Bahia Principe Grand San Juan: beautifuly large resort

This is a beautiful resort with lots to do. Here are my personal comments without the fluff. The resort is 1 hr 45 minute away from the Samama Airport not 70 minutes. We were checked in and handed our keys at the airport. (our rooms were not quite as requested). We arrived in the dark at 11 p.m., with zero welcome at the lobby. Rooms with 2 double beds are ground floor only, Kings are 2nd, and 3rd floor. Room change requests were refused that night. Had to return to the desk twice the next d [... read more]ay to be taken seriously. Late checkout may be available for 35$. Ask the desk. WiFi only works in the lobby, but is not very strong at all. (unless you pay) Pools and beach are well maintained. lots of chairs provided you get down there in the am. Buffet food is good, but empties quickly, and not filled as quickly. ( and lots of food is the same ever day) Book your a-la-carte restaurants the day you arrive. Mediterranean was delicious! Take your Bubba, a facecloth, and clips to hold your towel to your chair. Ride the banana boat! (10$ per person) Free paddle boards, kayaks and catamarans. Relax and enjoy!

Playabachata Hotel: decent value

Nothing fancy but good value for a basic all inclusive. The rooms are dated but clean and maintained well- any concerns we had were taken care of quickly. Our air conditioner was dripping water and someone came and fixed it, when I asked for a face towel I received one right away. No locks for the safe was unfortunate- I guess the resort doesn't have enough lock and keys for all of the safes. The staff spent tons of time cleaning the washrooms, public areas, grounds and pool. food was good. Re [... read more]petitive things available each day but food was consistent and tasted "normal." Good selection of spices and some hot sauce available as well. Food at the a la carte steakhouse was disappointing. The apps were good but the main course was lacking. The buffet was better! Wavy water and windy as beach is on the north shore. Plenty of loungers available at the pool and beach. The staff were friendly. Overall a great week and we lucked out with wonderful weather

VH Gran Ventana Beach Resort: Great Beach

Resort was clean and well kept, but in need of some touch ups. Nice that they had a quiet pool for people like us that don’t like the loud area. If your going thinking you will have great food, you won’t. It was just ok and had no flavour. If you like pizza and French fries you won’t starve. They have the typical omtlettes and pasta made to your liking so that was good. Over all I’d say it was a 3 star hotel not a 4.

Marien Puerto Plata Hotel: Fabulous Resort

The hotel property was huge, colourful and cozy; it was overall a great property I enjoy the wonderful landscape and the unique building layout very nice grounds. The food was always fresh, tasty and plenty. Nightly entertainment was amazing.

Playabachata Hotel: Short and sweet

Food was great. Beach was nice. Very clean resort and rooms. No ventilation in hotel room bathroom. Safe in room was outdated and hard to use. Staff was helpful and very friendly. My travel partner and I felt safe at all times. Thanks so much for the hospitality!-

Cofresi Palm Beach and Spa Resort: Mostly good, some bad!

I’ll start with the good, this resort is HUGE, so you can always find a restaurant and pool that aren’t too busy. The food was excellent except for the breakfast. The staff are friendly and not pushy when it comes to selling you time shares or spa deals. There’s lots of cats and puppies, which is a bonus in my books lol, the pools were a good temperature, the rooms were very clean, as was the rest of the resort. The bad was that because of the resorts size, there’s a lot of walking, whi [... read more]ch really isn’t that bad unless you have mobility issues, and there are shuttles available as well for most areas. But there was a lot of stairs, if you chose not to use the shuttles, it’s 10+ sets of stairs just to get from the beach to the main restaurant. The breakfast wasn’t great, there’s no bacon, or any kind of breakfast meat that looked edible, there were omelettes and stuff but I don’t eat eggs so I stuck with pancakes and fruit for the most part, some times there was syrup sometimes there wasn’t. Our room was right on the corner of the busiest road on the resort, starting at 5am the workers were zipping around on their scooters and golf carts to start their shifts and the noise didn’t stop until midnight, I would have been awake for a week straight if it weren’t for my ear plugs, so either ask for a quiet room or pack ear plugs (or both because there were lots of partiers too) because it’s ridiculously loud. Our shower was only hot at weird times of the day, definitely not in the morning or in the evening, I had to take cold showers multiple times until i figured out i had to shower in the day, when i should have been relaxing in the sun. We also found some things hard to find, like a small snack canteen with burgers and fries that runs from 12-5 everyday, inside of another restaurant (right by the beach pool) but the restaurant still looks closed when the canteen is open so it took us a few days to find it, and it was never busy so i’m assuming a lot of people didn’t know it was there. The whole resort is so big it takes a few days to figure out where everything is, but all in all it’s very nice, and once we figured out the quarks we were happy with our stay. (other than our room location, and cold showers)

