TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

My friend's and I are having a great time. Rooms are beautiful, staff are great, place very clean, the food was great and The animation team, Julio, Francisco, Pablo, Randy & Flavio are phenomenal. They kept us entertained . We all plan to come back again soon!!! ????????????

Excellent service !!! Jose de la Paz, Francisco and Enrique are the best team ever in the Club house !!! Everything about the resort is above and beyond - beautiful views, beach is amazing . Not a lot of entertainment though but that’s acceptable…. We enjoyed the Stay !!!

Really good experience and the personal is excellent . Especially Santamaría y Paulino they are really good in the bufet ,excellent customer service and really good food . The location really clean and the resort is great for families. This is a great place to relax with the family and spend quality time. They treat you and make you feel welcome all the time.

Below are the notes i took whilst being away, so might be a little unstructured... Bed comfy, but wobbly. Everytime my partner moved during the night, the bed wobbled me awake. No wifi in room, even though it advertises it; very intermitten. Their app unreliable and often doesn’t work for restaurant bookings. Have to go to front desk. Very Poor for vegetarians. No food is named or labelled. buffet spoons have been used in meats and salads so anyone with dietary specifics, avoid, it will make you stressed! Ice cream bar not named or anyone to serve. I had one with nuts in!!!! imagine if i had had an allergy! Straw Balinese style reception really was wow uopn arrival. they have clearly spent much of the revamp budget on this and it works and is impressive. Showers nice. View awful - of a mass lanscsape of grey concrete dusk, looks like whatever was next door got demolished and left that way. Sand and beach lovely. big waves which were very cool and me and my son spent hours every day just jumping in the clear blue waves. Seaweed a bit smelly on some days; they did make a small effort to clear this. White wine undrinkable - just foul. Deserts very gelatinous with bright coloured icing. not many healthy desert options apart from fruit. no low fat or zero fat yoghurt options. Lovely big pools. Reception huge and impressive. Amazing light fittings. Gym incredibly cramped to the point of being unsafe. Says on door over 12s. Equipment all v close together. found random nuts and bolts on the floors that i showed to staff or seems unbothered and chucked away. no english speaking staff in gym to help or guide work outs. in fact, when i asked, she was not aware how the machines and equiptment worked, so there was more than a language barrier. Teens club advertised gaming, play station tvs etc, but it wasn’t set up. beans bags mouldy and unused. games looked 20 years old. teens club was unused as it was completely unloved and everything old. no balls for petanque. missong balls for pool and snooker. Fogo retaurant - Told them we were veggie and repeatedly, they served us fish. they dont have menus and you have to order off a wifi code. i hate this. going to a restaurant is a time to put screens away and talk. it forces all the family to take their phones out to be able to view the menu. no no no. Little to do in the rain. Huge theatre. Could have put a movie on. Mini golf with no balls. Have to look in bushes for lost ones. mini golf astro turf in absoltes bits with rips and holes. lumps and bumps everywhere so hitting a ball is not about skill, its a complete lottery. after wind or a strom, there is no staff clearing it up so it is full of leaves and the course often water logged. Teen club a state, broken cues, no triangle. No gaming as advertised. The activities team just stop in the rain. They could easily have done something in the 2 large entertainment areas. Not sure any health and safety with water sports team as they let a man out with a catamaran and he struggled and nearly hit swimmers. The water sports team pounce on new arrivals and bagsy you for when you want to pay for an experience. When you ask or mention you want to do the free ones they’re clearly pissed off and continue to try and upsell a paid for experience instead. Staff in coffee shop should understand what different types of milk there are. no skimmed etc ever on offer, or an understanding what that is. Pool tables and table football both botched together with mending tape, bits having off. Tv in room barely picks up a signal let alone a smart tv allowing you to tap in to your own Netflix etc accounts for entertaining yourself during rain storms. Sunloungers average comfort. The premium section has a tonne of comfortable sunloungers with no one on them. As did the premium restaurants. Restaurants impossible to get in to at a decent time. Shutters on windows of room banged all night long during the storm. Earplugs. Roof in room leaked during rain. Hotel a tad disappointing this end. We’ve made the most of it but it’s all a bit shabby. Teens club everything is missing or old, can’t play pétanque as no one knows where balls are. Can’t play mini golf unless you look in the bushes to find your own lost balls. It’s a weird old place with a mix of 2-5 far facilities all in one resort. The activities on the qr code and the timetable that gets put up in the beach ever correspond… it’s a bit “whatever”. Kept up again last night in the storm as the shutters were clearly not in place and just banging against the windows all night. Have woken up today to soaking floor where the roof has leaked in the night. No wet weather entertainment. When the rain stops play that’s it. Surely that’s a time where guests need some activity and mood raising. Not enough power points in room. Zero air con in the ajoining family room so we couldn’t climate control the suite as one room would be too hot and too cold. Housekeeping one day just made bed, took dirty towels but no new ones which made getting out of shower annoying. Then getting half dressed to track housekeeping down in the halls. Only one morning at breakfast did I get offered a coffee. A synic would say limiting the free things like gym etc and investing in the paid options like sports bar acrcade bowling spa and extra pay restaurants and premium Sun loungers. Staff on phones all the time. Often looking up from them just to answer you and then back to it. Activities round the pool are fun if not v basic and inevitably rely on physical prowess in order to enter. The prizes being drinks you could get from the AI bar anyway lol. But it won’t be at the time stated or program as timetable so if you want to get involved at some point you need to get a sunlounger close by. Plastic corrugated roof tiles banging and slapping in storm. Son looked up from balcony next evening before bed to see these roof tiles loose. After calling reception and being passed 5 times to different people as they couldn’t speak English well enough to understand what I was saying about the roof tiles they said they’d send maintenance man. He came an hour later and said he will come back manana. I said I hope they don’t fly off and hit a passer by below in the mean time… so he got a stock reached up and just whacked the roof tiles in from the balcony as much as possible. Apparently that’s the health and safety aspect taken care of.

