Bahia Principe Escape Runaway Bay: Great, but with flaws

The resort is beautiful, clean and well kept. The beach is great for small children, but not so much for adults who like to actually swim, as there is really no water above waist height, and the nude beach, which does have deeper water, is very rocky. The food was good, and all but one al a carte were excellent with one exception when we waited over 1 1/4 hours for mediocre food. Entertainment is low-key - not the big shows you get at some resorts. We stayed on the "luxury side" and found th [... read more]e adult pool on the other side more quiet and less crowded. One thing we didn't like was how big the resort was and they way it was laid out - the buildings were very confusing to navigate, and because the resort was so big, and spread out so far along the beach, there was a lot of walking to get anywhere and it was very easy to get lost if you wanted to get to the lobby or the shops. We have stayed at Bahai Ambar, and Esmarelda in the DR and they were way better. The problems meant you didn't get a 5 pus star experience for a 5 star plus price. There were some big problems. We were on the 7th floor and the elevators broke down EVERY DAY. One day there was no water, and the toilets did not flush as a result. Not pretty. The restaurant by the water on the luxury side never had what it needed - always something missing at the table (salt or cups or spoons or napkins) and they were regularly out of items at the buffet - plates, bowls, etc. and service was very disorganized. One person brought water, another coffee, another something else, and they never "got it together". You might get coffee but no water, or wait 20 minutes for coffee and then have 2 people bring it. Really - let me pour it myself and i would have been much happier. Also the bar service was poor - one small pool bar and you had to line up with a lot of noisy people just to get a pop or juice - we don't drink - and it was a long wait while special mixed drinks were prepared for groups. The main dining room Jazmin was great without any of the other problems.

Bahia Principe Grand San Juan: Not what I expected

I felt miss lead on this vacation. Was told we would have king size bed, didn't have one, was told safe in all rooms. Yes, there is put it is an additional cost and a key lock not a touch code. Even when I purchased the key to our room safe, I was told by the front desk staff they could not guarantee me somebody else (the staff) couldn't get into the safe. Not as friendly staff as I have experienced from this chain of resorts . Older resort needs some upgrading.

Bahia Principe Explore Akumal: good resort

Hotel is good, food is great ! Beach is great! swimming area in ocean could be better. standard rooms or even superior rooms are average . Recommended to have the superior deluxe upgrade and pay the extra. The pool water could have been warmer. We were there in February 2017.

Bahia Principe Escape Ambar: Just an "Ok" resort

We actually stayed at the Ambar Green, not the Ambar Blue. It was just OK and, while we won't return to that resort, we will give Punta Cana another try at some point. I certainly don't feel it is a "Luxury 5 Star" resort. I realize the star rating is based on the country where the resort is located but there are certain basic things I would expect from any resort, not just a 5 star resort. I would rate it 3.5 stars. The good: 1. Staff are really friendly and helpful 2. The grounds ar [... read more]e beautiful 3. Pools are very clean 4. Rooms are clean 5. Lots of variety in the buffets and presentation was good 6. Trolley system is good for getting around Some areas for improvement: 1. The bed is the equivalent of sleeping on the floor. It is hard as a rock and has no give whatsoever. After the second night I was seriously considering moving to a different resort because of the bed. No sleep and sore back and shoulders upon getting up in the morning. I asked if there was anything they could do and they brought us another mattress...slightly softer than the first but enough that I could actually get some sleep. 2. Food in the buffets was lukewarm at best, mostly it was cold...every meal. We tried the buffet at the Ambar Blue and it was the same. One morning we were waiting for the buffet to open for breakfast. We were the first ones there and the pancakes were cold. I consider hot food to be an essential for any resort, not just 5 star. 3. Maid service is inconsistent. The rooms were clean but the time the maid showed up every day was very inconsistent. It was anywhere from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. One day she showed up at 5:00 pm to clean and the next morning she was knocking on the door at 9:00 am. Showing up at 5:00 is very inconvenient as we had just gotten back to our room from being at the pool all day and were trying to shower and get ready for dinner. I would consider consistent maid service to be an essential for any resort, not just 5 star. 4. Every day there was something missing from the cleaning. We had no facecloths for the entire seven days (had 1 the first day), another day we were missing hand towels, another day missing the bath mat. Mini bar was restocked for 4 days, last 2 days it was not. One day they randomly knocked on our door, came in and took the drinking glasses from our room and they weren't even dirty. The next day the glasses reappeared outside our door on the floor. A checklist of what to do and leave behind for maid service is essential for any resort, not just a 5 star. 5. There needs to be more shade available around the pool. The pool we used had 3 umbrellas so we were never able to get out of the sun. 6. Our tv had no English channels but yet our friends 2 doors over had a few English channels one of which was CNN. One last item and I don't know if it is the area or the resort but mosquitoes were very plentiful. I have never come back from a vacation in the Caribbean with my legs covered in mosquito bites, my husband has even more than me. Every night we would go listen to music somewhere with our can of Off with us and we still have a lot of bites. I think we were in the older part of the resort. The pictures on the website show a nice walk-in shower while ours was a drop-in tub with a shower with tile all around it. It was quite a step to get in and out of the shower. I was on vacation so I didn't let the negatives ruin it for me. The temperature of the food and the mosquitoes are the main reason I would not return to this resort. Other items are just annoying more than anything else.

