El Valle Lodge - Monte Plata

This place is amazing. We stayed at El Valle Lodge for 2 nights and it was one of the most beautiful stays we've had. The nature is incredible. The lodges are perfectly integrated into a stunning garden. El Valle beach is wild and the locals are very friendly. The food and cocktails are also fantastic.

I have been returning to this restaurant since my first visit. The accommodations are very quiet, clean, and peaceful, with a good internet connection for remote workers or retreat organizers. The Caros family are excellent hosts. The location is only a 4-minute walk from El Valle beach, a spectacular place to spend the day, visit stunning beaches, and enjoy life.

This restaurant impresses in every aspect for a delightful experience. The staff is extremely friendly and welcoming, with carolina, the owner and host, going above and beyond to ensure a memorable visit. The rooms are charming and comfortable, and the breakfast is so satisfying that I skipped lunch. The dinners are creative and exotic, offering a chance to either relax alone or engage in lively conversations with interesting guests and locals. The hotel is committed to sustainability, evident in every aspect from the use of organic ingredients to low-impact architecture. Located just 5 minutes away from a picturesque beach, El Valle remains secluded and authentic, making it a hidden gem for those in the know.

Fantastic experience. what a wonderful and peaceful oasis carolina and santi have made. really fascinating how they turned a chaotic bus into a sweet water stream. my stay was initially januar and there are hardly mosquitoes because they spent years of hard work and consulted ecologists to make a moving stream and bring so much animal world. the way between the jungle huts are lush botanical gardens. I was amazed that the only creature that came into the bambus hut was a curious snail and the occasional eidechse or moskito. the food is ideal for clean eating, simple and tasteful, not excessively skillful and made with fresh local ingredients. the wine they serve is fantastic and very well selected, carolina makes fantastic cocktails and will make them even at the rainy days or during dinner in the lounge. the waiting staff is incredibly nice and accommodating. let them carolina know until midday that they are dinner in the night. if they are a animal, there are a few selected beach kitties and dogs hanging in the lounge / there area. I guess the badly taken were all chased away by carolinas. many animals for those who miss their pets. make sure their towels and wet clothes are dry in the sun on the beach before they return to the lodge, as the rooms are in the jungle and the wet air do not dry. a few tips in front of the arrival: the entry sign to the parking space is something hidden and can easily be overlooked. the entrance street is located next to a red and yellow bar/ery with a pool table, it has a huge sign with food pictures on it. the next atm is in the city samara so bring many pesos before it comes as there are no places that take cards. a wonderful big breakfast is included, but if you have a partner hanging up until midday, you can eat on the wonderful lunch half a mile away on the street in restaurant don piron, where you will find a beautiful couple serving the fresh delicious local Dominican fare (only kash). or they can have a piña colada and fresh Dominican dishes on the beach in claritza (only crooked) it is there most days before midday. she will set up a table for her, but be a little patient, as she then goes her order back to her kitchen to cook. it is worth the waiting time as when it returns, it is freshly caught seafood from this day and big rice and buzz. do not talk about the work loud in the lounge area, had some guests about a PowerPoint presentation and there was work thought to me. great place! definitely come back! for U.S. citizens I write this in the januar 2022 and they need a Covid test on the day before leaving, the next test area is in samana. we were unprepared and carolina could have someone test two of us on the lodge and cost about $100.

Beautiful and unique place close to nature. The breakfast and dinner with wine pairings were really good, also for a vegetarian – in a country where getting good food is rather difficult – we can also recommend the Chinola cocktail. We enjoyed the open design of the hotel. However, it failed us in the basics unfortunately. Our toilet flush didn’t work 2 out of 3 times and we had to resort to filling up a vase with water from the sink or going to the restaurant toilet. At some point the sink water didn’t drain anymore which got fixed luckily. Payment was difficult due to only accepting cash or PayPal (even for paying the accommodation) which has quite bad exchange rates. The wifi in our room didn’t work and as there isn’t any cell phone reception in El Valle, we had to go to the hotel restaurant to do all the planning for the day, where the internet also didn’t work anymore if too many people were there. Most importantly the communication with the hotel was really frustrating for us. We only speak limited spanish and there wasn’t any staff around that spoke english. That led to errors in our orders, not being able to recommend any hiking tours (we read in other reviews they could assist with that), not understanding the issues we had and making payment even more difficult. We asked to pay in the evening because we needed to leave early in the morning, the staff acknowledged that and told us that we could pay after dinner. But when we finished, there was no staff anymore. In the end we did in in the morning in a hurry and left the place in frustration. Without the communication issues we would have had an overall good time and could easily recommend this place.