The pools and grounds are clean and the three friendly flamingos that hang-out make for beautiful pictures. Do bring large thermos drink cups so that you don’t have to go to the bar every 15 minutes for refill.
You need to try "MAMAJUANA". You can get a small shot at the bar, and also buy a bottle and bring some back home. It’s a potent drink and here’s a recipe if you buy a bottle w. mixed herbs, and want to refill it: 2 fingers (depth) of HONEY, 3 fingers (depth) of SWEET RED WINE then fill the rest of the bottle with DARK RUM (Brandy, Vodka & Gin can also be used if preferred). It’s known as the Dominican "viagra", but it’s also good for circulation.
Your Arrival: We flew Sunwing (no leg room) direct from Toronto. We were not too sure what to expect, since Haiti had just gotten an earthquake a few days before, but our trip wasn’t cancelled. The mood was grim at the beginning since some Haitian workers have family/friends still in Haiti.
Check-in was quick enough, and they took us with a golf cart to our room with our luggage and back to the main lobby. It was about 10 pm, and we were able to get something to eat in the main buffet kitchen.
Rooms: Rooms were clean enough but there was a smell, and the maids do emphasize on making decorations/birds and adding flowers over anything else. I had a hard time getting a facecloth. They do put water, club soda, coke, fanta, 7up and a couple of beers in your fridge every couple of days. We asked the maid for more water and she gave us extras (tip). We had a king size bed and I only figured out a few days before I left why my back was so sore every day. There was a ridge on my side of the bed, which accounted for sore back every day 🙁 We had a small patio w. 2 chairs overlooking the side of the building.
You have to pay for the safe $2/day but it’s worth it.
Restaurants and Bars: Buffets have plenty to eat for all meals, and the waiters are very quick to bring you beverages at your table and get rid of dirty dishes. Both buffets are the same at Dominicana and Punta Cana with a bridge in between them. It’s a very nice set-up and for breakfast you can get omelettes with your favourites in them, lunch and dinner they have a pasta bar, and fish/meat freshly cooked (they do have a few non-smoking tables). Smaller buffet for lunch on the beach (both sides) had really good burgers, fries, and whatever they had going on the BBQ, plus salad, nachos and dessert bar. Don’t forget the ice cream bar behind the beach bar on the Iberostar side and they had really good coconut ice cream, and the curly ice cream on Punta Cana side. We tried some of the A La Carte: Mexican (the flanked steak w. cheese was good but don’t have burritos with they are burrito/meat that’s it). Seafood, I had shrimps in sauce and my husband had the tuna steak, and they were both good. After going a few times to check for the Gourmet (only rest. you can get grilled lobster – no garlic butter) they kept on telling us they were all booked until Friday, the day before we were leaving. Went back Monday afternoon, and they said we had a reservation for that night, but they did not let us know. We had an 8pm reservation, and to our surprise there were 6 empty tables on our side!!! They tell everybody it’s all booked since they don’t want to serve the lobster, but you pay for it after all. They say for any A La Carte, you can go and wait and there could be patrons that don’t show up, so I would definitely do that for the Gourmet. They don’t book all their tables anyways since there was plenty of room.
Lobby bar had some premium drinks, but you have to ask for it. They have the slushy machines mostly everywhere but they’re not made with fresh fruit. You can get expresso, capuccino, hot chocolate from there too. My husband would show up at 8:30am before they open at 10am, and w. tip they’ll make you anything you want.
Beach/Pools/Grounds: The large pool is deep on Dominicana side, put you can walk through it on the Punta Cana side. They are always kept clean. There’s no pool bar here. There are servers around the pool area serving you drinks (tip & they’ll come more often). People play the towel game here and some chairs are empty all day with towels on them, and the hotel keep a blind eye to that, even though it says that you cannot reserve palapas. There’s no topless at the pool, but there was a few that still did it. We did see some people reserving chairs daily both at the beach & pool. The beach is amazing and you can walk a long time, and we noticed that our hotel was the only one with plenty of palapas on the beach. If you were lucky enough to go and reserve one early in the morning that is …
We also brought gifts for the ground keepers and they were so happy, since they make the least money (various tools that you can get from the dollar store).
Activities on and off the Resort/Hotel: Did water aerobics a couple of times. The staff really work hard to get people to join in the various activities all day. They have lots of energy and are also part of the evening entertainment. Every night they have singers and dancers in their theatre shows (with lots of servers). It was good mostly every night. They do have an airplane inside their night club disco, which is really neat.
We had planned to go on the Outback Safari where you stop at a school, and we brought some colouring books and toys for the kids to give. We then went to visit a typical house, they show us how they prepare the coffee/chocolate, which is really a selling trip. You stop to eat at a ranch (not that great) and then to a beach for boogie boarding, but there’s nowhere to sit & more vendors bugging you. You have to share your boogie board. We then did a quick stop at a small shop that sold booze & cigars but was very expensive. This safari cost us over $100 each w. exchange which is too expensive.
Other Comments: Internet cafe is $10/hour and open late. If you have late check-out, there’s a place to put your luggage & take shower, since heaven forbid they would let you check out later. Tour operators should make these arrangements for you since you pay so much $$ for these trips. When you check-out, they don’t even ask you if everything was ok? They take the key and that’s it. They do have to improve on their Gourmet A La Carte Reservation tactics. We heard from other patrons/workers that this place is going downhill because they haven’t done any renovations in a long time. We would definitely go back to Punta Cana since the spanish people are quite friendly and greet you "HOLA"!