Cofresi Palm Beach and Spa Resort: Horrible experience

ello, my name is Holly Desrosiers I had booked a package to Dominican Republic just arrived home lastnight. My experience was nonethenless traumatic and horrible. I had sent this email 2 days into my trip but the wifi i had paid 100$ for was not working on top of everything else that could possibly go wrong. Our room had problem after problem and it wasnt until the second last day of our trip that we were finally moved into a new room with ac and working plugs. Our first room had no ac so y [... read more]ou can see in our attached pictures it was melting away, our suitcases were wet from the leaks and humidity in the room along with all the plugs so we couldnt even so much as charge our phones i had purchased 3 different chargers thinking it was my phone when finally i asked a worked to plug my phone into their charger so every morning i went to the cigar shop and dropped off my phone to charge , Our bath tub was clogged so everytime we showered it was dirty water up our legs and then after that was fixed our bathroom ceiling was leaking which left my hAir straightener broken , i wish this was the end. After this was “fixed” my entire bathroom was dirty from the ceiling leak we waited 4.5 hours for someone to come clean it up, i would have cleaned it myself if they wernt charging $20 for a new towel. This hotel should absolutely be a 2 star resort , the food is horrendous and old and cold ! The service is horrible if youre not tipping EVERY single time , and if you are a vegetarian good luck to you, my husband had to eat off the resort multiple times because all that was available for him was rice and beans or fruit .. the spa harassed us every single day, we purchased a $250 USD spa package and they STILL bothered us everyday for more even though we didnt even get what we paid for to begin with. On our second day we were walking to find food because it was scarce to find any, and this worker told us he will bring us he seemed so sweet and welcoming and knew we were upset …. He brang us on a 5 minute golf cart ride to the vip section to be harassed into buying an 11k timeshare , i just explained i was hungry and now i am left 20 mins walking distance from where i needed to be , when they realized we were not interested the customer service was out the window and u were treated horrible compared to the vip guests. This resort is completely segregated, vip is treated amazing and have so many options when the regular guests are treated horrible . This was my first time booking through trip central and i could honestly say it will be my last. I would highly not recommend cofresi palm resort to anyone !

Bahia Principe Escape Ambar: Would 100% go back!

Very clean resort including food services (buffet, a la carte dining, and bars), rooms, and common areas. Staff was always helpful, spoke good english and knew what they were doing. The app made it so easy to keep track of plans, entertainment schedule, and any other services we needed. Exceeded expectations by far.

Blue Bay Villas Doradas: Quiet and Relaxing Resort

Resort was very quiet in July, had a very relaxing stay. We did the Isla Bonita and City Tour excursions which were both very fun. Food was good, especially the Chinese restaurant was amazing, but the snack buffet at the beach could have been better.

Bahia Principe Explore El Portillo: Nice resort

Everything was fine, except the waiting line for the buffet. Hotel was crowded and waiting in the line for a table when is hot outside was unpleasant. This was the main negative aspect. Room and the beach were good. No seaweed, the shore was clean and the sea clear enough. Nice beach in general! Activities and night entertainment were present like in the old times, before 2020.

Playabachata Hotel: A very average to below average resort.

I will start with the positives. The beach area is well-maintained and is very nice. The grounds of the resort is also very well-kept. The rooms are antiquity and needs to be renovated. I had to change my room because the first room that I got had wooden boards planked up in the window, the bathtub was all stained, and there was a hole in the wall lamp. The hotel was nice enough to upgrade me to a "renovated" room, without any additional charge. The room was ok. The furniture were all out [... read more]dated, there was a huge hole at the wall beside my fridge (and I was afraid of vermin or other things coming in), the safe was old and rusty, the mattress was a bit lumpy and low, and there were holes in the room curtain. But, believe me it was a massive improvement over my first room. The room was very large, and housekeeping did a good job of cleaning. The food was also not that great. The drinks were mostly sweet and too syrupy, and the food tended to be salty, with not a lot of variety. The pool area was a lot smaller than advertised (I only went to the beach). Service at this hotel was sub-par.

VH Gran Ventana Beach Resort: Nice resort

Very clean resort, friendly staff, awesome beach, huge pool, lots of variety for meals, rooms were good as well. Only complaint was that the daily & nightly entertainment was very poor. Sanitizer available in all areas, tables spread out in dining areas.

Ocean Blue and Sand: Meh!

We decided to upgrade to Privilege since our Tripcentral rep had requested the 2’nd or 3rd floor (2 adjoining rooms) however we were assigned to the first floor and I had read in other comments that there’s more chances of roaches, etc. Another thing that we were very disappointing in was when we went to return to Toronto from the airport in Punta Cana they said “ we have bad news….” Basically Sunwing had overbooked and did not allow us to pre-pick our seats. Needless to say we WERE  [... read more]getting on that flight even if we couldn’t sit together as a family. Why bother booking an all inclusive if you aren’t even guaranteed a return flight home?? Beware this hotel allows locals to go for weekend visits and the resort gets very busy and not very relaxing at all as the swim up bars are hardly accessible! Wish I knew this ahead of time. We probably would not have booked in the first place.

