This is our resort review based on our August 9 to 16, 2005 trip to Eden Bay Resort in the Dominican Republic. I have done a separate trip report which is mostly items of a more personal nature which are tied to our particular trip to Eden Bay. The trip report is located here. Eden Bay trip report Eden Bay is a nude resort which has been open now for about two years in it’s current incarnation. It originally opened in about 1996 under another name, was closed for about 6 years, and reopened in about 2003 under it’s current name. At the time that the resort was first opened, they sold units to private individuals. Many of those individuals sold out when the resort was closed but many still do own their units. Around the end of May, 2005, Eden Bay was bought out by Caliente Resorts, which has produced a huge influx of new capital which will, I think, ensure the long term survival and success of Eden Bay as ultimately a five star nude resort. That, in my book, is “a good thing” as Ms. Martha would say.

For comparison, we have previously traveled to just about every island in the Caribbean, some of them many times. Our favorite island is St. Maarten/St. Martin, to which we have traveled maybe 3 dozen times, most of the time staying at NON nude resorts or at villas, but spending the day on Club Orient beach. As far as nude resorts are concerned, we have previously stayed at Club Orient, Hedonism II, Hedonism III, Grand Lido Negril, Grand Lido Braco, Couples Ocho Rios (day trip only), and Sorobon (day trip only) in the Caribbean, and Paradise Lakes and Avalon in the United States.

Before this trip, I could state without equivocation that the best nude resort facilities in the Caribbean were at Grand Lido Braco, which has a whole nude side to the resort, with it’s own huge pool, hot tub, clubhouse, tennis courts, etc., etc. Once Eden Bay has put in all the amenities that are already planned for the resort, Eden Bay will give Braco a run for their money, at a price which currently is about half of the price for Grand Lido Braco. Interested????? I thought so..

OK, let’s describe the layout of the resort. The resort is built in two major sections, around an extraordinarily beautiful bay. The setting is the most physical beautiful setting of any of the nude resorts we have been to, by far, as there are towering cliffs all around, and huge coconut palms everywhere, with just lovely trees and plants everywhere. The top section of the resort consists of the tennis courts, a huge pool with swim up bar, and one hot tub (not working when we were there in August 2005, but anticipated to be working probably within a week or two), and the main restaurant, plus tv room, disco, reception, shop, and salon, plus the cliffside rooms. There are currently two buildings of cliffside rooms, with another building to be built in the future, once demand catches up with supply. The lower level of the resort consists of another huge pool, a water volleyball pool, a hot tub, a beach volleyball court, a huge bar and restaurant area under a huge shade palapa, the beach, the massage hut, and four rows of housing units, which are arranged up the hill, with the bottom row of units being even with the beach. ALL units–beachside and cliffside-- have a view of the ocean, and either a balcony or patio, and a refrigerator.

ROOMS–There are several different types of rooms at the resort, roughly divided between the cliffside rooms and the beachfront rooms. The beach rooms, and those that are in the three rows above them, going up the hill, are mostly all the same, one bedroom suites with a living area and kitchen. Although I didn’t see that many of them, but about half of them have two double beds, which is a negative to me, as we have a king bed at home and it’s hard to go back! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Smile.gif" alt="" /> We didn’t want two double beds and complained and we were able to get switched to a room with a king bed. Our second room was unrepresentative because it had upgrades from the normal room, including the pit-type sofa in the living room (which was GREAT, by the way), and an upgraded kitchen (which looked nice, but we didn’t use, of course). When we go back, I would be perfectly happy with any of the beachside rooms which have a king bed. The beach units all have a kitchen, with stove, refrigerator, etc., but there is not a real reason for any real kitchens here, as the resort is all inclusive. If you wanted to fix your own food, you’d need to rent a car or a taxi to take you probably 20 miles to town to buy food anyway. The beachfront rooms are of course the most expensive in the resort. Certainly at this point, since all the rooms are so reasonable anyway, they are definitely worth the extra money, as they are all one bedroom units, with separate bedroom, and the location being on the beach level is the best to me. As I said in the meals section, breakfast and dinner are served upstairs on the main level, which is where the cliffside rooms are, but lunch is served down at the ocean level and most people spent the main part of the day down by the ocean anyway. We have posted pictures of our first and second rooms, as well as the cliffside rooms on our personal website, at Eden Bay photos

