I stayed again with my daughter and friends in the hotel. Lonely Planet picked it as author's choice for 2006 in the Dom Rep. "A gem of a place" they say. Rightly so! I think the previous reviewer totally misses the point when he compares a 15 room Boutique Hotel to the 600 room Santo Domingo Hilton, opened in 2006, a modern glass, plastic and metal tower overlooked by a a huge parking structure on the side, over a busy boulevard polluted by heavy trucks. Here is a 500 year old gem from Christopher Columbus' era, with a pool, AC, generator, WiFI, cable TV and admittedly very friendly staff and management. It is like comparing oranges and apples !. The fact that there are power outages in the DR and that the AC may go off from time to time from 5 till 6 am (temperature is a comfortable 67 farenheight in the winter)is a small price to pay for old colonial beauty. If power goes off 1 hour at night everything runs ,fans, lights etc (except AC's) on a big battery power system, no pollution and no noise. The Generator is usually used during the day or when the temperature gets above 70 grade. Can't have your cake and eat it too !

I have used the TripAdvisor site and always found great properties. I have traveled to more than 200 coutries and am a Latin American Specialist. I have traveled for more than 40 years and have stayed in all types of places from a hammock to 5 star resorts. My wife and I were very excited about staying in the colonial zone in a small property. Unfortunately the owners Marc and Elvira turned off the air-conditioning during our two nights of an intended 7 night stay. They told us that they could not run a generator at night (then why have one) because it was illegal the first night, then the next night they told us that it would disturb the neighbors (they turned off air conditioning about 2 in the morning)and I had to sleep outside . We inquired with the Tourist Police and they said that they were incorrect and should know better than to tell us that this was case. We decided to leave for another property and then as we were leaving they told us that they would turn it (AC) on the rest of our stay. I would recommend that people skip this property which is overpriced and stay at the Marriott Courtyard in Santo Domingo which can be obtained for $79 plus $18 taxes (the Elvira charges about $100 plus $29 taxes through Expedia) a night and is only a 5 minute taxi or 20 minute walk from the colonial zone. It has a beautiful pool, exercise room and meals on site (great American Breakfast).
BTW the owner (Elvira) whom we liked told us that we should leave if not happy, and we did. I was shocked that a European and American owner would not want us to be happy. I was also surprised that only one or two other rooms were occupied during our Christmas week and it appeared that they did not want to run the generator in order to save money, not a good idea. This is also the only property that we have left in our traveles because we had always checked out places carefully before and hope that theses people learn to be responsible hosts because the site is very clean, fantastic workers, nice continental breakfast and although overpriced has good potential. We are both teachers and wanted air-conditioning because the air is much fresher in the tropics with AC. We were very disappointed in this experience but extremely pleased with Expedia for helping us in getting a refund for the 5 other prepaid nights. We also offered to settle with them on the cancelled nights and they told us that it was Expedias problem not theirs I write numerous posting for other travel sites and again appreciate your site for the outstanding information that we have used in our travels and obviously this was not your fault or those of other posters. Again your site is one of the better. Thank you and sorry for the negative posting, we just wanted a comfortable vacation.

Stayed one night, then came back later in the week for another two nights. Although not as comfortable as the big hotels, it does have charm, and the most important thing to me: free high-speed internet.

The staff was very nice and so is Dona Elvira herself. The location in the Zona Colonial worked well for me. Parking was cheap at $2/day, and the breakfast was tasty though small (tropical fruit, toast+butter/jam, juice, coffee).

Needs improvement:

- Air conditioners frequently ceased due to power supply issues. When it isn't running, the room gets hot and humid.

- The WiFi internet works 24hrs in the lobby, where it is hot and humid and full of mosquitos. At night they power off a server that controls the wired connections in the rooms, so using the Internet in the room is only possible during the daytime, and at night you must go to the lobby. I didn't understand why they couldn't let the server stay up at night.

- The showerheads were bad and splashed the water.

- Good mattresses but need a mattress pad to make it more comfortable/hygiene.

- Eggs or cheese added to breakfast would be nice.

- Since they have a kitchen, they could offer lunch/dinner service.

While this is a nice casa it could not be considered to be a Hotel. even at the outside it is stated casa. when i arrived there were no english speaking staff. i did speak in the phone to a manager/owner who facilitated getting a room. for $50 i was offered a room with a loft platform with the bed. it was very interesting if dusty. for $85 i was offered a more normal double room. however i eventually moved to the new Hilton on the sea front for $99. i felt the slightly higher price was well compensated by the extra facilities. If you want a quaint casa you might well be happy here; if you really want a hotel, look elsewhere.