Bahia Principe Explore Jamaica: Very very impressed with everything that they had to offer

I would definitely go back, the food was fantastic the entertainment was fantastic the waitresses at cleaners the bartender's everybody was simply amazing. The beach was so clean and beautiful I loved the village ,the entertainment in the evening they had.. I love me excursions they where fantastic it was the best trip ever.

Bahia Principe Grand San Juan: Very nice resort but poor snorkelling at the beach

The resort is very nice and the staff are very friendly! The food is fresh and tasty! The bus ride is a bit longer from the airport (1.5 hours) but you get to see the real life of Dominicans thru the small towns on the way to the resort! The resort itself is quite big, you have to walk a lot! The beach is a long one but the sand is not white and fine like Cuba's. There is no fish to see when you snorkel in the beach area! You have to join the excursion to enjoy better snorkelling! If the reso [... read more]rt had a better beach, I would give it a solid 4 stars. Nevertheless, we had a good time during our stay!

Cayo Levantado Resort: Fantastic, peaceful, beautiful ahhhh love this resort

This resort is simply lovely right from the moment you pull up on the ferry. Think Fantasy Island. It is located on its own island and away from all the noise and hub other resorts have. The entire resort is beautiful and so well maintained. There are small touches all over the resort from flowers, to landscaping, to romantic Jacuzzi tubs they set up with rose petals and candles, to the greeters in all the restaurants where they always have greeting drinks and somebody giving you a squir [... read more]t of hand sanitizer. The food is fantastic. They mix it up well at the buffet. I enjoyed the ala carte restaurants. Also although this resort is spread out, it is very much wheelchair accessible. they have a shuttle that runs all day - very convenient . But if you like to walk as I do, I enjoyed walking all over the resort. They even have this awesome water chair that allows an individual with mobility issues to enjoy the beach and ocean. Speaking of the beach, this is also wonderful. You actually can enjoy both sunrise and sun set the way the land naturally is. There is ample space everywhere and you feel like you are on your own little resort on your own little island. Chairs are always available. Well done. I can't say enough great things about this resort

Bahia Principe Escape Sian Ka'an: Great Resort

The Sian Ka'an needs a gym facility on the premise...the closest one is at the Coba a 20minutes walk from the Sian Ka'an. The rooms needs updating ie better storage for closes (no dressers). The staff provides really good service and the quality of the food for a resort is exceptional. The grounds are very lush and well kept.

Cayo Levantado Resort: Almost perfect

Beautiful place. Great attention to detail. Scrupulously clean and well-stocked. Friendly, attentive staff. Very good food: fresh, abundant, beautifully presented, excellent variety. Gorgeous beaches.

Bahia Principe Grand San Juan: Wonderful Bacation!

We really enjoyed the hotel. We thought the rooms were fine and liked the cathedral ceilings and balconies off the rooms. We enjoyed walking the long beach and loved the tradewinds keeping the heat very tolerable. The food was fairly good and lots of variety. We enjoyed the evening performances. The staff were very friendly and helpful and polite and hard working. The ocean water wasn't as clear as we expected and was not great for snorkelling etc.. We were disappointed that there was very poor  [... read more]free wifi connections and as a matter of fact we were unable to connect to the wifi all week. The mini bar in our room was not refilled every day as promised. The sports facilities were adequate but not great. The pool areas were lovely and we liked the open concept layout of the main building. Overall we were very pleased and enjoyed our relaxing vacation.

Bahia Principe Explore Akumal: Great place!

