TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

Travelled April4-11, 2026 I would first like to start by saying I am shocked at all the negative reviews of this resort. I research where I am travelling to and read the reviews on trip advisor. We travelled as a group for a birthday celebration. Yes it’s a huge resort but if you research there should be no surprises! The golf carts are numerous and frequent!! Check in - took less than 10 mins!! And this was the same for our entire party. Room- awesome!! Our maid was amazing and our bar fridge was stocked daily! Our AC did leak onto the floor 2 days in a row and I only mention this because maintenance was there within 5 mins each time!! And we’re amazing with the cleanup. Love the armband doubling as our room access key (scan at door). Food- variety, learn where the food is!!! The truck was amazing, buffets were clean and had variety. Connect with Roberto!!!! He was awesome, held a table for us each night (11 people) remembered our orders!!! For drinks along with Gidilaty! Alacarts- We pre-booked 2, and yes the website tells you to prebook !!! If you wait till you get there they will be booked. The Nomad and Pools- yes busy!!! And yes people play the towel game, but what resort doesn’t! Get up your on vacation and reserve a chair! But if you do please use it. Santa at the pool bar was a delight to deal with. Lobby bar- always friendly Eddie and Juan!!! Bar tenders. Beach- beautiful, blue gorgeous sand you can walk for miles. It was the busiest beach I have been to, but enjoyed. No one expected a tip!!! If you engage with the staff and actually talk to them they are Luvly and have so many stories and really want to make your stay enjoyable.

the check in was fast cause few arrivals. buffet lobby 1 is chaotic and too many people rude. beach crowded like sardines. room was nice and clean. staff was nice but beach bar less. train to go around grounds is not accomodate with children in arms very high step. los olas food not hot except when u arrive early get eggs prepared for breakfast. we could not book restaurants were fully booked very disapointed. the pool water not clear maybe need chlorine. toddler got a very bad virus high fever and spots very worried but got home to see doctor. recommend hotel if u like a lot of people.

Please don’t waste your money! I was there for a destination wedding which was held at Jellyfish Restaurant about half hour drive away. Only great part of the trip. But this Bahia was so depressing, staff are not friendly at all, meal times were chaos, bars were chaos, beach packed, lots of rude people. Pools were ok because there are so many of them lol. Just go somewhere else!

Bit by a raccoon. This resort is not good.

