Poker/Casino in the Domican Republic

[onoble]

Been planning a trip with the gf to Punta Cana, paradisus in DR. They have a casino and it has poker I was wondering if anyone has been there or as any experience of what sort of games, limits, types of players, atmosphere, etc to expect.

Thanks kids.

[osc]

Don't get your hopes up. I was in punta cana at a different resort two weeks ago. It listed 'poker' as one of the games at the casino but it turned out to be Caribbean poker table game, luckily they had 5$ blackjack so i just sat there for hours while it rained. It might be worth a call to find out.

[Mr Rick]

I actually stayed at the Paradisus Punta Cana this spring. Their casino is very small and does not have any live cash poker games. They may have table games where you play against the house called Caribean Poker but I even doubt that.

There was a casino down the road, called the Tower, where they allegedly had NL hold'em. I went on two different nights (one was a Saturday) and no game materialized.

On the Saturday there was one other player who was interested but he left after an hour or so. Then a local approached me and asked if I wanted to play heads up. I said no because, normally I am a LHE player, the only table they had was 5/10 NL, and the rake was 10% of each pot with no limit!!!

I didn't feel all that safe going to/from the Tower casino either... There is a golf cart like vehicle with seats that picks up and drops off people from resorts in the area en route to/from the Tower casino. I tipped the guy a couple of bucks both ways and I felt looked after.

Good luck trying to get a game. Anyway the waitresses looked cute.

[onoble]

other than the disappointing poker in experience, how was the trip... you like the hotel? Worth the $$$?

[A.P. Keaton]

I was there in August. I stayed at the RIU Palace. An adjacent resort (RIU Macao I think) had a small room with one NL table. The first night I was there, the table was empty, but with three stacks of chips on the table. When I started talking to the dealer, three locals all casually strolled over from the craps table and sat down next to their respective stacks with big grins on their faces. I decided not to sit four handed with these guys. I went back the next night, same three guys.

I then went to the tower casino. No one was playing poker. I talked to a pit boss and he indicated that they would only spread 5-10 NL, even though we had 8 people who wanted to play lower stakes.

The last night I went back to the poker room at the RIU and it was 6 handed 2-4 NL with the worst play I have ever seen (I usually play limit). The locals were very aggressive and bad and the tourists were very passive and horrible. There was an Indian guy who would call everything with absolutely nothing. He probably dropped two grand and loved it. It was a good game. They closed the casino at 3 am, but let us play until 6.

[Mr Rick]

[ QUOTE ]
other than the disappointing poker in experience, how was the trip... you like the hotel? Worth the $$$?

[/ QUOTE ]
The hotel was very nice. Beach was gorgeous. Some European women went topless. It took my wife 4 days to realize why I was so energetic in getting the family to the beach early every day. They have excellent beach chairs and huge beach mattresses.

My kids loved the swimming pool. Which aside from being too chlorinated, had a sit down bar and a couple of fun features (a huge float that you could climb and jump off of, volleyball, fountains, etc.)

Food was very good in some restaurants and so so in others. Make reservations in the French restaurant when you get there for as many nights as they will let you - it is amazing. We also liked the Italian restaurant which is open for lunch and dinner. The Japanese place was like any open table/grill in the US but fun for kids. I don't eat meat so I wouldn't know about the Steak house and Brazilian places... There is a Sea Food restaurant with a view of the beach - it was fabulous too. Be a little wary of the buffets - make sure the food is fresh (I wouldn't eat dairy type dishes that were left out) - a friend of mine had a stomach problem for that reason...

Now for the downside... They try to hustle you for things that made me laugh. There were people who came up to me to help me plan my next vacation. Seriously. I told them I was working on my current vacation at the moment.

If you get a car service to/from the airport their company may ask you to attend a meeting the next morning where they will try to plan your vacation. This scam is about steering you towards activities that they can charge you transportation for or they just flat out get kickbacks.

Then there was the whole towel scam. You have to get towels from the towel hut (unless you are on a super exclusive plan where you get your own swimming pool). But the towel hut often didn't have towels. Unless you were able to materialize some dollar bills. This is an all inclusive resort mind you... That also made me laugh.

But the biggest hustle was the "concierge" service. You pay a f*ckload extra and you are supposed to get a personal assistant who will make all the reservations that you need. We did it because I was told the room would be significantly bigger (in fact that there would be two adjoining rooms - one for the kids). Well, there wasn't a second room. I had to let that go. And actually the travel agent made up for it with a substantial rebate. But the actual "concierge" service was a joke. Don't get it. They did make reservations for the French and Japanese restaurants when we got there (those were the only two you need to do that for and it may be that without Concierge service they won't let you reserve in advance - only the day of by standing in line). But aside from that they did nothing. It actually took longer to call the concierge service and ask them to reserve something than it took for me to do it myself (I speak spanish relatively well but they speak english for the most part). And often I would have to chase them down to find out what the status of a request was. I don't play golf so maybe they come in handy for making those reservations - but I doubt it... I knew of one family that had left something at the golf course - so they asked Concierge to help them locate it and get it back to the hotel and they were told "thats not our job"... LOL.

The service throughout the hotel varied widely. Some of the employees were amazing and went above and beyond the call. I made it a point to tip these people. Others left me stunned at how little they did and how little they cared.

I like to focus on the positive. It was a great vacation and the stuff that went wrong was at least humorous.