This is the review I wish I'd had before I booked for my stay. I came to this resort with a group of eight people in total, my husband, his brother and his family. I'm gluten intolerant and my husband is lactose intolerant. Firstly, I want to start with the positives because I want to be fair. The grounds of this hotel are stunning. I've stayed in hotels all over the world and these grounds are one of the nicest. The wildlife is beautiful and I got a lot of enjoyment from seeing the iguanas, flamingos, ducks, terrapins, koy and more. I loved the five minute walk from reception to our rooms at night. There is a shuttle bus but it's a short walk. It doesn't take long to get around these grounds and they're so clean and beautiful. I loved it. The pools are huge, warm enough to be comfortable. My favourite is the pool right next to the beach. One or two staff members are friendly there (especially the chap in the orange apron) but some were grumpy when asked to pour more than one drink. But overall, most were nice, Francesca (apologies if I spelled her name wrong) was helpful too. The weekends get very busy as the hotel seems to sell day passes so it fills up with locals. If you want to lie near the beach you have to be up early at weekends to put your towel down. The beach is gorgeous, the sand is super soft and the water (the Atlantic Ocean) is clear but the waves are very strong. Some days there is a lot of seaweed coming in but staff work incredibly hard to keep the sand clear. It's very pretty but I'm not a good swimmer and found the waves too strong. No fault of the hotel - lol!! Just my overall holiday experience. I loved how near the beach was to the pool. There are plenty of bars, our favourite was the rooftop bar, we found the staff very friendly and they make great cocktails. But we were so bored in the evenings. There was a show but it's not our type of entertainment. I soon realised that an all inclusive holiday in Punta Cana isn't for me. I think the hotel would benefit from some live music in the rooftop bar in the evenings with mixed music. We didn't know or understand the songs being played through the speakers as it was. I know we're in a different country but when we go to Thailand for example, they play a mix of tunes and it works for everyone. We did leave the resort one night. The local area doesn't feel like somewhere we'd feel safe walking into so we hired a taxi into Downtown Punta Cana, which took about half an hour to get there. It cost $20 each way. There weren't a lot of European tourists in the area, but we went to Coco Bongo and there were a few bars there. It's not a place we would return to. Coco Bongo was not worth it but I'll be reviewing that separately. Now on to the food. Initially, I liked the food. Fresh salads which were really tasty. Gorgeous fresh fruit, freshly cooked meat as well as a wide range of food. But the food is the same every single day. So by the end of the week it becomes boring. I'm gluten intolerant and there was a 'gluten free station' which was two plates of the same bread every day. So I couldn't eat the lovely pancakes, crepes, pastries, pasta, fried rice. I had the same slices of bread every day. Some days they were fresh, other days they were very stale. So every day I had porridge and fruit. But then I stopped eating the fruit because I saw flies crawling on it. I had salad every single day for lunch with either freshly cooked salmon (which was lovely) or fresh chicken. But then two members of our group came down with food poisoning and I stopped eating the salad as I was scared I'd get it too. Flies are a problem, especially in the buffet station next to the beach and they're the quickest way to get food poisoning. I'm always aware and I brush my teeth using bottled water here too. They're very generous with the water so it's never been a problem. But when I stopped eating the salad, there wasn't much left for me. A special shout out to the Italian restaurant who cooked me gluten