The Consorcio Colonia hotel in Santiago is one of the lower priced hotels in the city. This is probably not a hotel you’re going to go to on your honeymoon (at least if you are wanting to keep her happy). It is however a pretty good budget motel. If you are staying in one of the luxury beach hotels or all-inclusive hotels around the Dominican Republic and are looking for a low cost place to stay for an overnight excursion to Santiago this is probably a good choice.
We found the rooms in the Colonia to be clean and the beds to be relatively comfortable. The staff was not overly friendly but they were also not difficult to work with and tolerated our inability to speak Spanish fluently pretty well. The best part was that the rooms were cheap. They go from $500 pesos (about $15 USD) to about $1200 pesos ($33 USD) per night. The difference was if you wanted air conditioning, a fan, a mini refrigerator or a TV in the room.
We chose to spring for the deluxe room, $1144.00 pesos covered 4 people (2 queen beds). Well, about 10 minutes after getting into the room the power went off. This is pretty common for the DR, however the higher priced motels have alternate sources of power so you are not affected by the daily power outages. It was about time to go find something to eat anyway so we ventured out in search of food. By the time we got back the power was back on and it seemed to stay on for the rest of the night. When we asked, it sounded like they have a deal with the city where they always get power after 7:30 pm. So you will probably not be stuck in the dark.
One thing we insist on in a hotel room is for it to be clean. That is something Dominicans do pretty well. You will see trash all over in the streets, but once you get into a building it is kept very clean. Our room was no exception, everything was neat and clean.
As expected with a low price motel here it was not in perfect repair. Once again this is very common for the DR. There was a “Shower Head” however the insides were gone so the water just came pouring out of the pipe. One of the lamp fixtures was hanging by the wires out of the ceiling, and although others in the group claimed to get hot water, I was not one of the more fortunate ones, let’s say my shower was “refreshing”.
The motel was conveniently located toward the middle of Santiago, but not quite close enough to all of the night life locations to walk so you would need to take a Taxi, or public car, but those are easy to come by here. It was also about 2 blocks away from a small GuaGua station so if you are coming in from out of town on one of the smaller guagaus it can drop you off pretty close to the motel. You will likely need to catch a public car or taxi if you are coming in with one of the tour busses.
Would I stay there again? Yes.
If you are just looking for a cheap place to stay the night to save your money for going out and visiting Santiago, the Colonial works fine. If you plans are for a romantic night in the motel, this is probably not where you want to be.
This Hotel review was based on our stay on April 10, 2010
Contact information
Consorcio Colonial de Luxe S.R.L.
Salvado Cucurullo Nos 113 y115
Santiago, R.D
809-247-3122
October 13th, 2010 at 9:43 am
An update on this Hotel.
My family and I booked reservations over the phone (weekend of 10/12/2010) and was quoted prices of 950 pesos for a room with a double bed and a single bed and 450 pesos for a room with 2 single beds. You pay more for the larger room because it includes an air conditioner and a small fridge. Sounded good so we took the room.
They have three hotel buildings, all next to each other on the same street. So, you walk into any of the three and mention the reservation and they direct you to the right building (just one of the next two doors down the street).
No problem, they directed us to the one to the far right as you look at the three buildings. We walked down there and they told us the room prices were exactly double what we told on the phone. A little confused we asked why. Well, each room gets breakfast for 2 people included. For the larger room that meant an extra 950 pesos or about 26 US dollar more for breakfast for two people, it should be noted that usually breakfast costs about 120 pesos or less).
It would seem that when they have foreigners come, they automatically move them to the building that is about twice as expensive (we seen the rooms, they are otherwise about the same). We objected and were given rooms in the other building for Dominican prices (the ones we were quoted on the phone). This wasn’t a big hassle and they were friendly about it but, if you are being overcharged be sure to speak up.
October 19th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Hello thank you for the info i am traveling to santiago Oct 27th and I will just go to the hotel and get a room. i am a backpacker and traveling alone. I appreciate the info! i am planning on going to haiti Cap Hatien while I am there!
Thank you
October 20th, 2010 at 4:59 am
@Mike
The DR will be a great place for a backpack trip. You can get by on next to nothing. Food and transportation is easily available and at a pretty low cost.
I would recommend caution while traveling through Haiti, once in the tourist areas you are probably a little more safe, but most of the country can be a little dangerous for foreigner.
November 19th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
@ Dwayne
I´ve been staying in all 3 hotels during last 3 years.
The rooms are totally different in all of them – at least in those ones where I and my friend stayed.
The main thing is every one of them is worth of it´s price.
Anyway you can find a nice all inclusive hotel in Puerto plata, Sosua or Cabarete with 30 usd / 1 person or 40-50 usd / 2 persons – that´s unbelievable!!!
November 20th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
@Yandel
Well, the one they showed me at the higher price (I went into the room and looked) wasn’t much different than the one we took at the much lower price. You might have seen some better rooms. Price is still good, I just didn’t see the advantage of the extra price.
And about the All inclusive, Yes. But you need to get signed up for one of those online deal places that send you emails about the deals (the one I use is for no charge “CheapCaribbean.com”). I just reserved rooms at an all inclusive for $10 USD (yeah as in ten) per person, per night, we were pretty happy about that!!!. We will be going in a couple weeks, but we know two other groups of people that got the same deal at the same all inclusive and have already went. They said the food was great and it was at a nice hotel.
I’ll be writing reviews on the hotel and the restaurants when we get back in a few weeks. The hotel we are staying at is the Lifestyle Tropical Beach Resort and Spa in Puerto Plata.
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:12 am
@everybody 😉
The main difference is the bed. I think it´s the most important thing in a room.
Other things: quality of bathroom, bedclothes, towels, size of the room, quality of tv ext.
If you just need a space – they are the same.
I stayed there couple of days ago and check several rooms before taking one.
10$???
Is it for 4 people in a one room?
I checked several days and durations. I didn´t find anything even close to that price in cheapcaribbean.com during several months.
Instead I found cheaper prices – like always – in http://www.hotelscombined.com which I think is the best search engine I ever use during 10 years!!!
But nothing even close to 10$ person especially not in Lifestyle TBRaS.
By the way if somebody knows better search engine, please let me know!
@Dwayne
Could you tell me some of the hotels with 15$ or close in Sosua/Cabarete area.
I shall move there in the beginning of December and shall stay there for a long time.
In Puerto Plata there is some tolerable with 15$ if you can make it with a fan. I can 😉
If you stay alone you can get some all inclusive ones around 30$ in Puerto Plata, Sosua or Cabarete – that´s not too bad!
But who want´s to stay alone?
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:53 am
Good to know about the Consorcio. thanks
The only place I’ve stayed so far in Sosua is Villa Antonia I paid $30 for one of the interior rooms which was MUCH nicer than the rooms you access from the outside. The cheaper rooms didn’t have very good beds and you shared the bathrooms but it might get closer to the $15 mark.
That $10 deal was some sort of an anniversary special. We got two rooms for 5 people, Me and my wife in one and the kids in the other. It’s based on double occupancy, I don’t think they would give that deal if you stay alone, also a three night minimum.
This was by far the best deal I’ve seen for an all inclusive. I keep finding more people that have already went on that deal and they all said it was great. There was a three month window where you could book you stay, they probably booked all the available rooms in a day or so. I’m pretty sure the only way to get that deal was to be signed up for that newsletter. They have already closed the deal up, we tried looking for some other friends.
thanks for the tip on Hotels combined, I’ll look into it.
by the way, where did you stay in Puerto Plato for $15, We might be heading up there in the future.