MAGNIFICENT MEDITERRANEAN BEACHFRONT VILLA IN GATED COMMUNITY

Our family stayed 5 nights in this beautiful villa in February. Upon arrival we all immediately loved the home. It has many wonderful qualities including the location directly on the water, the beautifully maintained pool and landscaping, and the open-air feel. The home is very large & everyone felt they had adequate privacy. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast each morning on the lanai prepared by Marie & Dorka- such a treat!! Afternoons were spent walking on the beach and reading books by the pool. We were all confident we chose the best place in the DR to stay! Thanks for a wonderfully relaxing and pampering vacation.

I stayed at Villa Celeste with 5 of my girlfriends for our annual "girls getaway" and we had a wonderful time. The villa is beautiful, well-maintained and sits right on the beach. We enjoyed hanging out around the pool, going to the beach and seeing the sights (ziplining at Monkey Jungle is a must!). The media room is well-stocked with movies for "movie night." The housekeeping staff is wonderful. Franklin, the driver, was very helpful - he was our airport transport and our "taxi" for when we wanted to go out at night, go to the grocery store, etc. He had good recommendations for sightseeing - we toured a rum factory and a cigar shop and had great fun. We spent many evenings on the second floor balcony sipping cocktails and watching the beautiful peacocks and horses that roam the area.

One note for people considering this property: It's easily one of the most beautiful properties in the area and one of the very few that have easy access to the beach. The remote nature of the property makes it very special, but also makes transportation difficult. There is only one restaurant within walking distance. For everything else a car is necessary. Franklin is very dependable as a driver and we had no problem planning our activities in advance. But if you're a "spur of the moment" person and want to have easy, immediate access to a car, you might consider renting one.

We stayed at Villa Celeste for our wedding week. We were a group of 10 adults, 1 child, and 2 babies. We had our wedding in the backyard of the villa overlooking the ocean and had Chef Arsenio set up a tent and a lovely reception for us afterwards. We had a wonderful week at the villa. The maids prepared our breakfasts and lunches, and we had Chef Arsenio prepare dinner every night. The cost was extremely reasonable for their services. We had budgeted for the week to feed our group and we didn't go over (even including our wedding dinner of surf and turf, wedding cheesecake, flowers, tent and chair rental, alcohol for the week, chef services, tips, etc!). The wedding was by far our most expensive day taking up a good chunk of that budget, but it was really great.

Everyone was also very helpful. After a coconut fell we decided we wanted to get some more, it only took us throwing a small rock at the tree before the security guard was escorting us down the street where a farmer climbed a tree and got us SO many coconuts. We decided we did not want to drive so we hired Franklyn to taxi us around for the week. He was great to work with and even helped us with our wedding paperwork at the Spanish speaking Office of Records. He also gave us a cell phone for us to use during the week, most excellent! The villa was so nice we canceled some of our planned outings so we could lounge at the pool. We did make the 15 minute walk up the beach to Natura Cabana for a spa day which was lovely. We also walked up the other length of beach to check out the local surf schools.

Everyone was in agreement that we made an excellent decision by choosing Villa Celeste and would gladly return. It was such a wonderful vacation for the whole family.