My wife and I stayed here in Mid November 2014. We had opted for the Colonial Club to ensure the best possible stay. After our experience, I could not imagine what it must be like to stay in the "non Colonial" side of the hotel!
Let me start with the positives. The resort is visually gorgeous. Everything is extremely clean, including the indoor and outdoor areas. There is abundant greenery that is very well manicured, and the layout is very logical and appealing. The pools are huge and extend from just past the main lobby building all the way back to the beach. There were plenty of chairs and it never felt crowded.
The beach was superb. The sand is clean and there were plenty of little "huts" with chairs underneath. The water was a perfect turquoise and relatively calm for swimming (at least it was while we visited). During peak hours there was some difficulty finding chairs, especially on the Colonial Club side with the exclusive bar. Since the huts are not really movable, you had no choice but to sit close to others, which was not ideal, but it was not awful either.
We had access to the Colonial Club pool which was nice with the swim up bar (top shelf spirits), but the water was pretty cold. Don't opt for the swim up rooms, as its not as easy to get in and out of the water as you'd hope.
The rooms themselves are mediocre. There is nothing terrible about them, but there was nothing great either. The furniture seems spray painted a metallic color, and it was chipping away on mist items. The toilet and shower doors never closed properly and the temperature never stayed consistent (constant battle with the thermostat). They do put some cheap liquor in the rooms along with some beers and soda, which we rarely drank.
There are plenty of bars around, and this was one area where service was good. Colonial club bars have the better booze, and you'll find Presidente beer on tap all over the resort.
Given the above, you may wonder why this place only got 2 stars from me. Its all about execution. The facility is great, but the people running it don't know how to take advantage. The main issue is the food. It is just abysmal. Some of it downright inedible. None of it is fresh. If you eat at a la carte restaurants, the food will take forever and come out cold. For example we ate at the "exclusive" breakfast at the French Restaurant (colonial club members only) and my wife's waffles were hard as a rock. My eggs benedict was over cooked and cold (how is that even possible). The steakhouse is a joke. Overcooked low quality steak and a tiny (size of my pinky) piece of lobster.
We were promised a "large and diverse" vegetarian menu for my wife at check in. The items on here were even worse than anything else. For starters, there are only a handful of dishes available, and they are all the same regardless of restaurant. They are obviously all made in one location and then brought to the restaurant (which is why they insist on 24 hour advance notice). One night they had lasagna that had what looked like enchilada sauce on top and raisins inside. It was laughably bad.
We quickly realized the only way to eat at this resort is to consume food cooked directly in front of you. This meant omelets at breakfast, made to order pasta for lunch and hibachi restaurant for dinner. If you follow this you'll find that you can at least get through the day without being hungry and/or sick. Even then, we both had stomach issues for 5-7 days AFTER our return home.
Service at the restaurants is just as bad as the food. Asking for bottled water always got an eye roll. You'd interact with 3-4 people just to order. Its no wonder they never got drinks right or food orders correct. No one takes responsibility. You don't have dedicated servers..its a free for all. At the main buffet, tables are not cleared fast enough to keep up with demand so you can sometimes eat a whole meal while sitting next to a table that has someones leftovers still sitting at it.
Colonial Club members get a "butler" but I do not know the purpose of this service. Ours only interacted with us when giving us a tour (which consisted of him standing at the center of the property and pointing at stuff) and showing us to our room (where we waited 1 hour for our bags to show up). He said hi to us some times and dropped off some hats..The colonial club lounge was a nice cool place to sit, but the appetizers in there were the same thing every day and it always looked like it had been sitting for hours. Also, who eats salsa that's hot to the touch with chips?!
This resort has a very annoying towel policy for the beach/pool. You are given towel cards when you check in. You need to give this card to a towel attendant and can only get 1 towel per person. When you return the towel, you get your card back If you lose the card or towel, you have to pay a fee. I've never seen a policy like this. If being treated like a possible criminal wasn't bad enough, I never waited less than 5 minutes for the guy to show up when either picking up or returning towels. It was infuriating.
The Spa was nice for a massage, but the music they play during the services is pretty comical in that its the same 5 songs over and over again. they also thought it was a great idea to place the spa next to the "party area". So the appeal of relaxing in the out door part of the spa after your massage is instantly gone when Pitbull's latest hit starts blasting 20 yards away. Again, you wonder if anyone with common sense is running this place.
Finally, the entertainment is pretty sad. I know they probably don't have the best talent in DR, but the shows were pretty boring. People raved about the Michael Jackson show, but its not someone singing his songs live, but rather some guy dancing around. The only decent show was the circus show. Some good tricks to decent music. The casino was fun, and we won a little money but look out for some weird house rules. The sports bar was actually really nice inside, but during the NFL games none of the TV's were showing any games clearly which was a disappointment. Finally, there is a dance club which could be fun if anyone actually went. We stopped by and it was a 2 to 1 ratio of staff members to guests. The music was good though.
To sum it up, management needs to be changed and all chefs need to be replaced. I have heard that DR is not a place to expect good food, but these guys aren't even trying. I could not recommend this resort to anyone for these reasons. Its a shame because the facility is really quite nice.