VH Gran Ventana Beach Resort: Average resort!

Grounds are clean, rooms were good. Entertainment is repetitive despite trying to switch it up. Barely any entertainment during the day. The alcohol and food is average, missing some of my fav Dominican dishes and avocados !!!!

Barcelo Bavaro Beach: Great friendly resort

We just arrived from Barcelo Bavaro Beach adults section where we spend the week of 19 to 26 August . . The resort is beautiful , clean and well maintained . We took the premium package which included oceanfront view from the room ( 4086) and a daily a la carte restaurants either in the resort or in the Barcelo Bavaro Palace with a 20 minutes in the spa for hydrotreatment and the option of having lunch or breakfast in the Palace buffet This extra is very much worth it and you enjoy the huge Pal [... read more]ace resort , but i preferred the entertainment and quiet of the adult side a 5 minutes distance with the motor train I was amazingly surprised that resort employees wear masks all the day even when they organize and lead the entertainment sessions . We feel very much safe with the current covid situation I even noticed that they scrub the ladders going to the swimming pool as well as the beds inside the swimming pool daily The only point i can say is the rooms need renovation , but they are clean and comfotable . Your minibar is supplied with beer and soft drinks and as a welcome gift we had a bottle of sparkling wine and a bottle of rum delivered to our room Becaiuse or the sea weeds , the shores were cleaned daily and the sea weeds taken away . In summary, I will definitely return to Barcelo Bavaro Beach

El Beso Adults Only at Ocean El Faro: Amazing Resort!!!

Modern, luxurious hotel. Food taste so good, lots of pools and restaurants. Service was also good (all happy and respectful workers) Will be staying here again. Great choice you won’t regret trust me!

Royalton CHIC Punta Cana: Pretty resort

Clean well maintained but had a bad seaweed problem and hotel was not quick to remove it. Not the most modern rooms shower leaking out and the air conditioning not very cool. Boutique hotel with excellent food choices, coffee and icecream bar and great tropical drinks beach was the only problem if you are a beach person