Cofresi Palm Beach and Spa Resort: A great vacation

We really enjoyed ourselves here. The buffets had variety and changed daily, restaurants served great meals....drinks were tasty. The staff were lovely and friendly and our standard room was nice. Dated, but very clean and had a nice little balcony that overlooked a pool. The resort is very large so we were able to walk around a lot without leaving the property. Beach is rather small compared to what I am used to and very big waves. Would have been fun to have a bogie board!

Casa Marina Reef Resort: You get what you pay for

Beautiful grounds and kept clean, we had a renovated ocean view room on the second floor and was located central to everything. Mattress was very uncomfortable and pillows are hard foam. 1 buffet which was very busy and had to wait in line up for breakfast and supper. We ate at the Mexican restaurant 1 evening 2 of our party of 4 experienced food poisoning. We lost a days vacation because they were ill all day. Pools were clean, Get there early for a chair or you won't have one. Close to ai [... read more]rport only 15 minute drive.

Cofresi Palm Beach and Spa Resort: Decent 4 star resort

Pros: good beach outstanding personnel cleanliness both inside and outside the rooms hilly area (stairs can be a challenge) well maintained landscape location not too far from airport several very good "a la carte" restaurants (Indian, Italian, Indochine,...) Cons: lack of shade on the beach food needs improvement only local alcoholic drinks basic outdated furniture no evening activities hot water not so hot room fridge contains only water noisy A/C expensive Internet (better [... read more] use your "Roam like home")

Casa Marina Reef Resort: Nice Resort

This resort is clean. We upgraded our room to premium which was worth the money. I would not be happy in a regular room as they are very worn. Food was ok but never hot. Service lacked speed. Pools and cold tubs were kept clean. Staff were friendly.

Sunscape Puerto Plata: Puerto Plata

Small resort. Broken shower. Poorly sticked fridge. Supsed to be a family resort and there were little to no children’s activities. 50 chaises at pool for 500+rooms. Absolutely not good value for the dollar. Yearly travellers and this was the worst value for our money. Transat airlines was surprisingly worse than sunwing and their delays. Staff didn’t even help a SINGLE person with overhed baggage let alone any snack. Non existent tv movie or even radio all media down. Broken toilets. Absolu [... read more]tely shocking for a 4+hour flight. Sad really. Not the cleanest resort by any means and certainly not accommodating.

Sunscape Puerto Plata: Sunscape resort and transat holidays

This was definitely a three star resort. Disappointing. My sons shower head fell off numerous times on his head. Patio doors broken.killed 2 cockroaches and one mouse. Fridge stocked daily means one sprite one coke 2 bottles 500ml of water yet you cannot drink the tap water. Very disappointing for the $1400.00 per person we paid. The transat plane going had broken toilets so only two worked huge lineups. No movie not even a single radio station as their “ media was down”. No snack not a cook [... read more]ie or anything. We paid $5600.00 for myself my husband my 21 year old and 17 year old. We cruise or do all inclusives every year. This was by far the most disappointing trip and the value for our dollar was exceptionally disappointing. We travelled as a group of 22 and didnt even get a discount. I think this could have been handled wt better.

Iberostar Waves Costa Dorada: amazing resort

Everything is in walking distance. Staff very nice and helping. Live singer each night, and disco until 2 AM. Was there from 18 to 25 Feb 2019. would go back anytime!! Clean room, and well maintained. food awesome. Missing a bit of entertaining during the day, not always the same time each day.

