Vista Sol Punta Cana - mixed review

Grounds were well kept and gardens were well maintained, public areas were a safety concern due to ramps, water, and lighting. Pool areas were nice, beach setting wonderful, several free beach games and water toys available. Swim up bar didn't open at 3 as scheduled and many days did not open at all. Rooms had a musty, moldy odor. Theft from a room safe and and misleading taxi fares and pressure to 'sit through a sales pitch' left us leary of returning. Hair in pool drains. Ugh. Ala car [... read more]te restaurants were OK but not as good as expected. Language barrier between guests and wait staff. Served incorrect entre to guests and didn't know difference between almond cake and crepe suzette? Just wrong. Didn't get the feeling guests were valued. I do not plan to return.

Beautiful Resort

The grounds were very well maintained and all public washrooms were kept very clean and tidy. Our room was well looked after never a problem getting towels or anything else if I needed it and request it, the staff in the buffet worked really hard too look after everyone and kept tables clean. The specialty restaurants could upgrade the food. The wine that they served was terrible and most people didn't drink it I saw a lot of it left on the tables so this should be addressed. The pool areas  [... read more]and the bars were well maintained and the beach area was fabulous. The entertainment was really not very good. Overall it was a nice resort and could be better if they were to get a little better with food and wine. The staff at this resort are nice and friendly and work hard. They deserve and A++.

A wonderful place for a family vacation!

The resort is laid out extremely well with an exceptional beachfront. The staff are very helpful and friendly and provide terrific service from the bartenders to the dining room staff and housekeeping staff and the folks responsible for arranging the daily activities and everyone in between. The rooms are spacious and well kept. The variety, freshness and quality of the food served for meals in the dining room is top notch. Our family, including our two grandchildren, 9 and 13, had one of t [... read more]he best experiences you could ask for on a family vacation. The Foam Party in the pool was fantastic! Wish to thank all the folks at Vista Sol for making this one of the best vacations we have ever enjoyed. Special thanks to Robyn Murray at Trip Central Dartmouth who helped us make it all possible.

