3rd time was definitely not lucky

This is my third time visiting this property and I really hate giving it a 3 star because it used to be such a great resort. I am a very fair reviewer but things have changed here and not for the better. 8 girlfriends went down to celebrate turning 60 and I chose this property because most of us had been here before. Pros 1) The staff are so very kind and helpful. They do their very best to get you up and moving so you engage with your fellow travelers. They also do their best to entertain y [... read more]ou. They work so hard cleaning the tired rooms and in the restaurants. 2) The food is good when you can get it. All 3 a la carts were very good. 3) Check in - quick and painless and they did their very best to accommodate all 8 of us. 4) The weather is almost always perfect in Puerto Plata 5) Plenty of shade at the beach between the palapas and the trees. 6) Great air conditioning, hot water and shower power in the rooms. Cons: 1) Shame on you for using those single-use, small 6 ounce plastic cups and straws. We spent the whole week picking them out of the ocean, off the beach and out of the pool. You didn't have enough staff to walk around and clean them up from the pool area so we did it for you. The whole world is eliminating single use plastic and you started using it! What's wrong with the acrylic glasses that get hundreds of uses? What the heck is wrong with you guys!!??! 2) I realize that it's off-season, but you don't have enough staff to serve your customers in the buffet. Every morning for 7 days I had to go find a server to get a cup of tea. In the evening we almost never got asked if we wanted drinks. We always had to hunt for a server. You kept running out of things on the buffet and we either had to wait around or chose something we didn't like in order to eat. 3) Your tired, old chairs at the beach and at the pool are still in use from 3 years ago when I last visited. They are frayed and busted and are quite shameful. I suggested you invest in new loungers in that review but you chose not to. 4) Your rooms, while comfortable enough are old and tired and are in dire need of an upgrade. 5) Your WIFI, while free one hour per day around the pool and in the lobby, did not work even one day. They only way someone can get any useful WIFI is by buying it for $12 or $25 USD. If someone is keeping in contact with their office while on vacation, I suggest going to a different property. As I said, it makes me sad that you're not keeping up with the times. You've become irrelevant. We pay for WIFI at Be Live, we pay for safes at Be LIve, you use low grade liquor at Be Live - yes, everyone noticed that you don't use the real stuff. And you don't care about the environment. I always give good reviews but I just cannot this time. I'm so sorry because Spaghetti, Mosquito, Rafael and all the others deserve more from you.

Beautiful Beach

Grounds were very well kept but the rooms were a bit dated but kept clean. Very nice sandy beach and ocean had a very sandy bottom. The food on the buffet was ok and the services was slow but food and service was much better at the a la carte. The resort need to switch drink glasses to re-useable plastic as the disposable cups and straws produce so much garbage.. No need to use straws as you find a lot of straws on the beach.

Ok

This was my 3rd stay at his resort. I Felt it is really showing its age. The rooms had lots of small problems. No plugs. We had to plug our coffee maker in ian outlet in the bathroom. The shower door did not operate properly nor the closet door and our patio door did not lock. The line ups the first weekend we were there were atrocious. I was disappointed with the liquor selection. We normally enjoyed a crime liquor in the mornings with our coffee but not this time. The grounds looked awful.  [... read more] Complete lack of housekeeping and bar tending staff. It was normally late afternoon before housekeeping and fresh towels arrived Certainly not impressed and will not return

Loved our stay

The resort was wonderful, staff are very polite and friendly, food was pretty good. The only bad thing was in the weekend when the locals showed up, it was a bit overwhelming trying to eat at the buffet. They would often butt in front of you or take the last of the food. It was only for the weekend though so it wasn’t too bad. We had a wonderful trip.

Good resort

Well maitnained friendly staff good nightly shows good location for going out food his good at all meals beach area well maintained snack bar at beach is very good would reccomend this resort to anybody

Be Live Collection Marien exceeded my expectations

I booked this resort thru Melissa Alexander and Trip Central and thought it would be just soo so. I got a big surprise. Melissa answered my questions thoroughly about the resorts that I enquired about. She gave me regular updates about pricing and price changes before I booked my vacation. She also forwarded information about excursions and other things to use/go to during our vacation. We flew out of Edmonton on WestJet, landing in Toronto and then flew to Puerto Plata, DR. It took about 3 [... read more]0 minutes to get to the resort. The check in was quick and efficient with the porter driving us and our bags to our room. It was on the first floor in Building 3. This building is close to the beach and most restaurants. Melissa had the resort give us the building and room that we wanted, close to the beach, first floor and close to the restaurants. The staff were very friendly and efficient. The a la carte's were all good as well as the main buffet and small snack restaurant and bar on the beach. The room was cleaned every day and the mini bar filled with pop, water and beer. It was the start of the off season with about 20% capacity. The resort is very clean and well maintained. The beach is cleaned every morning and you can wall a long distance to the right and a shorter distance to the left. I will return to this resort in the future and will recommend it to other s planning a vacation to the south. I have been booking vacations thru Trip Central since 2008 and with Melissa since 2014/2015. I find her helpful, efficient, friendly, courteous and knowledgeable. I will continue to book with Melissa and Trip Central in the future and will highly recommend her to others planning on booking vacations. Thank you once again Melissa and Trip Central.

