Originally posted by Nononsense on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 06:13 pm:

I've stayed at the RD, the Holiday Inn and the Presidente. I can best compare the RD to the Presidente:

. Beds are better (firmer) at the RD.
. Room service/food is better at the Presidente.
. RD is cheaper, even considering chica fees.
. No problem bringing more than one chica to the room at the RD.
. RD has the same overbooking problem the Morazan has... for holiday weekends, I put down a deposit.

I checked into the Royal Dutch Hotel, above the casino, upon arrival Thursday Aug. 28, with Shamas.
They would not accept any credit card except Visa. They charged my Visa account $375 upon arrival saying they would recharge the correct total later. That hit me wrong, since I was staying five days at $29 a day, so I backed out of the charge card transaction and paid a cash deposit in advance on a day by day basis. The $29 rate is a special ask in advance rate.
They wanted extra to use your room phone to call a cell number, about a $2 a day fee. The safe was $3 a day extra. There was a $5 chica guest fee per chica.
No breakfast was included as I anticipated.
The one hotel elevator worked some times but one time I saw a gringa stranded at the bottom with her luggage because the elevator was not working for hours.
There is only one or maybe two desk clerks at any one time and no other hotel staff present. No bell hops, no door security, no full time floor maids, no housekeeping supervisor, no reservation or office area. No real effort to be a hotel. There was casino security and the casino was full of local characters. Not many tourists or gringos.
When I went to the restaurant for breakfast the first day, they were totally unprepared. No coffee, no set tables, no waitstaff, no nothing. I walked out and over to the News Cafe and paid for the buffet.
I did notice the disco was going strong at 8 A.M. Friday morning with dancers and beer drinkers from the night before. So was the music going all night long. I was on the fifth floor and did not hear it but it could be heard from the third floor all night long.
There were no taxis waiting outside and the taxis were hard to get without walking to Second Avenue.
You could invite multiple chicas at the same time.
No room service, no chair in the room, no table to dine upon if there was room service, no ice machine, no remote control for the TV, no lobby to sit and meet guests, no bar. There may be breakfast room service (but where would you sit?)
My travel buddy went thru two rooms before there was a working air conditioner, and then only after he called for service.
All in all it was a real low class third world dive not worth the discounted price. By the time I added the cost of breakfast, $6, and the taxi rides to the gultch and the chica fees and phone charges it was about the same as the TSM rate at the Presidente but without any of the extras the Presidente offers.
I checked out of the Royal Dutch as soon as a room opened up at the Presidente on Sunday and felt a lot better. The chicas told me they liked the Presidente better, too and felt comfortable there. The chicas thought too many druggie types hung around the Royal Dutch.
I forgot to add in the previous message on the chat area that hot water was available only about one half the time resulting in a cold shower or two.

Too lazy to read it all. Did you mention it's in a shitty part of town?

Harry

I stayed at the Royal Duth my last trip. I asked for the $29 rate. They said ok. Very nice room, with 27in TV. The shower was like a hurrican. I mean great. It blew me away. I was very happy with it. They did not charge me any extra for guest. Ask for room 332. It was great.

I was at the RD with Ace and our third amigo nononsense. Ace and myself departed, nonon stayed. He had the grand suite with the glass walled shower. My room went from a closet to a really large room who's AC didn't work. Took them way too long to get the AC fixed. Elevator didn't work one night.

It's been reported by others that they were double billed for their stay.

RD does not get my vote.

Shamas