DOMINICAN REPUBLIC MAY/JUNE 2026

This was a very smooth 9-hour flight from Gatwick to Punta Cana, with the very young babies on the flight mercifully peaceful and well-behaved. The calm was broken at the other end by an immigration system that left many of us flummoxed and scrambling to input information to access bar codes. We got out eventually, only to find an almighty scrum of taxis and minibuses clamouring for crowds of passengers in the baking sun. We eventually found our contact but his driver was nowhere to be found so we improvised and got another.

Eventually we were en route to the improbably named Hotel Casa Don Luis Cap Cana By Faranda Boutique. The branding aagency really got hold of that one. The driver dropped us off and as we pointed to the booking sheet everyone nodded. But it wasn’t our hotel. We then dragged our luggage down a few streets to the correct place – a small hotel on the waterfront in a golf buggy-only enclave. After the usual charade of being offered a very small room, we succeeded in securing a much bigger one and settled in.

The Sargasso Sea is just offshore and at this time of year much of the seaweed comes adrift and floats in shore, creating periodic whiffs of marine vegetation. The condo style creates a serene atmosphere until crowds pile in for boat trips or for dinner parties dressed to the nines to show off at the local restaurants. Noah is where the trendies hang out and every time we go we have to go through the charade of checking whether they have a table, even though we can see that 90% of the tables are empty. The Granieri bakery sells poncey pastries and the Dolce Italia serves excellent but expensive pizza in a baking square where various other diners seem to be conducting suspect deals over coffee and chianti.

Up the hill is a communal swimming pool which is perfectly fine but has a fairly ropey bar and gives the impression that it could be murder in high season. The plunge pool back at the hotel provides a more welcoming sanctuary.

After four nights we transfer for an hour down the Punta Cana beach to Secrets Tides, which has 660 rooms and on arrival is completely rammed. After various manoeuvres we secure a room with its own pool, survive the blasting music from our next door neighbours and eventually settle into a rhythm where we keep ourselves pretty much to ourselves. This consists usually of an early swim in the huge swimming pool before anyone else is in it. By 10 o’clock it is rammed with people drinking all-inclusive cocktails and talking bollocks about baseball and politics.

Pleasant overall, but with the general reminder that Americans treat the Caribbean as their personal playground, with all the bad behaviour that comes with it.