Akumal! Very clean and staff is very attentive to the property and they take real good care of you in the buffet area. Meals are pretty good with lots of choices! We only had what we would consider one bad meal at the Oasis restaurant. It was supposed to be a la carte and we ended up having to use the food bar for the entrees. And.... the food was dry and not that hot. I think they just warmed up the dishes they served us. The free Shopping trip to city was not very pleasant. Transat told us it [... read more] was a four trip that turned into 6 hours, half of which was travel time in a van as they had so many pickups and drop offs. Very unpleasant to say the least! Our only other complaint is that there is no noise control at the (Infinity) adult pool area. I had to encourage people to turn down their portable music at the pool areas. I was not the only one to complain to those responsible. We went there to relax and not have music blaring. At one point we could not hear ourselves talk.

Bahia Principe Grand San Juan: Ok Resort

The Hotel is a little dated but overall it's very clean. The food at the buffet is ok. Many days there were empty bins of food and very slow to bring out more. The biggest issue is the safes are not electronic but a key lock they they said others could have access to that same key. Plus you have to pay 4 dollars a day for it. Funny.....I didn't see that info anywhere on any website. Most of us on the trip did not pay to use it and had to keep our personal items with us all day. Free wifi in t [... read more]he lobby is horrible!

Bahia Principe Explore Tulum: Great vacation

All the facilities were kept in immaculate shape . The entire staff seemed to work constantly at keeping everything in great condition. The food at the resort was very good . Only shortfall for us was the beach, it was to shallow and rocky in most places . The break wall did a good job of keeping back the sea but it made the beach short and narrow . A good beach for people with small children but not good for swimming. The staff was excellent and very helpful.

Bahia Principe Explore Jamaica: Beautiful but!!

This resort is absolutely beautiful.the rooms,view,grounds,beach is amazing.but,the tv and hairdryer did not work in my sons room.he was moved to a different room because we booked king bed rooms and he was given a room with 2 double beds.in our room the toilet ran continuously.we phoned 3 times about the toilet.it ran all day and all night.all week.asked for an extension cord for my husbands cpat breathing machine.it took 4 phone calls,2 nights and then we had to go y the front desk to try to g [... read more]et one.he could stop breathing without it.the a la cart restaurants were really good.beautiful place but please fix things that are broken

Bahia Principe Grand San Juan: Fair Resort - starting to show its age.

Food was terrific, staff was very friendly but not very many beach activities i.e. para sailing etc. Beach was not as well kept as I expected. Seaweed problem with no white sand beach as we were lead to believe. We had to pay extra if we wanted a lock for the safe.

Bahia Principe Explore Tulum: Amazing resort!

Beautiful white sandy beach, lots of variety for dining, rooms were clean, friendly and engaging staff wherever we went...good value for the travel dollar ...only drawback is the long drive from the airport (over 90mins) ... Also thanks to Rachel for all her help with our booking!

Bahia Principe Escape Bouganville: Excellent resort

Grounds immaculate....Las Corrales best a la carte restaurant....buffet is great for breakfast lunch and dinner....always great service also.....the concierge service was not comparable to last year....never even met one....last year Miguel would come to us everyday to make sure everything was as we wanted

Bahia Principe Escape Runaway Bay: A not so great vacation

Booking through trip central started off easy but when I never received my travel documents that was the issue. The travel agent was not helpful and kept sending me documents I could no open. After asking him to send the documents to another email, the email was not received and he told me that he didn't know what else to do. No offence but that's your job. I had to figure out my booking numbers and such on my own to get my travel documents. Would not use trip central again. As for the vacati [... read more]on itself. Transfer to the hotel was good and efficient. We arrived around 3:30 and were told our room wasn't ready. Check in was at 3pm. So staff were left scrambling to find something to do with us as the rest of the bus load of people. We were taken to a buffet on the Grand side with a cart. The butler told us to ask a security guard to call the front desk to have them bring the cart back to get us. Once finished our lunch we search high and low for a security guard but no luck. We ended up walking 20 minutes (without knowing where to go) back to the luxury lobby in our clothes and backpacks. Once we got to our room, we had a nice clean room with a terrific view. The fridges are stocked with water,pop and beer. However house keeping is a mess. We did have our sign on our door saying not to clean on the second day. We thought there was no need since we got to our room so late. But that's when the problems started. The third day house keeping didn't come. The fourth day they came at 530pm and had no towels to give us. On the 5th day we finally got towels- this is the 5th day of vacation! We had used beach towels in lieu of bath towels because we never got any! But on the last day house keeping was so very keen to get us out and showed up at 8:30 to ask us to leave. No thanks!!! Other problems include false advertising. My boyfriend is into jet skiing and their website advertised them. We got different stories from the staff about why they didn't have them, but none the less they didn't have any. Also, money talks here. Don't count on getting a drink easy if you don't have a stack of cash in your hand. At this hotel you pay to get service which I find awful. I tip for good service and I didn't feel the service was great here. We booked an excursion through the hotel. It was easy to book but the issue lies with the transportation. We booked at ATV tour at YAMAN camp. We took a bus with 6 other people from different hotels and these other individuals were staying the whole day there, we were only doing one tour. Once our tour was done we were told we had to wait nearly 3 hours for a ride back. Really?? We weren't told this and we didn't want to waste a whole day. YAMAN found an alternative arrangement for us which was super kind and helpful. The food at this resort is good. We actually preferred the buffets over the a la cartes. We did three a la cartes. Our favourite was Picasso. Best service and food. At Takara the starters were great but we ended up waiting over an hour later until getting our mains. Other couples were leaving before getting their dinners. The last a la carte was Las Olas. Food was good here but we never got our beers after repeatedly asking. The beach is small but decent. Don't expect to swim. The issues are with the cabanas. You have to wake up by 6am to reserve one (no joke). We also watched people pay staff to reserve them and watched cabanas go unused while being reserved. I felt bad watching guests walk around endlessly looking for a spot while there were reserved unused cabanas. Also guests from the Grand side come over and use the Luxury side cabanas. The best part of the trip was a catamaran with Chukka tours. Snorkelling, duns river, dinner and a party ride back. We really enjoyed this!