Upon arriving at Bahia Principe Grand Punta Cana our first impressions of grandness were quickly overshadowed by the many disappointments that would soon follow. The check-in process was slow and painful, it took almost an hour. Not even 5 minutes after gaining access to our room, we needed to use the washroom…as one does after a long day of travel…only to find that the toilet didn’t flush. We called for maintenance to come and repair the toilet, which didn’t take too long for them to arrive and plunge the toilet to unclog the drain. He said that it was working, and then he left. We went to check to make sure it was working and found he had left toilet water all over the toilet seat and floor. I took some travel wipes and cleaned it myself. I then tried using the toilet, and again it would not flush. We had only been in our room 1/2 hour at this point and decided to march right back down to the front desk to ask for a better solution. Our inquiry was met initially with the manager telling us that ALL toilets in Dominican Republic are like this and we would just have to use the waste basket to discard toilet paper for the duration of the trip because the water pressure in the building was not strong enough to handle the disposal of the waste and toilet paper?!! We replied… that having travelled to DR more than half a dozen times, including a stay at another Bahia Principe Property, that we can say that was completely not true of ALL toilets in the DR! We went back and forth with this manager for a short time until he just walked away. No resolution. We were not going to take no for an answer and would certainly not spend the entire holiday using the waste basket for discarding used toilet paper, how unsanitary!! We would not leave the front desk and insisted on speaking to the general manager of the property or we would be cancelling our trip and going home with full refund. A young man (Vladimir) who eventually did get another manager to authorize moving us to another room (only upon our insistence and not leaving the front desk, we just stood there until they relented) helped to facilitate the exchange and eventually we did get moved to another room. He came with us to the new room to check if the toilet was functioning (which it was) before we packed up and moved our suitcases over. The room we were given had modern decor, was spacious, a comfortable bed, great access to the beach, a working AC and was kept very clean by the attendant (for incentive we left a tip each day) The rooms do get infested with mosquitos, I was eaten alive from head to toe while sleeping. Had to stuff a towel below the door where there is plenty of room for them to get in. Tried purchasing bug spray at the shop by the swimming pool at $31USD a bottle and encountered a whole episode with the charges (WAY over-charged with their exchange rate making the cost $91USD…. how is that even possible?) then had to enlist guest relations help with removing the charge from our account. But most importantly, the toilet functioned as a toilet should throughout the duration of our trip. The food, truly disappointing. The buffet is total chaos. It is quite literally “survival of the fittest” situation. Always a line up waiting to get in, up to half hour wait or more. People reaching, bumping, grabbing. Long line up for custom made hot food like the pasta station, which only seems to happen more easily if you tip. The rest of the food throughout buffet & restaurants is always barely lukewarm. Service is painfully slow. There are few labels indicating what the dish is. Much of the food is recycled from previous morning/lunch or the supper buffet. Saw the guy working the grill at the buffet reach into the bucked of raw chicken breast with his bare hands and put the chicken on the grill. With the same bare hand, he took the raw beef ribs and put them on the grill. Then with the same bare hand that had just touched the raw chicken and raw beef, he used the cooking utensil without washing his hand to serve the cooked meat. Saw a girl (not staff) in the self-serve ice cream, scoop some ice cream, lift it to her nose to smell it, it touched the tip of her nose, she then put the scoop back in the ice cream bucket! Yup! Saw a server (this was at The Greek Restaurant) take the cork out of a wine bottle with her teeth, pour a glass of wine for service and then put the cork back in the bottle! Saw another server (this was at the Brazilian Restaurant) slice off a piece of steak from a skewer, take it with his fingers and pop it in his mouth…..meanwhile we had been sitting for 1/2 hour and had not been served anything. While preparing my taco at the taco buffet in the Mexican Restaurant, I reached in to scoop some guacamole only to find the previous serving spoon at the bottom of the bowl submerged in the guacamole. Same thing with the sour cream and salsa…. which means that dozens of people who touched the handle of the serving spoons that were now submerged at the bottom, their germs were now fully integrated with the taco toppings! No wonder why myself, my husband and every other person got sick with a head cold and runny nose! Getting drinks at the beach bar…. plan to wait 20-30 minutes in line if they should decide to serve you at all. Only 2 guys working. Their policy - if they don’t look at you, they don’t see you standing right in front of them so technically you are not there. Then, serving people jumping the line ahead of you. I may have had two drinks the entire week because it was too much effort to even try to get one. Not much of a loss in the end because the quality of the drinks was poor. Generally, most of the staff I found to be unfriendly and dismissive, they look pretty miserable most of the time. There were far too many other incidents to count frankly…. but I think you get the point. Bavaro Beach is always amazing. The water was clean and beautiful, with sunny skies all week long. This week was exceptionally crowded do to the holiday (Easter) Keep in mind, you have 5 resorts on the same property using the same stretch of beach. However, the age-old problem of not enough sunbeds/parasols to go around and the “reserving” of these prime spots and then not showing up for hours and hours was pretty extreme this particular week. All these sunbeds/parasols were reserved by 6am each day! This resort has a “NO Reserving Sunbeds/Parasols” policy posted but it is not enforced by the staff, they could not care less. Many times, these reserved prime seats would sit empty until 2 or 3 in the afternoon, a couple times a family reserved 8 sunbeds/3 parasols then they never showed up the entire day. People (including us) who paid to also enjoy the facilities sat on towels on the sand while the reserved sunbeds/parasols sat unoccupied all day. There are always people who feel entitled in this way and it’s funny how a moment on a beach mirrors real life. Some people give, some people take. Travel teaches you more than geography, it teaches you character, yours and everyone else’s. The resort should empower their staff to remove towels from “reserved” sunbeds/parasols if the people don’t show up within a certain time period such as 45 min to 1 hour, enough time to get your breakfast and get your butt in the chair…. otherwise it goes to the next person. By mid-week we had had enough of the same people monopolizing the sunbeds/parasols and took it upon ourselves to remove towels from “reserved” unoccupied ones and occupy them ourselves. Of course, the people never came to claim them…. how could they? There is a “NO Reserve Policy” There needs to be a counter-movement to ”un- reserve” this overly abused trend. This is the first vacation we've taken (we’ve been to dozens of resorts in the Caribbean) where we were counting down the hours and days to come home. We won’t be back to this resort ever, or DR anytime soon. As this is already very, very long, and I've only touched on a few of the many issues, I’ll end with the only saving grace to this vacation…. the weather was amazing!