We stayed at the Playa Esmeralda for four nights, with our 3 year old boy. We loved this place.
This is not a large-scale full-of-amenities place. Compared with the average hotel in the Dominican Republic, the place is small, and not crowded. It is placed on the beautiful beach of Guayacanes village. The beach is not particularly large, but since the hotel isn't either, you will share it with a limited number of people, so it never gets overcrowded. The sea is very beautiful: waves breaks on a reef which is at about 200 metres from the shore, so the water is always calm and transparent, which is great especially for childrens. The Guayacanes village is next to the hotel, and the local community attends the public section of the beach, which is confining. You can decide whether you prefer to stay at the hotel beach, of take a walk into the life and habits of the Guayacanes community, which is friendly, musical, but very poor. So at the Playa Esmeralda you don't have that feeling of abstraction from local reality you get in the larger resorts of the Dominican Republic.
Anyway, I would not suggest long stays at this hotel, unless you rent a car, that allows you to easily reach Boca Chica, Santo Domingo and Juan Dolio.
Critical aspects of the place: the food choice from the buffet could be more varied, and rooms (though large, with comfortable beds and efficient and silent air conditioning, plus a roof fan if you don't like ac) show their age. Staff speak very little english. To us, none of these seemed relevant, so we are pleased to give PE full marks, and, when back to the Dominican Republic, we would definetly stop there again.

My husband and I recently stayed at Playa Esmeralda, after a 7 day work team trip in San Pedro. Needless to say, after working in the hot sun all day, and staying in a less than desirable hotel in San Pedro, we were pleased with Playa Esmeralda. The hotel is small (only 44 rooms), so it is very quaint. The clientel consists of mostly Europeans (Italians and some Germans) and a few Americans. The room was descent, however the linens did smell musty to us. The A.C. worked fine and we welcomed it after a day in the sun. The pool is nice and certainly swimmable, but a tad on the small side. We definitely recommend the all inclusive package- 3 meals a day and all the drinks you want for less than $50 per person per day! It is so nice, not having to worry about getting food outside of the resort (esp. because you can get sick so easily...) The food is descent, but not great. There was fresh pasta every night and some soup and rice. Also, there was some fruit, which was nice. The breakfast was descent-croissants, pancakes, and sausage with wonderful Dominican coffee... We did get a little tired of it by the second day, but it certainly was fine.
The beach is nice and right outside your doorstep. We did some snorkeling, as there is some descent coral nearby. Make sure you wear some sort of water shoes though, as there are a lot of sea urchins (which really hurt if you step on them) in the water. There was volleyball on the beach (Fun!) and chairs for free to lounge in. Also, we appreciate that there was a security guard on duty at the beach at all times, so we felt safe. There were some vendors, as it is a public beach, but we weren't harrassed too much. A simple "No, Gracious" was enough to signify we weren't interested.
The people here speak very limited English, and we spoke very limited Spanish, but it wasn't much of a problem. All in all, for the money, this was a great place to stay and we really enjoyed our time at Playa Esmeralda.

I felt compelled to write this review after reading one of the previous posts. I travel to Juan Dolio on a regular basis, simply because I am a recreational traveller and have fallen in love with the south coast of this caribbean country.

Boy, after reading the last post, no wonder we are sometimes called "ugly Americans". Again and again, I read reviews by novice travellers who expect an American-type resort with American customs and standards...and then are so dissapointed when they don't find it. Sometimes, people are so interested in complaining about things, that they fail to see the natural beauty right in front of their eyes.

If you are a complainer, a whiner or somebody who lets every little detail bother them, don't come to Playa Esmeralda. If you are laid back, relaxed, love exploring the nearby towns and enjoy fitting into the local culture, then you will LOVE Esmeralda. I have been to Juan Dolio eight times and have stayed at Playa Esmeralda every single time---in fact, i won't stay anywhere else.

ROOMS: My room is always nice and comfy. As an experienced traveller, it suites my needs just fine. The only minor problem I have ever experienced was a broken air conditioner, and as soon as I notified the front desk, I was promptly whisked to another room with a working unit. The T.V. gets about 10 channels or so, all in spanish. It is a rather quiet clientelle, and there is no trouble with loud noises or anything of that nature at bedtime. Yes, most rooms feature two beds pushed together to make one big bed, but it really isn't a big deal. The beds themselves are soft and comfortable, however one of the beds always seems to be a bit firmer than the other. Always had hot water running in the shower and, of course, the maids freshen up the room daily.

FOOD: 3 meals a day, and they are plentiful and delicious. If you are somebody who needs snacks in between meals, (most Americans), then you may have to make a run to one of the local stores in the small fishing village. The hotel is impecably run by Italians, so it is only fitting that pasta is a central element of the meals. Every night features an outstanding pasta bar, with the type of pasta rotating every night (eg. spaghetti, linguine, penne etc.) That is in addition to the daily hot food buffet they serve which usually features pork, chicken or beef, potatoes, vegatable, soup, salad and deserts. I am an American with Italian heritage, so I typically stick to and enjoy the excellent pasta bar. The first time I went to the DR, I was deathly afraid of becoming sick from the food, but I have the utmost trust in the food prep and quality at Esmeralda. Out of the voluminous meals I have eaten there, I have NEVER been sick.

EXTRAS: Make sure you get out to the road, catch a bus and journey to one of the local towns. It is an unforgettable experience. The locals are the friendliest people i have ever met. Don't let anybody tell you that it is not safe, because that is so untrue. You are missing out if you don't journey out into the town. It is no more dangerous than the suburbs in the U.S.

Esmeralda is a friendly, fun and laid back place to visit that will put you at ease for sure! You will love it! And for the price, how can you go wrong? Hope this review helps you decide.

This place is not paradise at all! My husband and myself traveled here for our honeymoon. It was our honeymoon, so we did enjoy each others company but what we were sold was not at all what we recieved. We arrived to a bug infested room and a wonderful King sized bed. Well the king size bed was two twin mattresses pushed together to make one bed. However, one mattress was soft and the other was firm. Not what I consider comfortable. When we asked if we could have another room we were told we would have to wait until the following day. The following day we were moved to another room with a full size bed so we would be sleeping on one mattress. The rooms we stayed in were not updated at all...

We did get the all-inclusive which was again not what we had hoped for. We arrived to the hotel somewhere around 3pm and we found out that they had designated times to eat and there was no other food anywhere at the resort. The meal times were as follows: Breakfast was from 7am to 9am, Lunch 12pm to 2pm and dinner was served from 7pm to 9pm. Needless to say every single night we had pasta with a different type of sauce for dinner. They also had an Ice cream cart that was owned by the gift shop that was only opened for about an hour a day if that!

The hotel staff was very friendly however they did tell us not to leave the resort or walk the beach at night as it was not safe to do so.... We were also told that we were going to have live entertainment and the live entertainment consisted of 15 minutes on the night before we departed. They said they had onsite water sports which was false and they also advertised scuba diving however the scuba instuctor only spoke German and we were not comfortable taking scuba lessons we could not translate.

I would not recommend this resort for families. There really is nothing for children to do here and the dining times were terrible expecially not having any snacks or anything in between.