After reading some of the reviews on this site, I was fearing the 'trip from hell' as some have put it. Frankly, I am not sure these folks giving negative reviews actually visited the same place I just returned from.

Oasis Canoa is awesome in every aspect. Our family of 3 (myself, my wife and my daughter aged 10) enjoyed every minute of the trip. Booking in and out was fast, efficient and pleasant. We were in building 4 (closest to the pool and beach).

The hotel and grounds are absolutely beautiful. The construction work is cordoned off and not unsightly. We were not bothered about it at all. In any event, how is a hotel supposed to keep upgrading if not for renovations.

The excursions are pricey, but with the money you save with the All-Inclusive deal, I challenge anyone to come up with a better deal financially.

The wait-staff and room cleaners were friendly, helpful and, contrary to popular belief, actually speak English too. Obviously the more Spanish you know the better, but all employees were multilingual, some speaking as many as 5 languages.

The beach was exactly as I expected from a Caribbean beach with white sand, turquoise waters and palm trees. You will not be disappointed. For the sporty ones, you can rent snorkling gear, kayaks and catamarans for free. The staff at the sport shop where you get the equipment were awesome and loved to interact with the guests. Please say 'hi' to Gabriel if you stop by. He is an awesome guy who loves his job and truly serves the guests.

My daughter and I enjoyed the scuba dive so much, we went twice. Highly recommended as the water is so clear and the reefs sre so beautiful with true-life aquarium views of the coral reef, eels, stingrays and fish. Please say 'hi' to Richard and Rubio if you go dive at the resort. They will take good care of you. BTW, we were first-timers with scuba diving.

Regarding the food... oh my goodness. The food was fantastic. With 4 restaurants you are spoilt for choice. There is an Italian restaurant which is upscale and requires long pants for men and closed shoes. The Mexican, Dominican and buffet are more casual. Again, reading some of the previous reviews, it sounds like some folks should rather just stay home in the comfort of their own kitchens and drink Dasani water and save their money. McDonalds gives you a good deal for $2 if you prefer.

A 10 min public bus ride to nearby Bayahibe ($1 per person) is an interesting excursion and gives you a good idea of local life in the area. I did it twice and enjoyed it. Bayahibe is a quaint sea town that is better know for fishing and is also the launching point for many ocean excursions.

One excursion we also truly enjoyed was the day trip to Isla Saona (Saona Island). The trip there is by a large 20 seater speed boat and back again by sailing a grand catamaran. Splashing around in the narural pool 1 mile into the ocean on this trip was a great experience and well worthy of a few photos.

The negatives...
- We found some of the nighttime and daytime entertainment to be a tad naughty. There does seem to be sexual suggestive nuances to much of the entertainment (incl lap dancing at 4:30pm at the pool). Twice I had to take may daughter out of a situation where I did not want her to see what was going on.
- The entertainment team can be very pushy and persistent to try to get guests to participate in sporting events (volleyball, bocciball, frisbee etc).
- The cheap sunscreen is $25 per bottle, so take your own. You will need it.

General... we loved our stay at Oasis Canoa and would absolutely, definately go back again.

Please feel free to send me an email at louwd@labcorp.com if you have any specific questions about Oasis Canoa. We have lots of tips regarding the resort that I did not include in this review.

Blessings and happy vacationing to you.
Deon

My mother and I booked this hotel through Thomson, a supposed 4 star property but frankly I would struggle to give it 2!

Why?

Well, firstly the rooms were old and shabby with worn out furniture and falling apart bathrooms I.e.; cracked tiles and the shower rail was broken. Either no handle on the balcony door, or a broken one, and we assume pot luck if you get a remote control for the TV, we know this because we moved rooms and we had one in the first room but not in the second (amongst other things). It was also pot luck if you were actually provided things such as toilet paper and towels by the maid, and as for the coffee making facilities.. Errr some coffee would be nice, oh and maybe some sugar and milk once in a while...... and I cant leave out the rusty old fridges that sat on the floor masquerading themselves as a mini-bar housing your wonderful selection of 2 bottles of beer, a bottle of sprite and a bottle of coke!