The buildings on the top of the cliff had at least three different types of rooms, including the hotel room, the studio and the one bedroom unit. We saw all of those types of units, and have posted pictures as listed above. All were nice, although if I had my choice, I would go for the studio or the one bedroom unit. The one bedroom unit in particular was quite nice, although there aren’t a whole lot of those units, maybe 5 or so. If I were to pick a cliffside room, I would definitely try to get either a studio or one bedroom, although truthfully I don’t think many people spend that much time in their rooms at Eden Bay.

All rooms come with refrigerators which are stocked with bottled water, beer, PEPSI and Diet Pepsi, and restocked as used. Pepsi appears to be the official soda of Eden Bay, not Coke, a GOOD thing for we Pepsi drinkers! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />) I didn’t see any Coke at all, although I think they did have 7-up. All rooms also come with a keyed safe.

FOOD!!–All meals at Eden Bay are sit down meals, no buffet. You eat when you want, with whomever you want, within the specified meal times. For the most part, tables were set for 4 and if larger groups wish to eat together, the staff is happy to put tables together. All food is obtained locally, which was somewhat surprising to me, not sure why that surprised me. Meal times are as follows:

7:00 AM–coffee available at the beach bar restaurant. (I presume this will continue to be the case after there are coffeepots in all rooms, but don’t know.)
7:30 to 10:30 AM–Breakfast upstairs in the main dining area.
12:00 to 2:30 PM–Lunch downstairs in the beach restaurant
4:00 PM–Snack downstairs in the beach restaurant (usually quiche, pizza squares, cheese, etc.)
6:30 to 8:00 PM–Dinner upstairs in the main dining area, usually preceded by some type of appetizer at the main pool bar area (usually pizza squares, chicken wings, etc.)
Late night snack–While you are at dinner, a late night snack appears in your refrigerator. These are usually a sandwich, a fruit platter, etc.

Breakfast and lunch I actually found to the best meals. Breakfast was served in the main restaurant up top and offered a full selection from the menu of omelettes, eggs to order, french toast, pancakes, oatmeal, cereal, juices, basket of bread, fruit plate, etc. Breakfast was generally excellent, except that the quality of the bacon and sausage was not great. If you want meat with your breakfast, get the ham! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Smile.gif" alt="" /> Table service for breakfast in general was excellent, although I could have wished a couple of times for more swift refills on the coffee.

Lunch was served on the beach, and if I would give a bit of advice, generally it would be to order the special, or the Dominican Flag, and to order the soup, if you like the type of soup offered. Lunch always offered a soup of the day, a salad of the day, a special of the day (one day fajitas, a couple of days pasta), something they called the Dominican Flag (which was cooked chicken or beef with some vegetables, plus maybe some plantains–which meal was excellent!!), plus the more traditional American offerings including philly cheese steak, hamburger, hot dog, chicken sandwich, club sandwich, chef salad, fruit plate, tuna salad, and an assorted salad plate (fruit, chicken salad, potato salad, etc). Meals were offered with your choice of fried plantains, excellent french fries or potato salad. They offered a couple of desserts, but nothing exciting to me.

Dinner was served in the main restaurant up top and consisted of a soup of the day (generally EXCELLENT, and different than the lunch soup), a salad of the day, about 4 entres and 2 desserts. Dinner seemed to be the weakest meal of the day to me, with many of the entres seeming to be overcooked. I have a feeling now that Caliente has purchased the resort, there will be more money spent on the food budget, so that the quality of the evening meals in future will be better. Service was generally excellent and meals included your choice of red or white wine, in abundance. BTW, the Eden Bay website says unlimited wine with lunch and dinner, but I had wine at any time I wanted it.

