Sublime Samaná Hotel & Residences

The Hotel

Sublime Samaná opened in 2011 on Playa Cosón, the western beach of Las Terrenas on the Samaná Peninsula — the long, narrow finger of land projecting east from the northern Dominican Republic, geographically and culturally distinct from the Punta Cana and La Romana resort coasts on the south. The property was developed by a Dominican-Spanish consortium led by the Madrid-based Grupo Sublime, with the brief of building the first internationally branded five-star on the Samaná Peninsula — a coast that, until the 2009 opening of the El Catey International Airport (AZS) some 40 kilometres west, had largely escaped the resort-development pressure that had transformed Punta Cana. The seven-acre property sits directly on Playa Cosón, a four-kilometre crescent of pale sand that the Times of London and Condé Nast Traveller have repeatedly ranked among the Caribbean's best beaches.

The accommodation is organised around an expansive canal of pools stretching nearly 500 feet — the property's central architectural conceit and the longest pool installation of any hotel in the Dominican Republic. The suites and villas are arranged along the pool axis: one- and two-bedroom Apartment Suites at the lower elevation (with terrace access onto the canal pool), and two- and three-bedroom Villas at the upper terrace (with private rooftop terraces, plunge pools, and the better Atlantic-Pacific elevation views). The one-bedroom suites run roughly 95 square metres with a separate living room, a master bedroom and bathroom, a guest bathroom, a spacious balcony, and a kitchen equipped with Viking appliances. The two- and three-bedroom villas include large bedrooms, indoor and outdoor living spaces, a Jacuzzi, and (in the top-floor units) a rooftop terrace with a plunge pool. The aesthetic is contemporary-tropical: dark hardwood, white linen, slate-grey stone, and large outdoor showers.

Food and beverage is operationally lighter than at the Punta Cana competition — Sublime Samaná runs two principal venues rather than the four-to-eight common at the larger DR resorts. The Coson Restaurant is the all-day beachfront venue with a Mediterranean-Caribbean menu (the head chef is French; the influence is the broader Las Terrenas French expat dining scene, which has shaped the peninsula's food culture more than the Spanish-Caribbean traditions of the rest of the country). The Pool Bar runs lighter daytime fare. For dinner, most guests rotate out to the Las Terrenas town restaurants — La Yuca, Mosquito Bar, Big Dan's — that constitute the actual eating culture of the peninsula. The wellness operation runs the Coson Spa with full Caribbean-and-Mediterranean treatment programmes, a small but properly equipped fitness centre, and a daily yoga programme on the beach.

The principal reason to book Samaná over the rest of the Dominican Republic is the peninsula itself. The whale-watching season from January to March — humpback whales return to the Bahía de Samaná to calve, and the boat operations out of Samaná Town are among the most considered in the Caribbean — is the regional set piece. The Cascada El Limón waterfall, the Los Haitises mangrove park, and the seven-kilometre Las Galeras beach are the standard supporting excursions. For families, for couples who would rather have a French expat town within walking distance than a closed resort cluster, and for travellers prioritising the regional landscape over the resort-amenity inventory, Sublime Samaná is the considered choice.

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