Next... The food!
Now I understand its a hot country and there are always going to be lots of nasty little insects and fly’s about......but I don’t expect to find them dead or alive sprinkled all over my food thank you!
The buffet restaurant was just appalling, aside from the afore mentioned bugs climbing all over the food, the hot food was normally cold and the cold food was warm, and being vegetarian was a nightmare, bread and rice became my main staple. The service was shocking, long wait for drinks-if offered any at all, tables always missing something-cutlery, glasses, cups etc.. and miserable, non attentive and sometimes rude staff!
This was pretty much indicative of every restaurant or bar on site, and while we were there someone actually ended up in hospital for two days due to food poisoning.

This brings us to my and I'm sure most other peoples reason for disgruntlement at this hotel.... The building noise! Of which we were not pre-warned about by our tour operator!
Very loud and incessant construction work is taking place at this hotel, and I say incessant because it even carried on at weekends, and it was everywhere, for example; one minute a pathway was there and the next it was closed because someone was digging a bloody great hole in it, as was the case at the bottom of our stairwell in block 3. It was drilling hammering and banging all day long and you could hear it pretty much wherever you were in the hotel. Now I am not one to stand in the way of progress and this hotel needs it! It would have just been nice to have been told, and whether that is down to the tour operator or the hotel I don’t know but I'm sure they would blame each other!

My advice... Do not go to this hotel expecting 4 star standards and service because you will be very disappointed! But if all you want is sun, sea and sand, and somewhere to sleep then go ahead, but you’ve been warned, KEEP YOUR EXPECTATIONS VERY LOW!

To conclude I would say that in spite of all of the above I did not let it spoil my holiday, I just engaged the stiff upper lip and carried on regardless, and it has not put me off the Dominican Republic or Bayahibe and I would go back just probably not to this hotel. The pool (though a little dirty at times) was nice, I also liked the beach and the sea was lovely and warm. I also can’t not mention the hotel animation staff, who, unlike any other hotel employee, were great, they were very friendly and polite, and really made an effort, by far the best department of the whole hotel. Also the activities and music around the pool helped to drown out the building noise.
The grounds of the hotel (the parts that weren’t being dug up that is) were also nice, the plants and palm trees dotted around were beautiful and very well maintained.
It’s just a shame they didn’t adopt the same level of care and attention to their customers as they did to their plants…. :(

My husband and I went for 5 nights to Oasis Canoa, and I will try to provide a detailed review.
Check in was uneventful. The lobby is beautiful. We stayed in building #9 in room 934. It has a single king bed in it. It was clean, but plainly furnished. I had requested a newer room, which we got. They were working on the other half of building 9, but not while we were there. Building 6 is beautifully re-done, so I would recommend requesting that building.
The walls are very thin. You can hear muffled talking and tvs in the next room. There wasn't hot water, and by the end of the week I was really craving a hot shower.
The food was pretty good, but be careful. I got a stomach bug at the end of the week....and I had food poisoning one day. Luckily it only lastest about an hour, so it didn't impact my stay.
We loved the beach. You could always get lounge chairs, and the snorkeling was pretty good. The reef is man made at the end of the swimming area....its intent is probaby not for a reef, but the fish have flocked to it. You can only borrow the snorkeling for an hour a day, and from 9 am on.
My husband didn't like that the people working the activities would try to force people to participate. They also play loud music at times. It didn't bother me as it wasn't all the time, but my husband got annoyed. This didn't bother me as I was done with sun and water by 5 pm, but the pool closes at 7 pm.
They also don't have the bar open first thing. I'm not a heavy drinker, but we did want bloody mary's one morning with breakfast and couldn't get them because the bar was closed.
The surroundings are beautiful. We enjoyed strolling the paths.
Hmm, that's about it. If I think of anything else, I will add.
Overall, we had a great relaxing trip, which is what we were there for.

From Hull,England
Would never go back to the dominican republic never mind the oasis canoa hotel!!
we found this to be a holiday from hell!
ignorant non smiling staff-if you couldn't speak spanish then they didn't want to know! we thought we were in a depression camp!CONSTANT NOISE FROM DRILLING,WHILE TRYING TO RELAX AROUND THE POOL!wherever you went in the hotel there was construction work being carried out!
My 2 teenage boys were offered cocaine by the local trades people that are let into the hotel to sell there cheap tat!you have to be very firm with them and walk away.
we went to the italian restaurant which seemed a nice experience,actually resulted in me getting food poisoning and had to spend 2 days in santo domingo hospital!which ended up spoiling the rest of our holiday!
our maid left our patio door open on the ground floor and we had some cash stolen out of our room which the hotel were not interested in!
all in all a very bad experience !