BOOZE–A matter near and dear to all people! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />
Beer is easy, Presidente! That’s all I saw, anyway. If you want some other type of beer, ask for it, as they might be able to get it for you. As for liquors, I drank mostly Brugal rum, and some Jack Daniels. Eric drank some type of Dominican gin, which he pronounced not as good as Tanqueray, but not bad. They do serve the drinks in a decent sized plastic glass, as opposed to some resorts, where they serve things in little tiny glasses. We took a couple of insulated drink cups, but we only used them a couple of times, as otherwise, we didn’t need to use them. One thing with regard to liquor at Eden Bay, if you don’t see what you normally drink, ask for it! I asked for Grand Marnier, and a bottle was produced. Some of our group asked for Absolut and got it.

....Which brings me to a point... If you want something at Eden Bay, ASK for it!! And ask either Patricia or Tom, as they are the ones who can get things done. Other folks MAY be able to get something done, but if you ask Patricia or Tom, if there’s ANY way it can be done, they will do it. They try really hard to do whatever they can to make you happy. But if you don’t tell them that you want something, or that you’re unhappy with something, they don’t know. Case in point–when we checked in, I was very disappointed to see that our room had two double beds–and that another member in our group had a room with a king sized bed. We mentioned it to Tom and the next morning, we were able to switch to a room with a king bed.

OFF THE GRID.....
Eden Bay is totally off the grid for the production of electric, water, and sewer-- that is, they produce all their own electricity and water. We had ZERO interruptions of water or electric while we were there–something one can rarely say about most resorts in Jamaica, for instance. Electric is 110, so you can bring your appliances like cd players, etc. As we have often noted in St. Martin, the cycles don’t seem exactly correct, so our clock didn’t keep correct time, so we needed to adjust it about once a day. For the most part, I personally preferred NOT to drink the water produced at the resort, out of abundance of caution, and normally drank bottled water. There is quite a large write up on the Eden Bay website with regard to the subject of water, so if you’re concerned about that, suggest you give that a look. Ice is also made with the water that they produced. Neither one of us had any problems with stomach upset from water or food. The units all have an individual hot water unit and we did not run out of hot water at any time when we were there.

ACTIVITIES–
Most of the activities at the resort are overseen by Peggy and Mike (aka Nudini and Boobetta). They are both full of energy and a whole lot of fun. Included activities are pool and beach volleyball, Ocean kayaks, snorkeling equipment, TV room, billiard table, darts, tennis court, horseshoes, shuffleboard, and testicle toss (You have to check that one out! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />). A resort scuba course is offered, at $85, including a one boat dive. Eric did it and was favorably impressed. Several different types of massages are also offered, both at the ocean-front shack and by the main desk. I had an hour massage down by the ocean, a bargain at $45.

TRIPS OFF THE RESORT--
We did not leave the resort for the week we were there. Some folks in our group did travel about 30 minutes each way to a (dinky) casino one night. They reported that the casino had 2 blackjack tables, a roulette wheel and a few slots, and that the blackjack table minimum was $5. The cost for the cab (not per person) was $40, and the cab driver waited at the casino for them to leave. Otherwise, there were several excursions available at the front desk, but the book for excursions did NOT have prices in it, and we did not ask. Excursions included jeep safaris, shopping tours, horseback riding, snorkeling cruises, certified scuba diving and golf. If you want to go horseback riding, you need to bring long pants and closed toe shoes.

ENTERTAINMENT–
Entertainment is somewhat of an important question at Eden Bay, considering you are talking about an all inclusive in a location that is not that convenient to going off-site. During our week, and every week, they have a wine and cheese party. Unlike Club O parties, they actually served palatable wine, and a very nice fruit and cheese tray. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" /> Except for the pig roast on the beach on Sunday night, there was no special entertainment for the week we were there. The pig roast was GREAT, by the way, but they only do that for special occasions, like holidays. Otherwise, they have a beach BBQ normally on Friday and various singers and dancers other nights, kareoke, a magic show, The Nudelywed Game (audience participation game) <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Smile.gif" alt="" /> and disco.

