We went to Villa Rosita with great hopes of a relaxing and enjoyable vacation on the beach. What we found was a good house with an unusable beach. Now, we fully understand that the owners have nothing to do with the beach, and that the posting mentions that the beach is 'wild'. In fact, we are from Canada's Atlantic coast and are used to wild beaches, but what we found was a dirty beach. We are talking 'end-to-end' garbage; in some areas literally knee deep in garbage! The only area of the beach that is somewhat useable (because of the great work of the fantastic caretakers to clean it! More on them later) is 20-25 meters in front of the Villa but that's a very small section of the entire beach. We acknowledge that it had been stormy just prior to our arrival and during the first part of our stay so some of the garbage may have been washed up due to the storm, however from conversations about this with others, it appears that this is an ongoing issue. If you are looking for a clean beach, you won't find it here.

The house itself is fine and the view from the villa is beautiful. Big and functional, it can easily accommodate 8 to 10 people. Unfortunately, when we got there the pool was unusable because it leaked badly. The caretaker tried what he could and repairs where initiated but the pool was never usable during our stay. No beach; no pool!

As well, the fridge was not working properly. We contacted the owner on the first day who argued with us that the fridge was working. We asked for a partial refund because of the state of the beach, the pool and the fridge but the owner would absolutely not consider it. After three days the owner finally instructed the caretakers to have a technician look at the fridge and he quickly discovered that the fridge was indeed broken. He fixed it on the 4th day. By this time the owner was simply not returning our e-mails.

We ended up renting a car and travelling every day to other beaches around the Samana peninsula and returning to Villa Rosita at night to sleep.

As for the caretakers (Barbara and Ricardo), they were fantastic, helpful and very understanding of our disappointment. We had Barbara cook us a couple of local cuisine suppers which were extraordinary!

In the end we had a great vacation away from Villa Rosita. I would not recommend it to my family and friends and while we will be back to the DR, it will not be at Villa Rosita.