Awesome time!

Amazing staff, very friendly and accommodating. Clean, comfortable and had a great time, food was ok but plenty to choose from and entertainment was for everyone! We will definitely go back there! The only downside was the garbage on the beach but we did our part and helped pick up water bottles and trash to help keep our ocean clean.

Be Live Collection Marien - Puerto Plata

Resort was dead. Food was bad. They kept putting the same vegetables out at the buffet and would sprinkle cheese over top so you wouldn't notice (until it got you sick). Hotel staff was okay. Resort was clean. They opened the resort to locals on the Saturday. It got so busy there was line ups to get drinks, Very under staffed.

Best holiday ever

The hotel was great everything was very close to our room the beach excellent clean and a lot of chairs the food was great every day different great shows at night the room very spacious and super clean I will be going back most definitely

Awesome holidays !!!

excellent vacation spot the hotel super clean everything is close to your room service was excellent most definitely will go back food was great every night different food 3 excellent restaurants Mediterranean was the best next time we will stay longer

Good value for sun and relaxation

We recently returned from our stay at this hotel. The price was very reasonable. It is worth the dollars to upgrade to VIP status to get the extra perks such as free safety deposit box rental, unlimited speciality restaurant reservations, wifi, VIP lounge, access to their bar and beach area and the extra bit of service. I would rate this hotel as 3 star. The grounds are nicely kept for an older resort, room was clean and staff very pleasant and helpful if you reciprocate in kind. There are how [... read more]ever some things I did not like about this hotel....sound carries easily in the hallways into your room and many times we heard inconsiderate young guests making very loud noises coming back to their rooms in the early morning hours. The food was okay in the 3 specialty restaurant and buffet but nothing to rave home about. We are not picky eaters. We were there in May so if you are a beach person, beware that the beach is lovely until 1230; in the afternoon, the wind then picks up so badly that you need to change sites and return to the pool area. The nightly entertainment is not worth watching which leads to quiet nights. It would have been nice if they had some singers or a band playing local music or songs to get the crowd up dancing. If you want to relax, read a book, enjoy sunny tropical weather than this resort is okay. I would probably not come back again as there are many other places to visit.

Great resort

Love this resort,needs some improvements thou.food 3 star,grounds should be cleaned daily.also need to spray around the resort for bugs,we had a lot of bites.one in my party had to go to hosiphal.also found staff were not happy .one out of 10 had a smile.Griselda Almonds my maid was great,only one on the resort that deserve a trip..

Perfect!

Was pleasantly surprised on how much we all loved this resort. We have stayed at much more expensive resorts yet Be Live was far better! We loved the size of the resort...small yet offered all amenities to make a great week. The only downfall to this resort is the dated rooms. However we spent limited time in our room so wasn’t a huge factor for us.

Great resort

We loved Be Live Collection Merien. The staff were pleasant. The food was ok - we ate at the buffet (something for everyone), snack hut, and the Brazilian a la Carte. We enjoyed that the resort was small, and especially the VIP package. We would stay here again!

Above average

Hotel well kept as cleaning teams on the go all the time. Food was great. The pool was cleaned every day. I however was concerned about lack of certain details. For example I had to pay for room safe. Sliding glass door not well secured. No inside safety lock or door chain. For a great part of our stay the resort was overrun by locals and their children who were very noisy. The resort is lacking nightly entertainment.

Relaxing vacation

grounds were good, food was good, beach was clean but had sea weeds. the staff was polite but the vendors in the shops were too pushy, found Dominican Republic very americanised. found this resort lacked entertainment

Be live grand marien

Everything was amazing but there was some Disappoinment with being on the ground floor when we had wanted balcony. The other thing was not knowing that at Easter time the people From the area all come to the resort and party all night. Otherwise we had a blast.

