We give it 9.6 out of 10.

Beach extremely clean, lot's of sun loungers and plenty of room between them for privacy. Variety of drinks available at the Lighthouse on the beach. You can even take the drinks in the sea as plastic re-usable cups!

The sea was crystal clear, beautiful. With your head above the water you will be able to see each other's feet! Caribbean sea was like a hot bath, you can get into the water instantly! Even at 8pm it was extremely warm.

You can see fish in the sea at two locations, one as you get into the water on the far left, and another a bit further in. There was plenty of fish there but not a huge variety from what we saw, but we still really enjoyed it.

Buffet food always 10/10 big variety to choose from. Service is always fast and your waiter will take good care of you. You can even get sparkling wine at breakfast! Fruits here were incredibly fresh and juicy. No matter which time you arrive everything is always fully stocked up and ready to eat.

We went to 3 different al Carte, Italian- steakhouse, Japanese and Mexican. We enjoyed Japanese the most, the chef cooks in front of you and it's very entertaining! Food and service was 10/10 for the Japanese and steakhouse.

Sadly our experience at the Mexican wasn't so good we give it 1/5. Whilst waiting to enter we noticed Spanish speaking couples sitting there had drinks but we were not offered any. When the waiter came to invite us in despite us arriving before another Spanish speaking couple they were invited in first, seated first, and served their food first. This was poor service by the waiter. When we sat down we were immediately offered the expensive wine menu and not told about any house wine.

You will find a huge variety of alcohol at this resort, cocktails, rum, beer and many more! The lighthouse bar and the pool bar were our favourites!

The hotel itself and the grounds were beautiful! It was a joy to walk around the resort each and every day. The place was kept very tidy and the gardens have been well looked after. The vibe of this hotel was very Dominican and fun!

There was a variety of evening entertainment every night including live shows, music and dancing. One night a Michael Jackson act performed, if you have the chance to see him whilst you are there do NOT miss him! He was absolutely amazing!

So why do we give this hotel 9.6 instead of 10? We have a few recommendations for improvement as follows:

1) During our 7 night stay we saw on two occasions third party vendors come to the resort and stay for what seemed like hours. They were very pushy and made it uncomfortable to walk around the hotel as you couldn't really avoid them due to them setting up in multiple popular walkways around the hotel. It would be better to have them in one area only so that if guests do not want to be bothered by them we can simply walk another way. As there are local markets very close to the resort I think it's best that vendors do not come on-site.

2) Sargassum was present on our beach for two days during our stay. Whilst we appreciate so much the hotel cleaned the beach we found the workers to be extremely slow. Workers were talking way too much and moving so slow.

3) Some tables were not sitting flat on the floor which resulted in the table moving a lot whilst eating. We appreciate the staff did their best to fix this by placing paper underneath however the issue persisted. We hope this issue can be fixed before someone spills a drink.

4) It's advertised on the resort as "free kayak" near the pool area and on the hotel official website however when you go to enquire about this at the diving centre non motorized water sports are "free" but you must pay 20 dollars first. The price is actually fair as it's a one-time payment and you can use 1 hour per day I believe however we did not like being mis-led and lied to like that. Please change how this is advertised asap.

Tips:
Bring USD ONLY on this holiday. Everyone prefers to be tipped in USD and even the local markets and at the airport the prices are in USD.

If you don't speak Spanish make sure that you fully understand what your concierge is saying to avoid any misunderstandings and miscommunications.

If the hotel offers you a free gift such as free dinner on the beach or massage(as we are getting married next month or for some people might be any other special occasion ) you will need to allocate at least half an hour of your time to listen about the hotel chains other resorts whilst eating breakfast with the hotel staff. This wasn't specified prior to us accepting the gift so we ended up cancelling after as we did not want to have breakfast with the hotel staff as this made us uncomfortable.

You can negotiate a lot with the local vendors in price. Make sure to get a fair price!

We got bitten on this holiday more then any other we have been on. Please bring whatever you need to avoid bites. We think they were ants.

Please don't leave food on the sun loungers!!! It will attract ants and the peacocks will eat the food which is unhealthy for them.

You can find artwork in the <15 USD range if you are looking for this as a souvenir. Locals will sell magnets, cigars and many more.

Date of Stay: September 2025