Senator Puerto Plata Hotel: Very good resort, with some areas for improvement

This was our trip 16 to the Caribbean, 3rd to the Dominican Republic, first time to this resort, staying for 2 weeks. The good: • This resort is a solid 4 stars. The landscaping is impeccable, the gardeners are working non-stop, day in and day out. • Great settings – absolutely stunning views, gorgeous sunsets. We’ve seen 3 weddings while we were there, a picture-perfect set for a Caribbean wedding. • Decent size rooms, relatively clean (though there was some hair left from the [... read more] previous guests in the bathtub). • Good, whisper-quiet air conditioner, best I’ve ever seen in the DR/Cuba/Mexico. • Safe key is free. • Never had an issue with exchanging the beach towels, they were always available. No issues with beach chairs either – plenty of free chairs were always available. • Food variety is good, you won’t be hungry. Lots of fresh fruits, salads, sauces, cheeses. Passion fruit, mangoes, avocados – ripe and juicy. The baking goods in the buffet are excellent, some are really impressive. The coffee in the coffee shop is great as well. • Local beer and mamajuana – the best. • WiFi in the room was workable, 5mb/s. Sometimes it went out, but overall was fine. • Sports bar is awesome, food there turned out to be way better than we expected. The hot dog is not just a hot dog, it’s a real meal. Hamburgers would give any North American chain a run for their money. • Staff was friendly, any questions/concerns were addressed. • The “VIP Breakfast” people were not too pushy, told them that I am not interested and they lost interest in me too. • The gym is excellent, if you’ve seen the pictures – it’s a real deal, one of the best gyms I’ve seen in the Caribbean, except for one massive flaw (see next section). • The ocean is amazing, great for swimming – minimal to no waves, good depth most of the time, and safe for children. The flag on the beach is meaningless, it never changes and is for decoration only, so swim ahead. The bottom is sandy, there are rocks closer to corals, but you will quickly learn to navigate around them. • You will see plenty of small colorful fishes, kids will have a blast. Fish seems to be trained to come in schools when you get closer to the (dead) reef. Don’t need a snorkel, they will literally surround you. We’ve also seen one large (really fat and large, about 1m long, tuna-like) fish, not sure what it was, probably harmless, but it scared the hell out of us. Great experience though. • The steakhouse was good and exceeded our expectations, highly recommend. We visited it twice – the medium-rare tenderloin stake was cooked to perfection both times. • We’ve visited a sister resort next door – night and day. If you are torn between the two because of the two hundred dollars difference – don’t even think about it, choose Senator. • Aside from some staff wearing mask, there was no difference between our vacation experience before COVID and now. The not-so-good: • I hope you like CNN, because there are only 2 English channels available. We did not come here to watch TV, but still. • The shows were amateurish. If you like karaoke or seeing fat tourists twerking, then you will have a blast, otherwise not worth going. Nothing to do after dinner either. Having a live violin or other instrument played in the lobby in the evening would have been fantastic. • Japanese restaurant was a letdown. Any food court in Toronto cooks much tastier and much more “Japanese” food than in this restaurant. The restaurant ambiance is great, and the show the chef puts up is spectacular, but nobody in my group was able to finish large chunks of undercooked chicken. Their version of sushi was as far from real sushi as DR is from Japan, not worth it. • The protein in the main buffet is meh... I tried different meat and fish, but it was rarely prepared well. Some meat is clearly reheated from previous dinners. Often, there were more bones than meat. Same for fish – stale, occasionally half-raw, tried multiple varieties – hit and miss, some of the worst cooked fish I’ve seen in the Caribbean, and we usually travel to cheaper resorts. • We all got stomach problems, some of us – multiple times. 10 days of diarrhea is not fun, I assure you. I suspect that fruits and salads are not washed well, as we ate a lot of them. • The lineups to the protein section during lunch are epic – I’ve never seen 30-meter lineups in the restaurant before. For some inexplicable reason, the cooks cook very little meat before dinner, starting when crowds arrive. Very poor planning and flow control. If you are not in the restaurant the minute it opens and among the first – you might as well forget about the meat (or settle for hamburgers or cold cuts, which are served separately). If you come 30 min later, good luck finding a table. The mayhem at lunch was my biggest point of contention by far. Interestingly, the dinner is totally different story – the restaurant is half-empty. Since the lunch is packed with locals, I suspect there is some kind of dining special going on for locals, thus they come to lunch in hundreds. • Coffee machine (one) in the buffet. Getting a coffee was an adventure. There is almost always a lineup to a single working (sometimes – not working) coffee machine preparing some powder “coffee-like” substance. Why not just buy a bunch of cheap drip coffee makers and keep the good coffee going? Three hundred dollar investment would have gone a long way in ensuring there is always enough fresh coffee. • Things do walk away sometimes, so lock everything, including hats. • If you want to buy rum at the resort – you are up for sticker shock. The prices for Dominican rum at the stores are higher than in Canada. But hold on to your money – on your way out there is a Duty-Free in the airport with much, much better prices. • The gym. While the gym itself is excellent, they have a stupid policy – no teenagers under 16 are allowed in, even with their parents. The gym was one of the reasons we chose this hotel, my son is 13 and has been visiting a gym in Toronto since 10. He takes his routine seriously, and being kicked out of the gym because he is under 16 was a big letdown and disappointment. Overall – we are happy with our stay and might return to Senator, all the letdowns were not that big of a deal and were far outweighed by the beautiful settings and the ocean. However, we probably won’t be back for another 3 years, until my son is old enough to use their gym.

Riu Palace Punta Cana: Nice Resort

The resort has been renovated to three pools where one pool is full of the usual young drinkers and a fun volleyball pool and one large crowded pool. Summertime is packed and the resort seemed overly crowded. Literally bumping into people trying to get your food. Many choices for food which was nice. However I came down with food poisoning and COVID-19 at this resort. The rooms were not cleaned very well and there was no time in between the previous occupants. A bit of a concern with COVID-1 [... read more]9 being still an issue. Time in- between new guests arriving should still be happening.Cleanings staff left bleach cloth on husbands clothes which discoloured them. Food hygiene needs to be improved too. I saw a raw sushi cart being transported from one of the kitchens to another kitchen in the middle of the day in high heat. These are all ways people can get sick. Raw meat/ seafood should be covered and cooled. Food safety 101. Most of the staff we’re great. Some of the bar staff at the beach bar we’re not overly friendly when we spoke English. Spanish-speaking guests seem to get preference over other guests. But most of staff seemed lovely! Especially front desk Jesus!

Cofresi Palm Beach and Spa Resort: The absolute worst service, Terrible hotel

We had the worst time during our stay! The staff are rude, had no consideration for patrons (my mother) with accessibility issues. We had the worst experience ever and would not return or recommend this hotel to anyone. Our group was over looked many times over the locals visiting on the weekend. Rude comments were made by staff as they didn't realize we spoke and understood Spanish. Tripcentral and Air transat should stop sending Canadaians there everyone on our flight was complaining! They  [... read more]even refused us dinner the day we were leaving, I had to beg for food for my diabetic mother and daughters, absolutely disgusting service

Marien Puerto Plata Hotel: BE LIVE - more like stay alive.