free pasta. Also to the nice chef in the Asian restaurant who cooked me a separate dish of rice with no soy sauce. But not all staff understand and there's nothing marked on the menus so I recommend using Google Translate. It's hard as I hate making a fuss but needs to be done. I recommend that a gluten free option is added to every menu so people don't have to ask. We paid for an excursion in the hotel to Saona Island. It was stunning. It felt surreal, it was so beautiful. We hired a private boat and it was worth every penny. It was the best excursion. Staff were so nice, too. The food was brought out with clingfilm and we helped ourselves. But birds and swarms of flies descended and we didn't go back for seconds. Two of our group came down with bad food poisoning. One 2 days before the trip, one just hours after the trip. I'm writing this from the hotel and can't wait to go home tomorrow, as I'm now scared to eat anything. I can have freshly cooked meat and eggs so I'll stick with that. I won't be doing any all inclusive holidays again. If we could have walked out of the hotel grounds and ate in nearby restaurants that would have been OK. I noticed on previous reviews that people said they were bothered by people selling things. I didn't mind the people trying to sell excursions or the beach sellers as a quick 'no gracias' and they left me alone. But the jewellery sellers were annoying. They set up their tables on hotel grounds and even when I crossed the grass to try to avoid them, they still called after me. There's a lovely jewellery store near the coffee shop and the owner is so nice and polite and not pushy at all, please go to see him instead. There's an ice cream store too and a lovely coffee shop. I couldn't have any of the pastries there as there were no gluten free foods. Staff in there were lovely although I did find that some holiday makers were rude and pushed in (yes, I live in England where we queue). Overall, I found a lot of holidaymakers to be like that when it came to queues, although staff were great and did their best to serve the right people first. We went to the gym once. It's too small, is packed with equipment and very, very hot. On another note, my husband was usually able to get almond milk for his coffee so he was happy with that. Our room was lovely, we paid a little extra to upgrade and it was totally worth it. We had a view of the pool and beach and the room was huge. The cleaners did an amazing job of keeping it clean. The air con was good, although I did ask for a blanket as I can't sleep with just sheets. We were bitten often by mosquitoes so do bring anti histamines and cream. The on site shop is extortionate so you won't want to buy it there. Bring immodium, too! I've had a day where my stomach didn't feel great, but I'm being really careful with food. It's the first time I've lost weight on holiday. I don't recommend this for gluten-intolerant travellers as it is. Hopefully it will improve. I went to guest services when I got here and told them of my intolerances but they showed me the menus and said I could eat meat and rice. But I found if you get the translator app up and ask the restaurants direct that they might try to make something. It would be better if it were on the menu though. The wifi wasn't very good. I paid for the upgrade and noticed no difference whatsoever. I went to guest services but when I got back to my room I couldn't use it at all. There weren't any good English channels on TV. Most nights were went to bed early (a first, for me on holiday!) as we were bored but we couldn't watch Netflix on my laptop because the Wifi was so spotty. I needed it for work but it was very inconsistent. I then bought an esim but that was hit and miss. I'm trying to upload photos to this review but the wifi won't allow it so I'll try later on. Well, I think I've covered everything. I hope this will be helpful to someone when it comes to future bookings. My first and last visit to the Dominican Republic.