Iberostar Waves Costa Dorada: Became very ill at this resort

We had a horrible vacation. Both my girlfriend and I became very ill due to bacteria consumed in the food or the water at your resort. This caused us to spend half of our vacation very ill and we spent several days in the hospital at Peurto Plata and the illness affected my kidneys, causing inflammation and a great deal of pain. We continued to remain sick when we finally returned home causing me to spend more time in the hospital here, and miss work. I can’t begin to explain how disappointed  [... read more]we both are. We got a few days out of an 8 day vacation. What a giant waste of money and time, not to mention the horrible feeling of being so sick for several days. We will never return to the Dominican Republic because of this. I think Iberostar should take some responsibility here and provide us with some sort of compensation here for our wasted time and money and our horrible experience at this resort hotel. Give it a go if you maybe feel like spending half your trip in a foreign hospital, maybe you're into that but I am not. You should not be dying to just make it home from a vacation. We paid a lot of money and took time off work to get a stress release and to relax. What we got was quite the opposite. Very, very disappointed and this leaves us with a bad taste in our mouths for Iberostar and the Dominican Republic. All of this aside, speaking strictly to the service received; the caliber of service was not as high as I expected when compared to what I have received at other resorts in other countries like Mexico, and for how much money we paid. Making dinner reservations at the a la carte restaurants was a gong show. We were told to use the Iberostar app by front desk staff, so we did. Then just about every dinner the restaurant would not have our reservation and we had to argue with difficult restaurant staff who would begrudgingly accommodate you after finding their manager. This is not something I feel like I should have to do at a paid resort vacation.

Casa Marina Sosua Trademark by Wyndham All Inclusive: Another great stay at Casa Marina

This was the third time we have been at Casa Marina and every time we go, it’s better. There have been multiple parts of the resort renovated, the newest being the lobby bar and lounge and Mexican and Italian restaurants. We did not have renovated rooms but they were clean and comfortable. Other family members had a renovated room which was very nice and modern. The food is always great and plentiful. The staff was friendly and helpful. The pools and beaches are lovely. Can’t wait for the ne [... read more]xt trip!

Cofresi Palm Beach and Spa Resort: NOT Impressed!!!! May never return!

Where do we start? NO HOT WATER! (building 204) 10 days was no pleasure! Staff/maintenance did not address. Everybody just shrugged their shoulders??? Cold water shower took about 20 minutes to drain from the tub. You don't stay in long when the water is so cold!! Mold was evident on the bath tub caulking! Not addressed??? Dripping water from the bathroom ceiling....the solution provided was "turn the air conditioner on!" We froze! It would have been appreciated if staff spoke basic English [... read more]!!! Very difficult to communicate with anyone.. A mountain goat would have difficulty traversing the grounds with all of the stairs. We required a cane to assist! Swampy sewage smells were abundant around the complex! Don't put 21 university students in the same complex unless you would like to be woken up at 2 and 3, and 4 AM!!! every night for 5 nights in a row!! A safe for valuables should be included in the inclusive cost price....not $3.00 US a night! The negatives far outweighed the positives at this location!

Iberostar Waves Costa Dorada: Great food

The resort was pretty much as we expected based on the reviews. The food was the best part, and the rooms were also very clean, although dated. The staff was all friendly and the resort did not seem overly crowded. Beach was not the best, but we knew that. Overall, a very good value.

Bahia Principe Grand San Juan: Great place

Overall great resort, foods good, grounds are well kept, servers are very good at the buffet especially Luis and Ewardo. Beach is nice but sand isn’t as nice as other beaches in Dominican, lots of little sand flies. Only thing I didn’t like is all the bars shut down at 11pm but the disco bar which is about a five minute walk down the resort driveway away from all the rooms, and about ten minutes after the entertainment they shut all the lights off in and around the entertainment area and hal [... read more]l ways. But overall very good resort for the price, definitely recommend.

Sunscape Puerto Plata: Lovely beach and great staff!

the beach was marvellous, inviting, beautiful sand and calm waves, great for children and taking it easy! staff was super-friendly and helpful. Go for the upgrade if you can it's worth it. The Adventure Club for kids was really well resourced and much enjoyed by the 3 yr old in our party. Food was good, on par with most AI resorts.

Viva Heavens by Wyndham: Nice Resort but too small

The resort is very nice and clean but just too small for my liking. Not enough to see on the resort itself. And although they claim to have free Wifi throughout the resort, the chance of it working was only 50/50.