“Girl's Trip 2024”

Customer Service was amazing! The staff were fun & friendly! Thank you Reuben, Ivan, Dalisy, Gilberto, Fernando, Confessor, Estarlin, Wilca, Wiris, Gabriel, Alexander, & Alexandra for making us feel so special!!! The beds were so comfortable!! And we loved our villa!!

“It’s a great small hotel the DR. Highly recommend if you want a quiet and home feeling place.”

We love the Zoetry! The entire staff is wonderful. The food is great! Our Villa is Beautiful. Alejandro our concierge is always willing to help us every day. Dalisy the Spanish teacher in the morning, was so sweet, abs friendly and spoke Spanish with me.

“Disappointed!”

Overall we were disappointed with various aspects of the resort probably resulting in us not going to a Zoetry again. ( and we were very excited to try this resort). Check In- we got there around 11am and completely understood our room was not ready. They did give us a courtesy room which was ... more

Overall we were disappointed with various aspects of the resort probably resulting in us not going to a Zoetry again. ( and we were very excited to try this resort). Check In- we got there around 11am and completely understood our room was not ready. They did give us a courtesy room which was great. Unfortunately with their no checkin or checkout time policy we didn’t get our room in a reasonable timeframe and I believe the only reason we got it when we did ( after 6pm) was because we came to the lobby at that point and were planning to stay there until our room was ready. They really need to revisit this policy so that everyone is treated fairly and satisfied. Food- we found Indigo was great for breakfast and lunch but with the restaurant being the only one with a view of the ocean why not use this restaurant for dinner, even a couple of nights per week? As for dinner at the other restaurants the pizza was great but the other food seemed lacking for a high end resort and we are not even foodies. Service- Housekeeping was great as was service at Indigo and Piragua restaurants. Service at Amaya really was not good. Staff don’t seem well trained and this is a disservice to them and their customers. Overall, the resort is beautiful with great rooms and beach but service and food are both lacking and have much room for improvement. We travel extensively throughout Europe and the Caribbean. Unfortunately Zoetry did not meet our expectations and we will probably go elsewhere in future.

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“Not the experience we had hoped for. Disappointed.”

First off, I want to give shout outs to the staff at the resort that gave us exceptional service. 1. Alejandro – Our concierge. He did a fantastic job making sure that we had what we needed to enjoy our stay. The stay did get off to a rocky start as I’ll explain, but he did correct the issues he... more

