Emotions by Hodelpa Puerto Plata: We'd go back

Clean adults only areas, although, accessible, close washroom facilities poolside would've been nice. You could see the staff paid very close attention to cleanliness all around the resort,..Food was good, serving staff reasonably attentive,dining areas kept clean. Room was well kept and the room attendant very cordial and she paid attention to detail in her cleaning tasks! VERY COMFORTABLE BED!!! Justino made our stay a pleasure too!!

Iberostar Waves Costa Dorada: Great experience!

Had a great experience at this resort, would recommend! The resort is clean and very well kept up. The staff were really friendly and helpful. We accidentally locked ourself out of the safe in our room and after we reported it at the front desk, a security guard came a few minutes later to help us unlock the safe. The food at the resort is good and there is some variety at the main buffet. We found that much of the food at the buffet is similar throughout the week, but that wasn't an issue for u [... read more]s and we always found things we enjoyed eating. Most importantly to us, we didn't get sick! The best meals we had were the lunches at the beach - would definitely recommend eating at the beach! We didn't pay for a room upgrade and stayed in the basic room, but it was perfect for us. Simple room but very clean, spacious, and had a nice balcony. The resort felt safe and the beach and pool were fantastic, which were our main priorities. Had a great experience, would recommend!

Marien Puerto Plata Hotel: QUAINT RESORT

The grounds were lovely and well maintained. Public areas were clean. Rooms were nice and spacious. For some reason, we were upgraded to VIP status, so not sure about the regular room sizes. The shower was too high, so squirted all over snd the shower curtain took short. The maid respected our DND sign and never entered unless we asked her to clean. Tips were not expected, but welcomed. Food was acceptable and hot when it should be. Only had bacon once in 2 weeks, but lots of other stuff to ea [... read more]t. The Mediterranean restaurant was the best. Service was great overall. The VIP Lounge was the best! Wifi very shaky throughout the resort, except for the VIP lounge. Great there.

Bahia Principe Escape Ambar: Will not go again.

Rooms ammenties were totally subpar. Beds rock hard, TVs totally unwatchable and AC controll did not work. Alacarte restaurants food was subar or awful. But the hotel servant staff was very accommodating and kind.

Dreams Onyx Resort and Spa: Amazing Resort all around would definitely recommend and return in the future !!

Food amazing service amazing entertainment amazing beautiful and clean and well maintained!!! Thanks Wendy Harrington at trip central for suggesting this resort as an option for us and for working so diligently with us to assure our travel was a smooth sailing experience!!!!

Secrets Royal Beach: Girls getaway!

SRB is a lovely resort. Everything about it was fantastic. The rooms were spacious. The buffet and a la cartes were amazing. Never had a bad meal. Even though you can’t make reservations we never had any issues getting into any of the a la cartes for 7 women. The staff were great and the resort grounds were always looking lovely. Loved all the pools and the service around them were top notch. All in all it was a great week away and will definitely be returning. Thank you to Robyn Murr [... read more]ay for all her help in getting all 7 of us booked seamlessly and she was very helpful when we had any questions.

Majestic Colonial Punta Cana Beach Resort: Return Trip

Positives: grounds well maintained, beautiful beach no seaweed, food generally good, great butler in adult section. Improvement: common problem of keeping food hot at the buffets, guests leaving a towel or book on a lounge chair or bali bed and disappearing for hours, in fact could use more lounge chairs (thought early April would be less busy but resort seemed full).

Occidental Punta Cana: Beautifully Kept Resort

Loved the food options, the snack bars, and cleanliness of the resort. Staff were nice and polite. Our family suite was perfect with two couch beds for the kids and our bed on the other side of the room. Disliked our location of the room as it was next to the housekeepers storage and we heard Them the minute they arrived for work. (Although they were kind and did a great job of cleaning). Hopeful we will return again!

