I loved my stay at the Extreme Hotel in Cabarete. Communication with the hotel (Victoria) from abroad was quick and easy so it started the vacation just right. My friend and I received a warm welcome and the hotel is laid back and functional. It took a night to adjust to the heat without AC but I ended up preferring it without AC. The staff was friendly and helpful. We chose the surf and yoga package and had the best time. It's a great combination. The only downside to the package is that I found the dinner portions really small, considering lunch isn't included and we exercised a lot all day. Also, they were a few men - landscapers - who made us feel a little uncomfortable by whistling at us and staring at us, but I guess that's not really under the hotel control. Other than that, we loved everything. The town is a short distance away and really cute. There's everything you need and it's really safe, which is really important, being two women traveling.

We came for the trapeze, which was a 5 star experience (see Extreme Trapeze), but the hotel was not. The hotel has a restaurant on the beach, a breakfast bar next to the pool, cross fit gym, yoga platform, and a circus school which is not run by the hotel but on the same property.

Rooms:
Reading the reviews I was concerned about the noise in the rooms as I am a light sleeper. The only room available the first few nights was a room at the end of the building close to the road. I didn't sleep. The road noise was really bad. The remainder of the stay we were at the end of the building in one of 3 rooms that face the ocean. There was not road noise there, but you still hear every person that walks down the hall or opens/closes a door. You have to sleep with the porch door open to get some fresh air, but that means you hear everyone that gets up early to work. And finally there was this horribly obnoxious bird that seemed to wake up many people at 5am every day. In short, if you are not a sound sleeper, you may not have a pleasant stay.

Organization:
Victoria was super helpful when asked about anything. However, I would prefer that there be more written information available about the facilities, options and costs. Nothing is written down, or if it was it wasn't presented. For example we didn't know about the breakfast bar until a couple of days in. We learned about it from our fitness trainer. That was our preferred breakfast for the rest of our stay. We found out from other guests that they had a package that included their stay, meals, fitness and yoga. But because we primarily came for trapeze those options were not really explained to us. I'm not sure why there is not a trapeze package or why there can't be a fitness package that works with trapeze (schedule wise, it could). It all worked out, but it could have been smoother. Also the package that includes food has a special menu that is different from the main restaurant's standard menu. It may be worthwhile to see what that looks like. I observed it was limited and then observed often many items on it were not available when guest tried to order. Lastly, for a eco hotel with signs everywhere about water conservation, I found it paradoxical that the shower drizzled constantly. I am not the first reviewer to point this out.

Fitness:
Our trainer was Melanie, and she was excellent. We did private training sessions everyday. We heard great comments about her yoga classes.

The Breakfast Bar:
Next to the pool under a palapa are some tables. They serve overnight oats, omelets, pancakes, eggs, fresh juices, coffee, smoothies. Awesome.

The Main Restaurant:
The sushi was excellent, especially the Godzilla roll. Other items were also good. We ate dinner there every night. For lunch we walked into town to Fresh Fresh (awesome). Since we were there for a long time and eating every night, I asked to run a tab and pay every three days. The first 3 days it worked. The next three days it did not as there was a lot of items on our tab we didn't order. It was as if the first 3 days had not been deleted and also someone else's drinks were added. The staff handled this situation so unprofessionally we were reluctant to return, but there are not other good options you can walk to at night, and we really liked the sushi.

Other activities:
There is a good kite surf school next to the restaurant. Surfing is down the road about a 10 minute drive. The hotel will arrange transport.

Walking to town:
Walking to Fresh Fresh for lunch on the beach was 25 minutes, and we are not slow walkers. As mid July approached it became very difficult to get to town as the beach near the hotel started to disappear. It became impossible without crossing other properties and getting wet.

The Farm Tour:
Our group was too big for the person's voice that gave the tour. She was new there. Of what I heard she didn't seem to have a lot of information to share. It's not a big operation. The lunch was unremarkable. The river float was okay...it's not something I would go do by itself. I suspect the river float was designed into the experience to give the people time to prepare lunch.

I rate this 3 stars taking into account what they advertise to be.

All of the activities and restaurants are available even if you don't stay at this hotel, but they charge more for them.