First off, I want to give shout outs to the staff at the resort that gave us exceptional service. 1. Alejandro – Our concierge. He did a fantastic job making sure that we had what we needed to enjoy our stay. The stay did get off to a rocky start as I’ll explain, but he did correct the issues he could for us. 2. Rosa at the Lobby Bar: Make sure to go by during the day and ask her for one of her special rum sours. If that doesn’t start your engine, I don’t know what will! 3. Juan the pizza chef – It took us a few days to realize how TRULY good these pizzas are. Juan is our #1 for pizza cookery! 4. Janelly – She was always courteous and greeted you with a smile, and she works really hard and it shows. 5. Ladies at the Spa – All lovely ladies and very nice. The massages we had were fantastic. I think the lady at the front desk was named ‘Laedy’? Except for whatever got knotted up in the hair on my back….like glue…the massages were great. I do feel the prices are were over the top. The Good: The beach – This is a beautiful beach. It was quite windy while we were there so there wasn’t much in the way of snorkeling. There was a pretty good current pulling and a bit of an undertow at times. There is quite a bit of coral and rocks along the bottom, so keep an eye out where you are when in the water. The hotel service staff – Everyone was very friendly to us. We were given help with what we needed immediately upon request. Its so quiet here – Its so quiet it almost feels stuffy. I feel like if I make too much noise someone is going to come shoosh me. The shows were nice. If you have children, you may want to skip the Caribbean show. There is a performer who dressed in drag, and I’m told, he was twerking in front of 10 year old boys. I wasn’t watching that guy, because honestly, he was ruining the show for me. To me, if true, that was inappropriate and should not have happened. But I did see the man in drag was twerking, I just wasn't interested in that kind of thing. The Bad: 1. Our original room (105): This room was apparently in the unrenovated part of the resort. There was nothing inherently wrong with the room. There were some service items that needed fixing. The door had a pretty good gap at the bottom. The sliding glass doors weren’t all that secure, a busted tile in the shower/tub area, and the wooden surround of the tub being damaged, but the room was functional. Now, my wife has a keen sense of smell, and while I couldn’t smell it, she smelled the sewer in the room. Again..not really a deal breaker for us. We travel quite a bit and have been in several parts of the world were the plumbing is suspect, and you just kind of plug those drains and overflows as best you can and keep the doors closed as needed. The real issue for us was the chirping cricket right outside our room. It didn’t sound like it was outside, it sounded like it was inside. If you’re old enough, you may remember the old alarm clocks that had the staccato ‘beep beep beep’. This was like that. The bug would chirp in that staccato fashion for about 1 – 1.5 minutes increasing in tempo as he went, then stop. About a minute later, it would start again. On night 3, he never quit. I didn’t get very much sleep, and I’m not a daytime sleeper. I’m pretty sure I also had some food poisoning, but that’s a different critique. I literally had my head between two pillows to try and drown out this annoying little menace. I don’t 100% blame the resort for that. It’s a nature thing, but if that’s what the natural surroundings are like there, and I’m there to relax, it may make sense to make sure those rooms are sealed up better so the sound doesn’t travel in the way it did. It was made right as soon as we let them know. Credit to Alejandro, when we explained, and he saw the state I was in, we got a new room. It took a few hours, but I didn’t care at that point. So bravo, and thank you for that! 2. The waitstaff: I don’t understand how they organize the waitstaff. I used to work in the restaurant industry, so none of what they were doing made sense to me. One person brings you to the table. Another person then takes your drink order. Another person then takes your food order. And yet ANOTHER person brings your food. Maybe. There is no continuity. The night we arrived was the Asian menu was at Amaya. We had heard such good things about the food, we were like, ‘Sure!’. I ordered the Spring rolls, and I’m not quite sure what my wife had ordered, but it came out 30 MINUTES LATER, and my spring rolls which are fried, were ice cold. The next course was noodle soup, and some kind of salad. We waited until another table, that came in after us, got server their apps in a bout 5 minutes to grab the man who took our order to ask, “Hey guy, where’s our soup and salad? Its been 30 minutes since our first course” Confused, he went to the back, never to be seen again. Suddenly two more individuals, the man who was bringing us wine and another young man, are talking in Spanish and pretty much tells him, “NO, this is table 3, that is table 4, they already left, this table is still here.” My point to all of this is, if you had a waiter, who takes the order and delivers the drinks and serves the food, you would be better off. You could also have people who roam refilling, and the occasional food runner. For crying out loud there’s only 20 tables in each restaurant. Its not a giant operation here. Also, rarely did anyone ever come back to our table to check on how our food was. This experience set the tone for our experience with the food. The Ugly: THE FOOD: We kept reading such rave reviews about the food. I don’t know what everyone’s standards for food at a resort are but having worked in foodservice for a good portion of my youth, I know what it should look and taste like. Compared even to resorts in Mexico, this is not good food. I also realize its not good to overtly criticize the food while at the resort. I realize how sensitive some people can be an how depraved they can be with your food when they don’t like what you’ve said about it. Salt – Is it illegal to put salt in this food? Nothing tasted of anything. It was all salt-less. We were constantly hunting down saltshakers. This was on the