Iberostar Selection Bavaro Suites: It's ok, but would not go back

The good: This resort is very well taken care of. We had a HUGE storm one night. I looked outside early (6 am), and there was debris everywhere - by 8 am, it was as if nothing had happened. The grounds are well taken care of. The room was nice, a little worn out, but above average based on our experience of going to resorts in DO. A handful of staff were amazing. Two from the main buffet and three from the lobby bar - they made us feel very welcome. The steak house was AMAZING!!! I h [... read more]ad an amazing beef rib dish. It would have easily beat both of my fav steak restaurants in Montreal and Toronto! Everyone at our table had an amazing dish and top-notch service! The not-so-good: When we arrived, we were greeted by check-in staff, who made it seem like we were a burden. He was very cold towards us. We were not deterred by this. Everyone has a bad day once in a while. Unfortunately, this theme was consistent throughout our stay across the buffets and bars by the beach and pool area. The a-la-carte restaurants we visited were the Japanese Grill, Steak House and Italian. The Japanese Grill was so awful that one guy threw up eating his food. It was extremely salty! The Italian was the same food you got from the pizza and pasta station at the buffet, with no service. I gave up on a pepper grinder, walked to the server's station on the other side of the restaurant, and just got my own. Again, the food was over-salted, and as someone who loves salt, I think that's saying something! Entertainment - it's the same songs and show every night - and no matter where your room is located on the resort - YOU WILL HEAR IT!! The beach... If you enjoy walking in sand and cigarette butts, you will enjoy it! Drinks on the beach... Good luck - ZERO service while on the beach - there were servers, but they were having too much fun chatting with their co-workers. If you like to snorkel, Barcelo Beach is not the best place for it. Rough Atlantic waters make it quite difficult, but if you are a good swimmer and are confident, you should be okay - but watch that current. Mixing 5ft waves and fine sand will disorientate you! The swell was HUGE - on a calm day, what would be 5ft deep would be 12-13ft deep. If you really want to see some amazing marine life (and there is some amazing sights), look at the tide times and go out on the incoming tide. My final comment is not to go beyond the rope, divider. Speed boats rip up and down within a couple of feet of that line - they will NOT see you, and if you are snorkelling within 20ft of the rope, you will choke on the exhaust fumes from these boats!! In summary, the positives were too few compared to the negatives. My inlaws, who were with us, had been to the same resort just before covid and said it's gone downhill considerably. Maybe internal politics is causing the staff to be not as friendly or attentive, who knows. Such a shame - my inlaws loved the last two times they went, but this time, they didn't recognize the place based on service.

Secrets Tides Punta Cana: Amazing resort

It was an amazing trip. The coco coffee bar in the morning, gym with state of the art equipment, delicious buffet for breakfast, lunch & dinner, 3 new pickleball courts, beautiful infinity pools with comfy loungers, beach loungers under palapas, breezy weather so beach great for walking on, we didnt go in for swimming, evening entertainment incredible, lots of a la carte restaurants (we actually preferred the variety at the buffet). MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR QR code to enter and exit DR!

VH Gran Ventana Beach Resort: too many negatives

To me the best things about the Gran Ventana are the food and the staff. I have never had such good food constantly like they serve here before. The staff are very efficient and happy to serve you. The beds and pillows in the room were very comfortable. That said I found the rooms lacking in lighting and an adjustable magnifying mirror in the bathroom ..... just plainly too dated. My next peeve is the beach. We were jammed in together so close that you feel like a sardine in a can. Not a l [... read more]ot s shade so you could not move away from the crowd and thus you could hear people taking constantly...hard to concentrate to read. Also I contacted the resort twice to ask for a quiet area room...we were first floor directly opposite the theatre where the nightly entertainment occurs...very noisy till after 10 pm....we rise very early in the morning to walk the beach thus we go to bed early.....when we got our key I asked is it in a quiet area and the answer was yes??? it wasn't...So over all too many negatives for me to return.

