TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

Our 2nd time on this resort and this time, it's very disappointed, The Resort need renovation, our room has a lot issues, the bathroom sink was broken, the TV is not working, and they can't even fix it. The pool is always crowded and you can't find any pool chair, you need get up early in the morning to get one. The food is great and a lot of selections. Probably, It's our last using this resort and will not coming back.

Very clean resort friendly helpful staff. Although some servers in the various specialty restaurants english language skills were limited. We were in the adult only section of the Resort lacked servers at the pool for drink service. Room was comfortable mattress toppers are avail if you find the beds. Food was fresh abd good quality and very well labelled. We will defnitely visit here again it was a safe clean friendly place to stay.

Celebrating our anniversary, and having visited this resort complex two times before, we were so excited to return, albeit to a different section (we previously stayed at the Grand Punta Cana section). We came to admire the attentiveness the staff on our last two visits gave us; on both prior trips, the staff at the Grand Punta Cana went above and beyond to ensure our week-long vacation was worth every penny. I emailed the resort several weeks prior to our arrival to advise them of our anniversary and they responded saying they recorded this information and were awaiting our arrival. We arrived late evening to a room with an anniversary banner, a bottle of champagne and two glasses. We were ready to start our 7 days in paradise full of sun and relaxation. The initial room we were in faced a service road and service gate. Starting at 5:30am the next morning, busses, trucks and cars continuously had to honk to alert the gate to open, trucks backing up while beeping - not how we wanted to start our first full day there. The shed our deck looked directly onto was one that workers tossed garbage bags up onto the roof. There were dozens of bags that accumulated up to noon, and at that time, we requested a room change. We had to pack up everything we unpacked the night before to be moved to a second room. This second room was on the 4th floor, the AC did not work, the room’s outlets did not work and it didn’t have a shower head. It only had a tub and a handheld sprayer. Getting reach for supper, I had to cram myself close to the faucet on the floor of the bathtub, sitting cross legged, using the handheld sprayer to “shower myself”. All of this was happening while a maintenance worker was replacing outlets in our room. The heat that built up during the day was unbearable. We again needed to change rooms, finally to a great room on the third floor; however, by this time, we had used the first three days of our 7 day vacation to unpack, pack, unpack, pack and unpack again. We were constantly going back and forth between lobbies, speaking with desk staff and managers that the first half of our vacation was completely wasted and left us unable to “feel settled” until day #4, at which point we had only three days left to salvage what we could to enjoy anything. As a working mother, I don’t do nearly enough for myself, and my partner works tirelessly daily - we were taking what we thought was going to be a break for ourselves, something we could do to spoil ourselves for one week out of the entire year. I was in tears more times than I probably smiled during our trip. I can’t express how utterly disappointed we are and arriving back home today, we don’t feel relaxed and so entirely upset with everything. We went to celebrate us, and to enjoy a week in paradise with our friends. We spent hard earned money on something that left us feeling neglected and saddened.

We have just returned after a 2 week stay, the issues mentioned in this review were all raised at the end of our 1st week, directly with Guest Relations in the hotel. This is a Spanish chain hotel in a Spanish speaking country and there is a language barrier with most of the staff speaking no/little English, the exception being in the Check in Lobby, where we were advised by our Tui rep to go if we had any issues. We started off tipping, but after a few days we stopped as the service was so bad, we didnt feel it warranted it, and it made no difference to how we were treated. As others have mentioned, this hotel is predominately full of Canadian guests, some in large groups who took over banks of sun beds. They were noisy, demanding and because of the language barrier,shouted at staff to get what they wanted rather than use basic tourist Spanish. The other main guests are Spanish speaking Latin Americans. We were 1 of only a handful of British couples during our stay and it's relevent I believe, to the poor level of service we received. I have some basic tourist words in Spanish, so can ask for beer, wine, food etc. and did try my best to communicate but it didn't improve our experience. Service in the main Buffett restaurant was poor for drinks, tables were often missing cups or cutlery, tables were slow to be cleared.I asked for a spoon in english and was stared at blankly by the staff. Staff were disengaged and sometimes rude. Food was repetitive and often not that hot. There were cooking stations at each sitting. Joanne who cooked the eggs in the morning was the only friendly face we saw. At every service there were welcome drinks, you could make these yourselves on entry but we were always just led staright to a table, we then used to watch whilst other tables were offered these drinks by the waiting staff, whilst we were ignored. 1 morning I stopped to make a mimosa, but the fizz was missing, I stood looking for it with a glass in my hand. A waiter came over, snatched the glass off me, filled it with peach juice and then just handed it back and walked off. I was too embarrased to do anything else other than walk away. He made me feel like I was being a nuisance. Then I watched as others were served to their table. We would order drinks from the pool waiting staff, and then watch as those around us got their drinks whilst we were forgotten, these were not isolated incidents, 1 day we were forgotten twice in a row. When I raised this with the lobby I was told it was probable that the other guests were Privilege members..ie more important than us, but this was not the case. After a week of being ignored in the restaurants, bars and poolside I was in tears with another week to go. I went to complain. I was apologised to, and asked to complete a complaint form, which I did. I was told the restaurant manager would be informed and the pool bar also. From that point service did improve around the pool, Angela took care of us and we felt like we mattered finally. Service in the buffet restaurant sadly did not change, but its hard when you never sit in the same section twice or get the same waiter/waitress to get to know. We were often sat in the sidelines, or at the back of everything. We ate in some of the Al a Carte restaurants, where service and quality was mixed. We ate in El Olivio, where Sergio was our waiter, we were not offered a drink or a bread roll,generally ignored and food portions were tiny and not great. Not a nice experience. In contrast to this, our favourite restaurant was Limbo, where you can sit and have a pre and post dinner cocktail made by the fantastic barmen, service in this restaurant was generally good as was the food, though it was never overly hot. This whole complex with its 5 hotels is huge, far too big to navigate in the daytime heat. A lot of the Al a carte restaurants are in Ambar, but you can not have pre dinner drinks in their lobby or access their entertainment. The whole hotel is super clean, no issues with our bedroom or housekeeping. We only went to the beach once, the Aquamarine section is small with beds crammed in so was difficult to get any shade. Its a good 10 minute walk, there are trolleys (golf carts) to take you around the complex but its hit and miss. We would sometimes request 1 and be told to walk. Entertainment is generally good and the animation team work hard. I would not return to this hotel based on its level of service, and lack of other British guests. We really were the forgotten.

Pool was disappointing. Travelled with 2 other couples. Pool staff actually approached us and removed 1 of our chairs even though 3 were using them and 3 were nearby in the pool, he seen us and continued arguing and removed the chair. We constantly had to remind staff to replenish mini bar. Poor pool bar service. Beach was amazing as well as food at the a la cartes. We were lucky enough to know to book prior to trip by reading reviews. Would recommend Ambar