Bahia Principe Explore Punta Cana: Average to Good Resort

In our opinion (myself and my two sisters), we thought the hotel grounds were very clean. The pools seemed very clean. We only swam one late afternoon in the pool next to the ocean because we had returned late from an excursion. The pool was warm and clean. Our room was located next to the ocean which was a plus for us. The transportation at the hotel (shuttle train) was good for us as one sister has a walking disability. The room was clean. The main issue we had in our hotel room was the [... read more] safe as the instructions were not very clear. We had to get someone to come twice to help us out. There were other small issues but we were able to resolve them without too much delays like we had two towels rather than three as we were three in the room, the coffee machine wasn't working but we were given a new one. We kept on asking for an additional coffee cup and saucer for our afternoon coffee but that never happened so we had to take the matter into our own hands and get one from the buffet. When we arrived at the resort on our first day, we were given a photocopy of the resort map which I thought was not very professional considering the amount we paid for this holiday. We were able to get a coloured map half way through our holiday only to find out on our last day that, at the guest's office where you do your flight check-in, there were plenty on the desk. Everyone should be given a coloured map of the resort regardless the resort you are staying at. I found that to be poor judgment on the part of the hotel management. The wine at the buffet was not very good. Its like it was watered down but the wine at the specialty restaurants was good. The drinks at the bars were OK but not exceptional. We would have liked Presidente beer in our fridge in our room instead of Coors Lite. We have Coors Lite at home but not Presidente as it is their local beer. The food at the specialty restaurants (Mexican, Japanese and Mediteranean) was excellent. The food at the buffet for breakfast was very good but the buffet for supper was not very good. We did not like the food all that much for supper. It was average but no more than that. At Italian night at the buffet, there was no more tomato sauce, no more mushrooms and no more tomatoes at 8:00 pm and there were not making any more even though the buffet was opened for another two hours. If you have Italian night, you should have a lot of already prepared platters to choose from. I only find lasagna and that was good. There was not a lot of choices to choose from at the buffet considering it was Italian night. I would have expected more choices. We booked two excursions through our airline representative and that was very good. We would recommend them to anybody (Runners and Marinarium). That was a lot of fun especially swimming with the sharks and visiting the Dominican people in the country. The Dominican people are very nice and courteous people. They spoke our language and we practiced our Spanish with them as we speak French, English and some Spanish. We had great weather and always found chairs at the beach. The beach was a definite 5/5. What was missing at this resort was animals, like Flamingos, peacock, birds, turtles, ponds with fish,etc. including cats. The two cats we saw at this resort did not look all that healthy. I have seen cats at other resorts where they looked much healthier and the hotel staff confirmed they were fed daily. Not sure about these two cats. That really bothered us. All in all, we were glad we went but we would have to think again before booking at a Bahia Principe resort in the future.

Bahia Principe Explore Esmeralda: Relaxing Resort

Wonderful,resort for a week of R&R, gorgeous grounds, beautiful beach you can walk for miles. Lots of activities if you choose to do so or you can simply read a great book under a palapa on the beach.