Lopesan Costa Bavaro Resort: Very good resort

We just came back from a 7-day trip there. The resort is approximately 25 min away from Punta Cana airport. We're the only ones being dropped off there, so the check-in process was quick and easy. The check-in starts at 3 pm, but if you arrive earlier, they will let you enjoy everything at the resort already (except your room if it's not ready). We already had the Lopesan app installed. As soon as you have your room number, I suggest you log in and start making the restaurant reservations. They [... read more] fill in quickly. What I didn't like in our stay: Tipping culture: I know DR is a tourist destination, and many people there depend on that. I just don't like it because the vacations are not cheap, and we still need to worry about tips. The worst part is that they expect tips, so if you don't give it or give little, you may receive a lower quality service. We didn't bring too much to tip (I wish I knew that before), so we gave little. I noticed on the third or fourth day that the service was not the same. It looks like they already knew we don't tip much and provided a not-great service. Beach: There were two problems with the beach. One, the swimming area of Lopesan is super small, less than 10 meters wide and maybe 100 m in length. And don't think that it's okay to go over if you know how to swim, the lifeguards will whistle the hell at you. The second problem of the beach is that, for some reason that I don't know, all the boats in the area park right in front of the resort. It's just annoying because you can't get a good picture of the sea. If you walk like 500 meters east, you can take nice pictures there, but if you're just chilling in the resort beach area, you will always have the boat view. However, the beach area of Lopesan has the best structure. There is an umbrella for every two chairs, unlike the neighbouring resorts, which only have chairs and some palm trees to make shade. Daily activities: They offer 3 free daily activities (provided by a third party). The scuba dive experience (on the pool, just to people know how it feels like), the kayak, and the sailboat. The kayak is fun and can take up to 3 people. The problem I had was with the sailboat. They say it's free like the kayak but they said it would cost $55 for the first time, "to learn" how to use the boat. Something that I'm sure it wouldn't take more than 10 minutes. Maybe that's why nobody uses the sailboat there. Now, what I liked: Everything else! The resort is very good overall. The food is excellent. I could eat every meal at the buffet, I just didn't do it because we wanted to try the different restaurants. The pools are very good too, none of the pools were too crowded and they have several to choose from. The waterpark is awesome, I had a lot of fun with my son. The gym is excellent, all the equipment is new and well-maintained. The theatre is ample with nice attractions. Next time, we will try a different resort, but I would definitely go back to Lopesan if I had the chance.

Secrets Royal Beach: Secrets April'24

Secrets Royal Beach is top notch. Our group of 7 enjoyed all the amenities including our rooms, the bars, coffee shop in the lobby, stores, entertainment, pools & restaurants are great. Would go there again.

Occidental Caribe: An honest review for families with small children

I wanted to write a review of this resort, something I don't normally do but there are some standout things families travelling there with small children should know. We were a family of grandparents, and two families with an infant and a baby 20 months. And very experienced world travellers. 1. If you want your rooms together, be sure to book together. We emailed the resort all reservations to get our rooms together. Despite initial responses asking us for more information and at least [... read more] 6 attempts to connect with them, we were eventually ghosted. 2. Upon arrival we went the resort for assistance in getting our 3 rooms moved closer together for childcare reasons and I showed them our previous requests. We offered to be downgraded from ocean front to regular rooms to accomplish this - but every visit to the front desk we were told there was nothing they could do. Eventually, the resort offered that if we paid an additional $350USD they would give us a suite and another room nearby - but the third room would still be far away from these two rooms. So, our view is that they were not helpful. 3. They shut off many of the elevators during the day - so getting strollers down to the lobby proved challenging every day. Two people had to move the stroller and baby manually down the staircases on numerous occasions. 4. Getting milk by the bottle was accommodated, but we ran into difficulty getting anyone to give us more milk for the night feedings. Bring more than one bottle to be filled for your baby just in case. 5. The resort would NOT confirm a crib for the two babies before our trip, and there were none in the rooms despite the babies being on the reservations. This we felt was unacceptable and we were thankful to have brought the travel beds. 6. For toddlers, note there is nowhere to get them a meal between 4-6:30 pm. After a day in the sun, the toddler was exhausted and couldn't last until 6:30 - we had to bring a travel plate with lid and make their dinner from the lunch buffet, then run it up to the room fridge for storage. There should be an early dinner option for families. 6:30 is the earliest. 6. The Pools was dirty! Balloons, bugs, hair ties and other items just floating around in the pool and water had a grey cast to it. Need better skimming and testing of the water for safety and health of the guests. Folks - this is not whining and I am a very well travelled person who has never written a resort review before. I did write the hotel to give them this feedback but the concerns I outlined in our holiday week with the Occidental Caribe were glossed over in their reply. They said 'hopefully the beach and setting made up for the issues we experienced". I was aghast at this response. Occidental Caribe needs to do better here and most issues we feel are with the management and staff attitude towards families with children.

Secrets Royal Beach: Wonderful

This resort checked all the boxes for our group of 7 women. Adults only, close to the airport, beautiful beach, well appointed quiet rooms, very good food & restaurant choices, great daytime & nighttime entertainment. I could go on & on. You won’t be disappointed!!