Great time if you're not too picky

I was a bit concerned with lots of negative reviews, but we were very happy with our stay. Things I was most worried about were good air conditioning and no bugs in the beds, and I'm happy to say there were no problems there. The staff was very friendly, and we tipped often, so the staff kept the same table for us most times and remembered our drink preferences. The pool was fresh water and very clean and temperature was great (around 75 I would guess). However, despite signs forbidding rese [... read more]rving lounge chairs, almost all shaded chairs will be reserved by 8-9AM each day and staff won't enforce the rule. While we didn't want to, we had to join the strange practice of getting up extremely early to put towels and personal items on some chairs in the shade in order to have shade while at the pool. I think it would be a better experience for the average patron if the staff removed towels if left longer than 30 minutes. We got up at 5am every day to put towels/books out to save chairs and that worked pretty well. Keep in mind the resort will charge 20 dollars for a lost towel, though. We paid 60 dollars for unlimited internet throughout the resort and in the rooms, and we had good connectivity in the room. However, during busy days (mainly weekends where there are a lot of locals), the Internet bandwidth was pretty saturated and refused to work at all. This was usually during lunch/dinner times where everyone in the main restaurant is using wifi. The food was great with lots of choices, and we attended all three specialty restaurants. We waited in line about 30 minutes prior to reservations opening (for us Monday at 8am), and I would recommend you do the same. My complaints about the food were that I didn't enjoy breakfast most times due to the rarity of bacon, and fried hash browns. I suspect other resorts in Puerto Plata will have similar scarcity, though. The Greek restaurant is very cold, and I enjoyed the food there the least of the three specialty restaurants, but that's mainly due to personal taste. My favourite food was the pineapple at the Brazilian restaurant. Overall, very happy with our stay even though we have a few gripes here and there. I suspect most of the negative reviews here are due to people letting one or two details ruin their trip. Also, I think, while not mandatory, tipping will result in a slightly better experience.

Good resort

Went there as a group of 6 people and had a nice time there. We got awesome weather was there for 10 days and had 29 to 32 degree with beautiful sunshine all through our holiday. We had a couple of minor issues when we got there but nothing big. When we got to resort we had to wait 2 hours for our rooms because it wasn't ready for us yet. One of the couple their room key didn't work when they got to there room but got easily fixed & quickly :). Also one of the couple had requested a main floor [... read more] room due to difficulty walking but didn't get it, they go a second floor room. All 3 couples had requested to be in same building (block 4 which is quieter) but one of the couple got a room in block 5 which is VERY near the pool and very noisy (they didn't get many quiet nights sleep). We all got very comfortable king size beds in all our rooms. Refrigerator in room was nice and cold, we had 2 beers (Coors light) 1 Pepsi, 1 7up in it upon arrival and 1 big bottle water which they were good at replacing it when empty, if not replaced we just had to go to front desk and they got them to replace it asap or we could get it refilled ourselves at any of the bars. Just a heads up you have to pay for your in room safe if you want one (3 dollars a day). Also another heads up is that when you go to buffet for super men cannot go in with a sleeveless shirt, or swimsuit which we only found out once we got there. BUT they can wear a sleeveless shirt for breakfast & lunch time which made it a bit confusing. The resort was clean with spacious rooms & great friendly staff (two thumbs up on staff). The AC in rooms worked really well. One of the thing we didn't like about the resort was the washrooms on throughout the resorts didn't have paper towels to dry our hands and there hand dryer was really not very efficient ( VERY LOW BLOWING POWER) took what seemed forever to get our hands dried . Food was good but only got bacon every second day, they had a fair amount of choices for food at every meals. We didn't try the "A la carte" restaurants so can't say much about that. Our biggest issue was the sand blowing on the beach in afternoon :( it got really bad and we kept getting sandblasted when laying on the beach. I was ok in morning but around noon the wind always seem to pickup and we got sanded. The water temperature was great throughout our stay there. In some section of the beach there was weeds in water but in morning it was pretty good but by afternoon it got bad because of the wind I guess sending the weeds towards the shore line, by 2 pm the water really got dirty with weeds and such so not as pleasant. Most people went in the pool instead in afternoon because of this issue, which of course was not the resorts fault or employee in anyways as the can't control the wind or weather. As for the entertainment there in evening we only went to one of there shows there as it would start way to late for us. The shows always started at 9:45 pm which after spending the whole day outside enjoying the weather & fresh air that by that time we were all in bed asleep lol. The show we did see was not worth staying up late for. We enjoyed our stay there but would not go back due to mostly the issues at the beach and the evening entertainment. I'm giving this resort a overall 4 star because of the service and decent food.

When we got there, we had some issues with the room but it was rectified in a couple of hours. The food was good & the dining tables was well set & the staff at the resort was excellent. The grounds was OK but there was a lot of leaves on the ground in the hotel area. I would go back again.

First when we got there we had some issues with the room. We called the reception desk and they sent someone to our room to fix the problems. After about 2 hours all the trouble was rectified. We found the staff there to be friendly & helpful. The grounds needed some cleaning up in some areas of the hotel where there a lot of leaves on the ground. I really enjoyed the pool it was a large pool & not too crowded. The drinks at the bar was good but my favorite was beer. The food was good 3 good mea [... read more]ls a day plus you can get a snack at the snack bar after 11 AM. The beach was pretty good & they had workers there every morning cleaning up the seaweed & there was security there keeping the vendors away from harassing you.I certainly would go back there, for the price I paid for 7 days it was well worth it