Dominican Vista Sol Review from a Cuba Fan: A Honest Review & Comparison

Typically my husband and myself with a medium to large group hale the island of Cuba for our winter getaway and pick a different resort every year. We have visited various resorts in Cayo Coco, Holguin and one in Santa Clara. For the 2017 holiday, six of us (three couples) decided to try the Dominican, more specifically, the Vista Sol Punta Cana as this resort was very reasonably priced as compared to other ones in Punta Cana. We flew out of Waterloo Regional Airport (the name is larger than  [... read more]the airport-lol) as we live locally. Sunwing flys to Punta Cana on Thursdays from this airport - a tad inconvenient choice of day but SO close and wonderful to bypass Toronto airport hassles. Big Bonus especially when you arrive back home. After at two hour delay (it was a connector from Sudbury) we were finally boarded on our plane and off we went. Smooth flight and arrival to a very beautiful thatched roof Punta Cana airport. A tad disorganized flight as Sunwing was without the proper papers aboard to go through Punta Cana arrival so it was a scramble once we got inside to get a form, a pen and either table of floor space to sit and fill them out. Typical cattle line to get through, pay arrival tax ($10US) and out the other end.(Quick note: It is a $20US departure tax when you leave for home).1st cold beer and shuttle to resort within 20 minutes - awesome. To continue re the airport (jumping ahead to our return home), we were in a 2 hour line just to check our luggage, by the time we got through everything else we were boarding our plane for home. Beautiful airport but Sunwing very non-efficient and disorganised to have three flights trying to leave at the same time. Give me Cuba - funny little airports, but far more efficient. Arrival rather unshattering (no greet drink or "welcome" - this is the 1st thing we noticed not the same as Cuba arrivals). Went through reception quickly, no smiles or greetings at all. Don't get me wrong, I am not needy or a critical person, it just felt kinda "blah". Three swim-up rooms booked for each of our party (3 couples), one room not available for our friends so they were to come back next day to change. This can happen, but no apology for any inconvenience given. Rooms were great, love the pool right by our stone patio. Each side of the patio space had somewhat spanish inspired stucco divider wall with large planted green palm. Very nice.Were they any better than Cuban rooms? - I would say they were same caliber as 4 star Cuban but the pool proximity put it over the top. (By the way, its $10US for the safe key). Dont know about you, but we go south in the winter for the beach as the number one priority. This did not disappoint. A walk down really lovely maintained grounds landed you right onto the sand. Continue walking by the activity areas (volleyball, darts, bocchi ball etc) placed in and around 40ft tall palms for the next 100 ft when finally, 'cleared' to waters edge. Very tropical feel however, when seeking full sun took a few moves in the afternoon as these palms cast dappled shadows everywhere. My preference? - palapas, then sun and shade seekers can still sit together. My best reference in Cuban experience would be the lovely super wide beach with palapas and the odd beach tree at the Rio de Lunas Y Mares in Holguin. One of the best beaches on the island. Also (back to the Vista Sol), only a short walk at the oceans edge in to a ridge of sand and then it went deeply down to mid chest. We are used to Cuban shallow entry with clear view of the bottom so you can sit on a dune or in shallow waters. My preference is a typical Cuban entry. Ok, now for the vendors. NOT used to this - the hotel commissions staff to wander among the beach bathers to sell excursions (this is fine) BUT the locals do it too although they have to adhere to closer to the waters edge but it is constant. As expected then, when you wander to the left of this resort (facing the ocean) you are harranged by locals every minute as we walked to buy from their beach shops which are pretty much on the waters edge and they look it as they are eroded and crumbled for the most part. This would actually make a neat painting for colours, shapes and cultural visual purposes, but not what I want on a vacay beach stroll. None of this happens anywhere in Cuba. Bottom line - prefer Cuban beach over Dominican beach. We went to the main pool to check out the Animacion games, always fun at the end of a beach day. Lots of sun there as the palm shadows were long at beach (sun sets behind the resort, not on the ocean horizon)They had one activity that took almost an hour so we were not impressed even though one of our friends was in it (he always does this everywhere - a really good sport) Even he decided just to get up and leave. So we did not return to this pool again, after all we had our own back at the rooms with a lovely bar!The pool bars close at 6:00 including the bar where the swim up rooms are but the bartender would not serve my husband at 5:45 as she had closed everything. She told us to go elsewhere and even rolled her eyes. There's a word for her and it starts with a "b". We actually witnessed her pouring jugs of beer for the workers who stopped by her bar and discreetly put in their wheelbarrows only to return again. Nice job if you can get it but treat your patrons with respect please.Again I refer to the attitude and level of service from the staff as being below par. We encountered this also with our room service. We tipped our maid $20 US the 1st morning to ensure good service with a good tip for the week? Well, that day, this worked well as we got plenty of bottled water, pouches of coffee for the coffee maker and 6 beers in the fridge. "Awesome", we said, but the room was not cleaned for the next two days. Honestly, we felt ripped off and a little silly for tipping at all. Again - NOT an experience in Cuba. Our friends did not get a swim up room (remember them, no room as booked the 1st day so they had to come back the next morning) so they were placed in an oceanview room at no extra charge so that was actually really great for them. Our other friends (in the swim up rooms) had a large leak from their bathroom ceiling for three days in a row, maintenance came to fix it quickly each day, but it was not fixed properly so they went to the reception on the third night and had management come out to their room and all agreed that this was not good and promised a new room in the morning. Next day, you know it, no room available BUT they too were reassigned to an oceanview room with our other friends. On we go. Our toilet stopped working and finally got a maintenance guy with a plunger 6 hours later. Actually it was pretty funny trying to get someone to understand the issue. I had a Spanish-English pocket dictionary, finally found the word and went running in my PJs along the pool edge at 8:00 am chasing the senorita with the clipboard. A few hand gestures later, everyone understood and had a good laugh. Food - FABULOUS! I have a few food allergy issues and ate extremely well as did everyone else. The buffet wasn't huge but the open layout was very nice and the food choices were great. The food is far better than Cuban fare for sure. It is pretty much self serve for drinks (coffee/expresso automated machines that also gave you choices of tea) but I gotta say, their house wines were pretty nasty. So what our friends did was buy a few inexpensive bottles from one of the resort stores and drank that instead.) There is also a cigar and gift shop on premisis with typical fare. We also went to the Italian a la Carte. This was delicious! Our four friends also went to the Mexican and thoroughtly enjoyed it too. A Plus. Entertainment was lacking. No lobby entertainment and I really like that in Cuba. A typical one of our days is a little breakfast, into suits, hit the beach all day, a little poolside at 4:00, back to the room, shower and then go to Lobby for drinks and entertainment before the buffet. Sadly missing. The whole "festive island" feel was missing for us. Excursions? Normally we don't bother but four of us bought the doon buggy excursion from one of the hotel reps on the beach and bargained it down $20US. If you don't ask, you don't get and always worth a try. We did this on pretty much a monsoon rain day and it was hilarious!! Covered in splattered mud, I mean, what can you do but just give into it and enjoy? Visited a beautiful ocean beach (couldn't swim as bad undertoe in storm) and a 30ft deep swimming hole 30ft down in a cave - very cool. We returned to the resort and walked through the lobby with lots of questioning looks like, "what the heck happened to you?" Actually a phenominal day. It rained for the next two days which was unfortunate but what can you do? Last day and the sun came out which was so beautiful. Attended a foam party in the pool (Wednesday late afternoons) which was really fun, we had a blast. Im done, hope this helps a bit. Our consensus as a group of six (three couples) was back to Cuba. Maybe spend the same money ($1500US each) and go to a higher end Cuban resort for next round. The people and beaches far outweigh the amenities and the food for me. As far as the Domincan goes, this was just our first trip there, I do understand that spending more money would likely make a difference. Was this resort good value, yeah, I think so for this island but as a comparison to most Canadians other island destination, I prefer Cuba. I hope it remains as it is even with the current allowable entrance of our neighbours south of the 49th parallel. Have a great holiday wherever you go!!!