level of hospital food bland at times. NOTE: put some uncooked rice in the saltshakers and it will keep the salt from caking. Day 1: We arrived and ate at the only option open, Indigo. It’s a beautiful setting, so we started ordering. I ordered chicken wings. They are cold. Room temperature. As are the fries served with them. It’s freaking fried chicken, how is it cold? It’s cold because you made it earlier and its been sitting around. That’s how. I don’t remember what my wife had, but I’m sure it wasn’t memorable in a good way. We split the sushi plate. Again, not good. There was something on there that didn’t taste fresh, so we swore off the sushi. Amaya – Asian Menu – Spring rolls were cold. They are also supposed to be boiled in hot oil. They are to be served HOT. Not cold and soggy. Noodle soup after waiting 30 minutes between my soggy cold spring rolls, I got warm stock with uncooked rice noodles in it. The noodles aren’t supposed to be crunchy y’all. Then I got the general tso chicken. At least the food was hot, but it wasn’t general tso, because that is supposed to be fried chicken, I got sauteed breasts chopped up and thrown on a bed of soy seasoned rice. Day 2: Piragua – Mexican Menu – My wife is 1st generation American; her parents are from Mexico. While we realize this is going to be a version of Mexican food, the food was just gross. Pure and simple. I ordered something that amounted to flautas with pico de gallo. A flauta is shredded chicken rolled in a flour tortilla and then fried and served HOT. I got mine cold, with dry chicken in the middle. I took one bite and pushed the plate away. I got my main course, Pork Pibil. Basically, seasoned pork tacos. Again, stone cold. My corn tortillas were hard. These aren’t corn taco shells, they are supposed to be warm fluffy corn tortillas. Nah, they are like shoe leather. Its too bad because the pork was nice, had it been HOT. My wife had the swiss enchiladas (Enchiladas Suizas). One enchilada was split completely open, and the other was covered with cheese that was burnt and hard. When you hit it with a fork it made a tapping noise and didn’t break. Again, just gross food. We flagged down Maria, the waitress/manager/whatever else, and we tell her the food is gross. She says, “Im the manager, what is wrong with it?” My wife nearly lost it and patiently explained, in Spanish, ‘it doesn’t need to be perfect, but this is cold, you shouldn’t be serving me a broken enchilada, and listen, this is cheese…tap tap tap.” Then I told her as I described it, cold, leathery, gross. I asked Maria, “Is there any food on this menu that is HOT…in temperature?” She brought us the Amaya steak menu, and we both had ribeyes at the Mexican restaurant. Day 3: I got food poisoning from the lunch Beach buffet. I’m pretty sure its where I got it. It didn’t eat enough of whatever it was to make me super ill, but I was weak and my stomach felt awful for about 36-48 hours. After I recovered, I didn’t want to eat anything that wasn’t a hamburger, pizza, eggs, vegetables, bread, or steak. Day 3: Olena. Seriously, it’s the best restaurant. Eat there. Stick to the meat options though. My wife ordered a Kabab, and was delivered something in a wrap (the kafta). The whole world knows that Kebab is on a skewer. But the manager (I believe Felix) was telling us that no, Kafta is served on skewer, and the Kebab is a wrap, in complete contradiction to what the rest of the world knows about Kebab. That was the worst experience we had at Olena, and since the food was good, and my wife finally got what she wanted, it didn’t matter. Day 4: The Caribbean beach dinner. We got there about 45 minutes after it started. All the grilled items were cold and inedible. That left you with soups, salads (that were not labeled), and dessert. Given I was still reeling from the food poisoning the day before, it did not look appealing or safe to eat, and I pretty much just ate the dessert. If you can’t keep food hot, do something easier. Do hamburgers or something you can cook to order and keep hot. I know it’s not easy with 20 mph winds, but damn, at least try. Breakfasts: My biggest complaint about breakfasts really is the pancakes and waffles. If you order them at Amaya, you get ACTUAL pancakes and waffles but the breakfast service kind of stinks. At Indigo, I don’t know what the hell that is, but its like cardboard. Dry, flat, edible if you put enough syrup on it. Also, why is it they want to pour the syrup for you and take away the syrup? Bring me the syrup. Leave it on my table. I will put the proper amount, to taste, on the pancakes. If you give me DRY DRY pancakes, I’m going to use a lot more syrup to be able to choke them down because I don’t really trust you to cook anything else. That was our experience with the food at Zoetry. As much as you must pay to go to this place, the food should be worlds better than it was. I can pay a fraction of what I paid and eat FAR better with no worry about getting ill at Dreams Riviera Cancun. I have zero worries about anything I eat there. We had planned on ordering the Chef’s Table dinner, but the inability to get basic things right with the food soured us on that idea quickly. We’re not going to roll the dice on food poisoning for $300. The menu just looked less and less attractive the more of the actual food we ate. Zoetry is a wonderful resort, but they need to fix that food situation. More than anything, that ruined the experience early for us. When your options are limited because your afraid of getting sick, you feel like you’re gambling on food at every meal. Thats why the bulk of my critique is the first few meals we had. It set the tone, it ruined my good time. It limited my food options. We felt the staff was wonderful, but the waitstaff needs to be reorganized and better trained. Everyone seemed to be working really hard, but not actually doing much. I think this will be our last trip to the Dominican Republic. Our first trip was similar with the food issues. We'll just stick to Mexico and central America where we feel a bit safer in the food choices there. Its just too much money to lose a few days feeling ill. Happy Travels!

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