SECURITY
Each room at Eden Bay features a keyed safety deposit box, which was more than large enough to hold my Nikon D70 camera, our passports and important papers and Eric’s wallet. Unfortunately, so far anyway, they don’t provide any wrist bands or necklaces to hold the key. We did not lock up our room ever, as there wasn’t any reason to. We don’t lock up our room at Club O either. There was 24 hour security, which I met up with first hand the first night when I was wandering around the grounds at 2 A.M. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Smile.gif" alt="" /> They also have a couple of guard dogs, although I only saw THEM during the day... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

COMMUNICATIONS–
I have a Verizon cell phone and I was very surprised, but it worked without any setup of any nature, right at the resort, and right from my room. Other people who did not have Verizon could NOT get service from their cell phones, however. It was roaming service, and I haven’t gotten the bill yet, to know what I was charged per minute, but I only made a couple of very short calls. Telephone calls could be made from the front desk to North America, at $.35 per minute, or to Europe for $.85 per minute, which seemed very reasonable to me. They will be putting phones in the rooms soon, but I don’t know whether the charge will still be the same or not. The internet was working only sporadically while we were there, but they are working on getting wifi throughout the resort, so at some point in the future, you can anticipate connecting directly from your room or the beach, if that’s important.

TIPPING
The information provided in your room at Eden Bay states as following with regard to tipping “In your all inclusive package you have already contributed for tips and taxes. It is mandatory by the government. However, if someone has given you a special service or extra attention and you wish to give a tip, it is at your discretion only and not obligatory. “ We tipped the maids and a few of the bartenders and servers in person in cash at the end of our stay.

CLOTHING OPTIONAL POLICY
No clothing is required anywhere in the resort. The resort is extremely private, so there is NO ability of anyone to see guests at the resort, and no gawkers. In addition, nudity is not REQUIRED anywhere in the resort, so Eden Bay is a very good choice for a first timer to nudity, or a couple where one partner prefers to be nude and one prefers to wear a bottom. The resort discourages street clothes at the lower beach and discourages regular bathing suits in the pools and hot tubs, but attitudes seemed pretty low key in that respect. Dress for dinner seemed pretty close to Club O standards–for the most part, the men were nude, and the women wore short pareos and remained topless or full pareos.

TOWELS
Beach towels were provided in the room each morning and replaced each day. Unfortunately, there were not any additional beach towels provided at the pools or hot tubs. Hopefully in coming months, the resort will get in more towels and they will provide extra towels around the resort.

LIFESTYLES STUFF..
The information sheet provided when you check in states as follows–“All body contact should be limited to simple expressions of affection and friendship. Public provocative conduct or sexual misconduct is not permitted”. We observed ZERO sexual conduct when we were there, which was just great with me. There were none of the sexually oriented games, etc., preferred by Hedonism II or III, no body shots on the bar, etc.

PHOTOGRAPHY
In keeping with all naturist resorts, Eden Bay’s policy is that no pictures are allowed of anyone who does not give explicit consent for that particular picture. However, I do recommend that you bring your camera, as the scenery is magnificent and regardless of the presence of anyone in the shot, you will want to take some scenery pictures.

THE BIG HOUSE...
No, I’m not talking about the Penitentiary... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Smile.gif" alt="" /> Eden Bay has big plans for the house that belonged to the developer of Eden Bay. The house was fairly well trashed when the resort was closed, so I didn’t really take any pictures inside. It is a three bedroom house that has a commanding view of the resort, the ocean and the surrounding countryside. They are in the process of fixing up the house, to be used as a three bedroom rental, or more often, as a hospitality center for groups. The plan is apparently that if a group books ‘x’ number of rooms, that they can hold parties, etc., at the house. It is a unique concept, as far as I know, in nude resorts, and we applaud the concept.