Majestic Colonial Punta Cana Beach Resort: Good Resort But

This is a very good resort but it could be better. The worst part was the check-in on the Club side. We arrived a little after 3:00 PM when the rooms should have been ready (and they probably were). Unfortunately the hotel had only one person on the check-in computer; he was overwhelmed and our check-in took over an hour. Interestingly, the non Club check-in was empty. Should be an easy fix. The maids were awesome but some start very early in the morning and they like talking loud amongst  [... read more]themselves ... they were our alarm clock at 6:30 AM. Easy fix again. Finally, for those that have gone to the Dominican before, you know that DR staff are not always the friendliest in comparison with other southern destinations. This was a topic of conversation I heard a number of times at the resort and on the way back. We also noticed that there was less tipping than normal (we came back with half the USD tipping money we went with). There is probably a reason for this. Again this is simply a case of the management talking to the staff and telling them they are missing out. As I said at the beginning, it is a very good resort: good rooms, superb beach, nice pools, terrific food, lots to do and some nice special touches. I think it will be back to Mexico next time.

Occidental Caribe: It's a trap

Cons ? Shower has no pressure and the head is for short people, have to hug the wall to get wet ? No welcome drink, as advertised ? No servers at the pools to help with drinks ? Says mini bar in room on dis but it’s actually mini fridge it 0 liqour in room ? Toilet barely flushes and if it plugs you wait 3 hours for them to fix it ? Pillows are clumpy and old and they dont give new ones ? No fitted sheets just sheets used instead ? Food has no flavour or horrible flavour. I was disappoin [... read more]ted every time we went to the buffet usually only 1 or 2 items seemed edible ? Room service doesn’t show (waited 7 hours for toilet paper and still had to go find a janitor to get some) ? The service desk only has 2 people working and your waiting forever ? Room cards constantly stop working and got locked outta my room. Had to wait at least 30 for them to reactivate my cards which only takes a min ? Bar service sucks. Barely anyone making drink or they’re annoyed that they have to 6 people behind to bar 1 making drinks at a time ? Barely any AC and it was humid ? The power goes out every night couple times a day ? Every pushy with trying to sell you stuff CONSTANTLY ? Excursion that sounded so nice was horrible. Sorna island. Boat ride was way too long and the drive. They fed us horrible food and it says it’s 9 hours long but we were gone for 13 mostly just travel not enjoying the ocean. Also a couple having sex in front of little kids. 9 hours travel 3 hours on the actual excursion ? Hard to get into the restaurants that you need to make reservations at ? Very busy on the weekends cause the locals come in and they seem to be very entitled. one lady threw her drink at the bartender for serving us after we waited 10 minutes for service. if you dont speak their language they ignore you. ? Our room got too hot and we wanted to air out our room and they told us we weren’t allowed to have our room door open to let the air circulate - You have to be at the pool by 5 am to secure a spot at the pool as people will go down and save spots and make it impossible to have seats at the pool. - Lots of false advertisment and lack of care. - Constantly try to trick you into time share meetings with sister resorts. - pool closes at 6:50 Pros ? The beach is beautiful although the waves are a bit rough if you’re wanting something a bit calm ? They have some stores and can charge them to the room ? Two big pools ? The japanise restaurant was entertaining and great food ? The theatre is great and great entertainment ? They clean the rooms well, well at least the floors. More Date of stay: April 2024

Iberostar Waves Costa Dorada: Amazing resort

Resort is older but they are slowly working on it to improve it grounds are nice our room face the orchid garden food was always good and fresh bacon every day different themes nights beach BBQ and etc pool was good lots of activities to do if you want to condos are been builded next door noise not too bad from our room build 6 or 5 might be alittle worse

Dreams La Romana: Hilton La Romana Family Resort

A beautiful resort with a wonderful staff. Need more spaces for smokers and benches to sit on. A very friendly, hard working staff. The grounds were beautiful and the pools were lovely. I would go back.

Senator Puerto Plata Hotel: Great smaller resort

We had a great vacation at this resort. The grounds are very well kept and the hotel/room is very clean. The food at the buffet was very good with alot of variety. The a la carte were so-so but we enjoyed the buffet so much we didn't care. The main pool is clean but is in need of some repairs. I would say there needs to be more umbrellas around the pool area as there is no shade and more seating in the lobby/bar area. That would be the only negative thing I have to say about this resort.