Very good Resort

The grounds at this Resort was well maintained and very tidy. The public areas was keep cleaned daily by the Staff. Room was a bit dated and there was problems upon arrival with our patio door lock broken, toilet didn't flush properly and musty smell. We reported this to the front desk, they fixed the items right away and put the ventilation system on which fixed the musty smell, they offered to give us another room the next day but we declined as they had fixed the items. We enjoyed the pool b [... read more]eing so close to our Room. The nightly entertainment started too late 10:00 - 11:00pm. Food at buffet was very good with different various dishes daily and the Gourmet Restaurant was great . Bring your face cloths, Resort uses hand towels fro face cloths.

Beautiful hotel and beach!

This was honestly one of the most beautiful resorts I have been to. The grounds were so amazing and the beach and ocean were perfect! The food was delicious and so many choices. Did the Italian and Mexican a la carte and both were great. I did have to upgrade my wine 🍷 but no complaints. I would definitely return to this resort!

A little disappointed

I should of stayed home.-Right now im covered with about 50 some sand flea bites-very itchy, big red welts my legs are a mess, not the way I wanted to come home. The 1st 3 days no hot water-they said afterword that this happens on the 4th floor-no facecloths and the same food every day,,,,,,,

Great beach location.

This resort has lovely kept grounds, and very clean rooms. The food was mediocre,and the Gourmet restaurant had a very limited menu. The nightly entertainment could be improved. The beach was excellent and well kept.

Awesome!