WHAT IS GREAT ABOUT THE RESORT–
1) Physically, I think the location is the most beautiful of any c/o resort I have seen in the Caribbean (and I’ve seen almost all of them)
2) The layout and facilities, with two huge pools, two hot tubs, and a huge shade palapa with restaurant on the beach, rivals Grand Lido Braco, except for the beach.
3) THE PEOPLE!!!!!!!! First, Patricia, the manager, is the ultimate ‘can do’ person, with a perpetual smile and a hard work ethic that can’t be beat. She is everywhere, from dawn to late evening, making sure that everything is just right. Second, the staff at the resort, without exception, works extremely hard and tries so hard to please, you forget the fact that many of them don’t speak English particularly well. I do hope that they will try to get the staff a little better versed in English, as occasionally there were language issues. Third, Tom and Lynda Landers, who currently live at the resort, were owners at Eden Bay in it’s first incarnation, thus they have always been sold on the location. When Caliente bought the resort, Tom was made Vice President in charge of Development at Eden Bay. They truly love the property and are excited about making it the property that it could and SHOULD be, and it is so great to see their enthusiasm and joy with making it a great place to be.

NEGATIVES–
OK, there’s got to be negatives, for a place that is charging from $195.00 per COUPLE (!!!!) all inclusive, for the time period until September 30, 2005. Prices until December 14 only go up to $260 to $310 per couple. (And there is a cheaper rate for singles...)

NEGATIVES WHICH ARE GOING TO BE FIXED IN SHORT ORDER--
1) Air conditioning–This is THE major problem with the resort right now, as far as I’m concerned. There is NO a/c anywhere in the resort right now, including in the rooms. We went in August, which is THE hottest month and sleeping at night was a problem for me. Some of the other people who were there when we were there did not have a problem sleeping at night, but I did. Fortunately, this is a problem that is being fixed in short order, as a/c units for all the rooms are on order and the physical units should be delivered to the resort around the end of September, 2005. I don’t know for sure how long it will take for them to be installed, but I would assume there will be a/c in all the units by the end of 2005. I have no idea, as I didn’t ask, whether they will be installing a/c in the main area, say in the disco, office, shop, salon, etc. The two main dining areas are totally open, so there is no way there will ever be a/c there, but I didn’t really consider that was a problem there.

2) Things that the resort currently does NOT have in the room, but have been or will be ordered shortly––most of which actually I could give a care about, but many people want---TV’s,
Telephones, Hairdryers, Coffeepots in the rooms, and Toiletries. Currently the only thing that is provided in the rooms is soap–but at least they give you two bars of soap in the room, unlike Club O, where they only give you one! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" /> I don’t really know the timetable for when all those various upgrades will be installed, but suggest that if you have ANY questions about Eden Bay, including those timetables, send a PM to EDENBAY_TOM, which PM will go to Tom Landers, Vice President of Development for Eden Bay who we signed up as a TTOL member when we were there.

3) Something that is a nice feature as far as I’m concerned, is working internet. Right now it’s very spotty, but they expect to have wifi access throughout the resort at some point, probably by around the first of the year or so, (Caribbean time). We didn’t talk about whether there would be a cost for that, so I can’t honestly answer that question.

4) Right now, especially for people that are older and not exceptionally mobile, the layout of the resort is a little daunting, in that the two sections are separated by a stairway (58 stairs!!) or a sloping pathway. The resort has ordered golf carts, which will be used by the staff and for guests, to transport them from one section of the resort to another. I really don’t know whether most folks will consider that to be a long term liability or not. We were getting kind of tired of those stairs by the end of the week, but it wasn’t a huge issue for us. Possibly if you’re staying in one of the cliffside rooms and you needed to go up and down more often during the day, it would be an issue. We stayed in a beachside room and generally, we went up top to go to breakfast, spent the day beachside, and went back up again at night for dinner, and it was not a big deal.

