Meliá Punta Cana Beach Resort

The resort grounds are beautiful - but this place is massive! I prefer a resort where I can walk back to my room throughout the day or to the restaurants/bars without needing a golf cart to be taxied around. There was no real wait for a ride - it's just our preference. Our room was clean and quiet with a nice view of the gardens. The fridge was full of water, pop and beer everyday. Never had to ask for anything throughout our trip. The buffet restaurants were very low quality...especially the evening buffet. The food was basically the same every night and not overly tasty or hot. The drinks were good at the lobby bar - they always had our drinks ready when they'd see us coming. The beach is not great - no fault of the resort though. The seaweed was everywhere and it was difficult to find a spot to swim in the ocean. Again...this is no fault of the resort but just beware if you are a beach lover (this is not the place for you). The entire beach was covered - so it wasn't just this resort. They were doing their best to clean it...out there a few times each day. Overall, I wouldn't come back to this resort mainly because of the size. Everything was spaced out in such a way that you really needed to use the carts.

My wife and I traveled here the first week of July. The resort is really close to the airport which is great since you have less chance of getting killed by the insane drivers. Upon arrival we were greeted by our personal concierge Roberto. More about him later. Upon check in we did have some issues with the room but the front desk took care of us and put us in a great room. The room was beautiful and extremely clean and looked over the pool. Pros: -The staff all around the property were incredible. Always willing to help and were singing all the time. They genuinely seemed happy to be there. The only ones that weren't top notch were in the buffet restaurants. -The pool was great and service at the bar was fast and courteous. Again, more singing. There was plenty of space to find a great place to sit and the pool is huge. -Casa Nostra, the Italian restaurant. My wife and I grew up in a heavily Italian area in NY and this was actually good tasting Italian food. In fact we ate there three times. The wait staff there was fantastic. -The property and buildings were beautiful. Many were open air and with a nice breeze blowing through it made it perfect. -Presidente cervesa Cons: - The food at the buffets was terrible. The selections really were limited especially at breakfast. The scrambled eggs were raw and there was almost no meat selections like bacon or sausage patties. Even the oatmeal was basically soup. Most mornings I basically filled up on bread. Additionally the food at all the buffets we went to had almost no flavor. -The service at the buffets was poor. You constantly had to ask for everything, such as coffee and water. Big difference from the restaurants at night. -The seaweed on the beach. It's simple nasty and ruins the beach. However, this isn't the resorts fault. Every day there were out there picking it up. This is an island problem. -Final issue is also a standard tourist issue in Punta Cana. People hustling excursions everywhere. It does get annoying. Now back to Roberto. I have worked in the luxury resort business for twenty years so I have a strong understanding and appreciation for good customer service. I can honestly say our concierge Roberto was probably the finest individual I have known that understands customer service. I told him that he would ever come to the States he could have his choice of jobs in luxury resorts. He is simply that good. I hope the people he works for understand that and do everything they need to in order to keep him and move him up in the ranks. I can see him being an excellent GM one day. Overall it's a great resort. We absolutely loved our trip, except for breakfast and lunch. What was really sad though is the impact the American media has had on visitors. It was painfully obvious the toll it has taken on tourism. The bright side of it however is the place wasn't overcrowded. .

In the works. First week down of 2 week vacation. Review will depend on this next week. So far, mixed feelings ?? Dominican staff excellent especially Jose Minaya! Suggestions seem to fall on deaf ears. Would like to communicate with GM while still here not with front and middle men. Want to make it better? I’m here NOW! I don’t want a mushy reply when I’m back home saying the same old line, “it is unfortunate but our goal is to satisfy our guests, give us another chance”. Two things in that reply. Unfortunate has a root in it that implies a lack of “luck”. Resorts should not be a roll of the dice! Secondly, I’m here now to make it better! Not another time on my dime ($$$). Respectfully submitted Star rating is not definitive. It is only there because it is a field that had to be filled. My final review will be my true assessment and evaluation of the TOTAL experience.

Ceybetg is very kind and helpful. I practice yoga on a daily basis and was able to learn new poses and methods for relaxation with her teachings. Thank you so much for ypur classes, made my vacation much more enjoyable!

First of of all let me start by saying that when we arrived on June 30th we were very disappointed. We did upgrade to Level as we were told we would have a better experience. Before we arrived at the Hotel i called to ask if they were having a problem with seaweed this year and was told they were not. To my dismay the beach was covered about 18" deep 3' wide with it. We asked if they were going to clean the beach and were told yes, the beach gets cleaned twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night. Well let me tell you, we got up the next morning to find the beach in worse shape and only to find out from other guest that it had not been cleaned in about 5 days. Also the dinner we had the previous night at Capri was god awful, i think they marinated everything in salt for about a week without refrigeration. The fish was so smelly and salty it made me want to throw up. We were so angry when we woke up that we wanted to either change hotels or have things made right. We went to breakfast and when we got there our butler Juan was there to greet us (yes you get a butler with Level its AWESOME) we told him about our dismay and asked if there was someone we could speak with about it. Juan told us that the Level Manager Roberto is who we needed to speak with and would set up an appointment for us, which he did. About 2 hours later we met with Roberto to explain what we were so upset about. Like the service in the restaurants, quality of the food, seaweed on the beach, and a few other things that other people have blogged about on here instead of talking to management. Nonetheless, let me tell you, after speaking with Roberto things changed immediately. The beach was cleaned within 2 hours. For dinner that night he made sure we were taken care of in every way possible even down to the wine we like that they didn't have at the hotel. That's what i call customer service. The rest of our vacation went extremely well, service was impeccable, the beach was cleaned everyday. We did have a hiccup one morning at breakfast which i brought to Roberto's attention and it was taken care of immediately. The entire staff at this resort is very friendly and will do anything for you if you ask. A lot of the management staff in the restaurants are young and need more training. I can tell you that Ramon is probably the Best Dining captain the resort has. He should be training all of the rest of the servers to be just like him. We will come back to this resort and many other Melia properties. We found out that sometimes you just have to talk to the Management and let them know whats going on if you want things better. They have no idea how YOUR vacation is going if you don't tell them.