The rooms were nice and. Very clean. We had a swim up room which was a new and pleasant experience for us. Foodd was good. They have a buffet and 3 alacarte restaurants (Gourmet, Italian & Mexican) 3 pools and beach were nice and always clean. Hotel staff efficient and friendly

Good holiday for the value

This was our first visit to the Dominican Republic. We chose this resort for it's size and beach location. The best part of the resort for us was the beach (shade, dappled shade or full sun spots available). Most chaise lounges were clean and comfortable. We felt the staff in buffets could have been more hospitable. We found ourselves getting our own cutlery and sitting at tables that were not cleaned! A la carte meals were our best meals (Gourmet was the best!). The resort was not too busy due  [... read more]to it being off-season. Our room was turned down each day that we asked for that to be done and two 1.5 litre bottles of water were delivered to our bar fridge each day. We were happy with our maid service. Our room was a swim-up room in Building # 18. Which has NOT been renovated yet. The air conditioning unit (?) dripped through the bathroom ceiling throughout our entire stay. Black mold was beginning to grow in some of the tile crevices...a reno is definitely needed in that building. Also, a couple of our light fixtures did not work. It was clear that these items would not repaired. Someone came to look at the issues but no action was taken during our stay. The main pool was closed during our stay for a scheduled (?) maintenance period of one month! Another building of rooms was also closed for renovations during our stay. We found the on-site vacation sales men to be friendly but also pushy. When we walked the beach we were haggled every time by the local people selling their wares. This was a big downside for us. We understood that they need to make a living but some of them were very pushy and aggressive. Resort security was very good - good presence. Our SunWing representative, Julien, was excellent. His English was very good and he was very helpful at answering our questions and helping us to book an excursion to swim with dolphins. We would recommend this hotel as a value hotel. There is some "do it yourself" required with this all-inclusive! We would rate it at 3 to 3.5 stars.

Good resort

The grounds are really nicely maintained. They are currently going through renovations and from the two weeks we were there, I can see some improvement already. The rooms are a little outdated but fine. The washrooms need to be updated more. Cleaning service was average. Reception service is a hit and miss. They should get more people at the service desk. The Sunwing reps are fine however there were delays on the flight and they saw us waiting so the should have advised us earlier. The [... read more]y advised not to book escursions outside of Sunwing/Nexus but you can find cheaper prices for the same value pretty much with the guys coming around. I would recommend Antonio or Kevin. They were great. The trip to Saona was awesome and $30 cheaper than what Sunwing was offering and it was more intimate then a huge group. The food is really good. You always something to get. They try to really provide a variety. The service on the other hand does need improvement. They don't seem to enjoy their jobs. The Mexican and italian restaurant had the best service. Improvement in the service of Gourmet restaurant needs improvement as we waited approximately and hour just to get a drink the first time we went. The second time was a bit better. Basically they need more staff. The restaurants are not air conditioned, with the exception of the gourmet restaurant. Would be nice if they are closed doors to get some relief from the heat. At the buffet restaurant. You have to get your own drinks. At first it was odd as I have never seen this at an all inclusive but it worked out fine. They always have lots of beverages to choose from. They always restock bottle of water in your fridge and it is nice and cold. The beach was nice. There is some seaweed at this time but they do attempt to clean some of it on the daily basis and from walking along the beach in the area, this one was in best shape. The shows were average. Some better then others. The circus, Michael Jackson and international dancing shows were the best. The comedy and some other shows were quite lame. I enjoyed their beach parties on Saturday's. Overall our vacation was good. There is plenty of shade and chairs at the beach. If you are looking to relax and have some fun and are not too fussy with the service, then this place is right for you. Good value for the price.

Excellent Resort!

The resort is laid out in blocks, and there are 3 pools, each close to your block. The main pool has the swim up bar. We had a foam party in the pool one afternoon. The food is good, large variety of cold food, salads hot food, pizza, pasta and lots of desserts! Staff are constantly cleaning the resort. We liked the "sports bar", which was close to the beach. That was nice because you didn't have to walk through the entire resort to grab some food. It is intended for people laying on the beach,  [... read more]and you pour your own beer on draft! I believe there are 7 bars overall. Nightly entertainment is good. There is a charge for the beach towel, but it is refunded when you return the towel. Rooms are clean, they are in the process of updating. Overall, excellent vacation!