The hotel did look like it’s pictures but there were so many inconsistencies. The hotel we were placed in was an extremely old building with a broken shower handle, broken toilet and an awfully looking mirror. The room did have a smell to it as you enter and it did not look as nice as the pictures you would’ve seen. The ac does leak and when asked for support in this, we were told that we cannot turn the ac of even though it was extremely cold in there. We were given a suggestion that we tri [... read more]ed but the ac continued to leak. We were also not accommodated with late check out even though we had gone with other Canadians who got a new room when asked and was given a late check out. They told us that we could not get a late check out as it gets booked in advance but there are about 9 different building with many rooms in it. The customer service was absolutely frustrating to deal with, the food was mediocre , not all of the a la carte restaurant are opened every night so you don’t get to decide which one to eat, the weekends are absolutely chaos with an overflow of people so there is barely any space in the pool or restaurants. The pros are definitely the staff around the resort (everyone other than the front desk) as they always ensure great service. It was a 3/10 for us

Ocean El Faro: Good resort but beach seaweed blocked access to the beach

Overall, it’s not a luxury hotel but for it’s price, it’s good value. Service was good and many members went above and beyond. Beach was often inaccessible because seaweed was built up to a very high level blocking access. They only used tractors to move it once in a while but would more often leave it untouched OR just have a few workers use small buckets to move it. If this issue was at least addressed to some degree, the resort value would go way up.

Bahia Principe Explore Punta Cana: Nice resort

Bahia Principe is a nice complex of hotels. The grounds are very well kept and there is a good entertainment every day. There are several pools with swim up bars. The beach is wide and cleaned daily. (Because there is lots of seaweed )

Melia Caribe Beach Resort: Amazing!!!

Resort was amazing, lots of greenery. Perfect for kids with the splash island. Good food choices. Just very slow check in and check-out. Staff would follow-up if your request was delivered to your room. Nice pool but have to be early in order to get a good spot for the shady lounge chairs.

Riu Republica: Best part of the trip was the food and staff

Grounds - the grounds were beautiful and very well kept Rooms - the rooms were clean, a little musty day one, but I got used to it after. They were all white so not as interesting as it could be compared to other resorts but no real complaints. Dining - I LOVED the breakfast! I loved it, ten extra pounds later, lol. The food was great the rest of the day too for the most part. Asian and Italian not out favourites, Indian and Steakhouse were our favourites. People - the folks in the dini [... read more]ng area were outstanding! The level of service during our first couple of days was amazing, they paid so much attention so when drinks ran out and plates were empty they were quickly replaced/removed. The last days it wasn’t good, so don’t judge them, service depends on the day I guess. Entertainment - not much in the way of night time entertainment, the Michael Jackson show was fun to watch. We didn’t do the daytime parties Tips: for the first couple of days we got towels no problem. Then it was busier and we didn’t get towels for a couple of days. You have to get towels before bfast to be sure you have one. Covid - wasn’t even a consideration. We come from Canada where about a third of people still where masks all the time. Rarely did people behave in any way with Covid in mind.

El Beso Adults Only at Ocean El Faro: Amazing Resort !!

The resort was amazing in so many aspects. My and my husband went alone with no children. We stayed on the adults only side, only because it was a better deal when we booked our trip. We spent most of our time on the family side but did spend a couple days on the adults only side at the pool. We also really enjoyed the beach. We were very nervous about the beach as we had read a lot of negative reviews about the beach. They were actually giving discounts on the excursions because they stat [... read more]ed the beach was poor and they were trying to compensate for it. We loved the beach. There were so many chairs available any time of the day at the beach and the pools. There was some seaweed and the first couple days were more intense then the rest of the week but the water was still amazing. At around 4-5 pm each day the flag would turn red and you were not suppose to go in the water but it was still so lovely to lay out under the cabanas and watch. The lazy river was amazing !! We took our own tubes after reading reviews and this was a great recommendation. The pools, and grounds were kept very clean. The buffet was amazing !! Every day there was lots of options and they also had lots of gluten free options which was wonderful. We booked a couple of a la cartes and they were great. The booking system at first seemed really stressful but once you had the app and knew how things worked it was actually very easy to get things booked. You just had to book on the day of. There was no reserving things in advance. The reservations opened at 7 am, so as long as you logged on at that time you could get into whichever one you were looking for. The nightly entertainment was okay. A few nights were amazing (magician, 90's show), but a few were disappointing. Amazing theatre to host in though. Our only negative review to post about this resort was the nagging for the premium presentation. They were in the lobby like leaches. It felt like every which way we went they were targeting us. We did find this incredibly annoying. It was the only downfall. Otherwise we had an amazing time. Wish we would have brought our kids as well because it was very family friendly. Also the weather was amazing. Only a couple hours of rain the whole week in the day :)