5) Shade! Right now, there is not a lot of shade around the resort. There are a couple of coconut palms that provide some shade and the restaurant down by the beach is configured such that many of the beach chairs are pulled up next to the restaurant, and it shades a decent area. In addition, for the beachside rooms, anyway, the patio provides a very nice shaded area right by your room, which we did take advantage of, and that well could be the answer for many people, as the view from the rooms is wonderful. The resort has ordered around a dozen shade palapas to be installed around the resort in various places, and that should suffice for those like me that explode in the sun. They currently do not have ANY umbrellas for shade and I don’t know whether they will be ordering any or not. The hot tub on the upper level does have a full shade roof on it and the swim up bar does provide some shade, but when we were there, most people were down on the beach during the day. Once the occupancy rate gets higher, I suspect there will be more people who will hang out on the upper level pool and hot tub, which do provide shade.

6) Beach chairs–when we were there, the occupancy was pretty low so there was not a problem, but the current beach chairs are kind of a mish-mash affair. The resort has ordered 150 new beach chairs, to be delivered around the end of September, so that should not be an issue.

7) Food quality, especially at dinner, was somewhat spotty. I hope that with the influx of money from Caliente, that the quality of food will improve. Eden Bay had been operating on somewhat of a shoestring, and I think there are a lot of things that will be upgraded substantially in the next few months.

8) Liquor quality–I suspect this will not be an issue in the future, but they did seem somewhat miserly with “the good stuff” when we were there, as far as what is presented on the shelf. However, if you asked for something else, it was generally produced. Caliente is putting a huge amount of money into the resort with upgrades everywhere you look, so I don’t really think this will be an issue in future.

NEGATIVES WHICH MAY NOT BE GOING AWAY SOON...
1) The beach isn’t great, by any stretch. You definitely need to bring water shoes as there are quite a few rocks in the water. The beach itself slopes down to the water at quite a bit of an angle. It is not bad going into the water, but tiring coming back up out of the water. There was talk that they may be installing a dock out in the water in order to help people walk out to go snorkeling, etc., and talk that they may try to dredge the swimming area to smooth it out and remove some of the rocks, but the beach is NEVER going to be a Club Orient type beach.

2) Right now, the road trip from Puerto Plata to the resort is a long one-and-one-half hours, over fairly poor roads. They hope to have the roads repaved within the next few months, but you are still looking at a MINIMUM one hour road transfer from Puerto Plata. That’s not that long, I guess, compared to Negril, and about the same road transfer as to Braco, but definitely much longer than Club Orient. Currently there is NOT any option for a small plane transfer from POP to the resort. The resort is looking into the possibility of building a small runway about 20 miles from the resort, which would be a huge improvement, but I would expect that, if that happens, it would be at the very least, late 2006 before it would be operational.

3) The closest airport to Eden Bay is Puerto Plata. Transfers to the resort from POP are included in your room rate at Eden Bay. Unfortunately airfare to Puerto Plata in particular, is expensive, especially compared even to Santo Domingo, which is closer to where most of the all inclusives are. Santo Domingo is about four hours by car, and thus not really any option. Airfare from the East Coast to POP is probably about the same as to St. Maarten. A possible additional option is to fly into Santiago, which is serviced by a couple of charters, including Jet Blue, which is a possible cheaper option, and about two hours by road from the resort. There is an add-on for transfers from Santiago, but given the possible better airfare prices it might be well worth considering as an option.

CONCLUSION–Once Caliente finishes installing all their upgrades at Eden Bay, it is truly going to be one of the premier nude resorts in the Caribbean. Almost all of the negatives about the resort are going to be totally blown away, once they install all the upgrades. Unless you HAVE to have a great beach, I really don’t think you can have too much too complain about at Eden Bay. The resort is physically beautiful, the people are fantastic, the price right now is SO great, what more could one want?????? Book Eden Bay. Enjoy........


I guess that’s it. Let us know if you have any other questions.

Carol & Eric