Great solid trip!

This resort was affordable, clean and very good for the price. Staff were friendly. The grounds were beautiful, beach was stunning! There was plenty of shade with many trees on the beach and plenty of beach chairs despite it being march break. Beach was perfect for long morning walks. The entertainment crew was always on the go. We really enjoyed the stretch classes, merengue classes on the beach. Carlos was the best! They work so hard. Food was good, there was always something that pleased. It  [... read more]was hit and miss but we never have crazy high expectations - overall good. Drinks were great, beer was cold and delicious. Rooms were clean, some were more updated than others however the did the trick. We didn't use the pools but they were always busy. Overall, for the price and the beach we would return! Thanks to the Vista Sol.

Vista Sol Punta Cana was a great resort

No idea why people put negative reviews for this resort. We have stayed at a number of Punta Cana resorts since 2004 and the Vista Sol is just a good if not better than most. Yes the food can be repetitive, but booking the Al-a carts helps break up the food monotony. We upgraded to the Superior Room and it was very modern with all amenities working. The staff were very friendly and most could speak some English. Overall the Vista Sol is a great 4 star resort for couples, families and groups.

VERY POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE

Most of the Staff there did NOT speak English, and only smiled or said HI after I did. The food wasnt that good, and the pools closed at 6 pm. The Security Staff were supposed to keep vendors away from us, but they were too lazy to do so. The General Manager is unprofessional and a liar. The music at the resort is instrumental, on a one hour loop, and is painful to listen to. The customer service is poor, and was our room amenities. However, our view from the room was awesome.

Great resort

It's a very nice resort. All common area including bathrooms always clean. Food was average. Not much waiter service in Buffet ! Walkways on grounds are oddly laid out. Swim up Rooms very nice. Cheers!

Stress free

This hotel allows u to relax. All services were available and people were helpful. The transfers from airport,malls and casino were all on time and close by. Plenty of bars and pools all close to your room. Food was always available, fresh and good. Many coffee machines making good and different types of coffee. The beach is naturally shaded with no problem getting a chair. Very clean resort.

Great resort!

I recently travelled with a friend to Vista Sol. It's close to the airport, so you don't have to travel long. Resort was clean, every room has a balcony, large rooms with good sized bathrooms and showers, lots of bottled water available and replenished daily, the staff were pleasant, patient and friendly and it's located right on the beach. Three pools and large expanse of available beach - and beach lounge chairs, meant there were options no matter what your preference. Our room was on the firs [... read more]t floor, facing the main pool and hotel lobby. We thought it would be loud so requested a switch, we ended up staying in the room as noise levels weren't a problem and it was kinda nice to be in a central location. This resort had the feeling of a small boutique hotel, but is actually a pretty large resort. We enjoyed the food - especially in the buffet, but all the restaurants served good, if not delicious meals.

Very Lovely resort, grounds are kept very nice.

This hotel is very nice, grounds are lovely, beach was beautiful, although when we were there, the ocean was very rough and because of arthritis I could not go in the rough water. The room (7101) was beautiful, although we did have trouble with shower, it only had a 1/2 door and water went all over the floor. The food was acceptable, I did not have a problem finding something to eat. The public washrooms in the lobby and on the beach were always kept very clean. The ala carte' restaurants were v [... read more]ery good, my travel partner didn't like any of hers, but I found mine choices acceptable. The wine in the Gourmet Restaurant was the best! The pools were kept very clean, bartenders were happy and always available. Activities were plentiful however I did not get involved in many, I watched. The evening entertainment was good. I wish they would do the childrens part at 8 pm and the adult at 9 pm. They start it at 10 pm and it is just too late after being out in the sun most of the day.

Beautiful small resort

Loved this resort, was small enough that you weren't walking all day to get anywhere. There were lots of different bars to choose from during the day. Grounds were stunning, always someone working on them. Stayed in a swim up room which I'd highly recommend! Food was ok, can't see anyone going hungry as there was plenty to choose from. Beach was amazing! I would definitely return.