Puntacana Resort & Club

By • Great Location, mediocre food, service issues

Overall Rating: 6   Location [10] • Room [6] • Service [4] • Value [4]

Positives: Beautiful beach, comfortable lounge chairs, attentive beach and pool bar staff (that should be all anyone needs!) lovely golf course (too look at-I don't play), nice rooms, large resort, great pools. Negatives: Hit or miss food (more miss), poor service at times, no entertainment at night, kids got sick (never ate off the resort). Would love to see another management staff take this place over and revamp food, restaurants, staff training because it is a great location with lots to offer-but too often we were left wishing we had picked the "other hotel"
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By All-Caribbean User from Maryland • very bad resort

Overall Rating: 2   Location [6] • Room [2] • Service [2] • Value [2]

very rude staff,
overcharging,
horrible showers,
did i say very rude staff!
filthy pool.
this place was the biggest disapointment we have ever had in a vacation -
DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY.
YOUR JUST ANOTHER $ TO THEM.
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By All-Caribbean User from miami, fl • wild vacations at punta cana!!!

Overall Rating: 10   Location [6] • Room [10] • Service [10] • Value [6]

we are a couple young people ( 29 and 30 ) and we have a blast!!!!, we stay at carabela hotel, beautiful resort, nice garden, a lot of animals and everything is close, din't have to walk a lot for hang out in the hotel, the service was perfect and the food was good, could be better, not was not bad at all, the best we enjoy was the excursions

we get in contact with a guy that has a company, he's new, and made the tours him self, that was a great value for us ,because he make the personal tours we want, and make sure everything was ok, we did everything from fishing, safaris, 4wheels, saona island, to snorkling, diving, etc, you name it, and we check the prices at the hotel and from other company, the results..... way much better than the others,you can contact him at crazygator4wheels@hotmail.com, or 809-704-4405, tell him tom, andrea and kent can't wait to january 06 to get back there!!

any way enjoy your vacations!!!!!!!!!!
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By All-Caribbean User from Seattle • What a waiste of money

Overall Rating: 2   Location [6] • Room [2] • Service [2] • Value [2]

This place had their hand in your pocket from the moment you arrived. The service was non-existent, the people that worked there made no effort to help a guest or make your stay more pleasant. The rooms had horrible showers ( hot - cold - hot - cold, and no pressure).
Bugs in the room were terrible, and the power and water were going out on a daily bases.
If you stay at this hotel - you are wasting your money or just dont care enough about yourself or your loved ones to give them better.
A motel in New Orleans (during the flood) would be money better spent.
Good luck, and if you do stay there- at least youll have your next vacation to think about while your kicking yourself.
AOG
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By • Not what expected

Overall Rating: 4   Location [10] • Room [6] • Service [2] • Value [4]

This location was selected to hold our annual business conference. It was based on recommendations and the services offered. None of us have ever been in Punta Cana before, so it would be a great experience for all of us. At least, that's what we thought.

The facilities are amazing, and a few staff members were quite competent, kind and willing to assist. Too bad it was not the general rule. Even with an early notice, the day of arrival I spent almost 6 hours to have my room ready, that was after changing the room I was originally assigned for problems with the door lock. I had to almost beg at the front desk to change my room, they stated that having no lock would not represent any problem, and I could still be safe. If so, why would a company spend money installing a door lock in over 400 rooms? I finally got my room, but I had to go through at least 7 or 8 people. The staff has a real attitude problem. Don't even try Customer Service, they will direct you to somebody else. I still don't know what they are there for. The issue does not affect only regular employees, it affects managers as well. It's all over the organization, from top to bottom.

I wanted to make sure that everything was set for the meeting, and for that reason I traveled 2 days before the rest of our group. I tried reaching the person responsible for the event, but she was busy with other events, and I was only able to see the conference room the night before the event started. You can imagine the mess it was the opening day, nothing seemed to work properly, and trying to get help was a real quest.

Organizing lunch also proved to be a challenge. Even asking before hand for a menu and sending our choices to the restaurants well in advance, we were unable to have a meal in less than one hour; the shortest time was 1 hour and 50 minutes. When you are in a business conference, that's a lot of time. We tried almost every restaurant (La Choza, The Grill, La Cana, and Franco's Pizza), and none of them worked.

Be careful when having dinner in the "included" restaurants. Although the food is included, the beverages are not, and they tend to bill for more than what you actually ordered.

At the conference room and during the meeting we could not get the doors locked, and having all the materials there did not make us feel too safe. We discuss this with the hotel staff and they recommended us to take all our belongings whenever we were to leave the room. Imagine the entire group packing up in every break, including lunch. That was ridiculous.

When checking out, really check your bill, and ask for a local currency bill. What they charge in US$ will not match your credit card statements. The exchange rate they use is different than the official one, and your stay will end up being at least 10% more expensive than offered. We had a major issue on this, since we work on budgets. Also, be alerted that if they find an item not charged, they will proceed and charge your credit card, even if you have already left. And if you expect to get a receipt for this extra charge, get ready to wait for at least a month. They are rather quick to charge, but not so quick to explain why or provide supportive documentation.

Be also prepared to an uncomfortable ride to the airport if there are too many people checking out. Even if you advise early, they will not be ready for your departure, and quite likely no vehicles are going to be available.

But then again, the facilities are amazing. The golf course is spectacular, and the views are breathtaking. Too bad this is all diminished by their lack of service oriented personnel.

My final advice: if you don't golf, don't go. If you are interested in the views, go some other place near-by and then take a tour into this one. You'll enjoy the views without having to stay.
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By All-Caribbean User from Buffalo, NY • Met Expectations

Overall Rating: 8   Location [10] • Room [8] • Service [8] • Value [8]

There were a variety of activities and the option of finding secluded places or other people to enjoy the facilities with. The water and Golf Course are amazing. The food selection was OK, but not great. Make sure to utilize the often empty pool at the Golf Club.
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By • mostly good

Overall Rating: 8   

This was the most beautiful caribian location I have been to. The property faces east into the Atlantic, but there is a low coral reef about 200 yards off shore that breaks up the waves so the water is calm. The water is not perfectly clear Although you can see the bottom, its not like the Caymans. The snorkeling at the hotel is not good, there a few fish, but you can get taken to the real stuff.
The water sports are limitted. The nice thing is they line up wind surfers and kyaks on the beach so you just need to walk up and grab one. But the wind (in April) was about 10 knots so you couldnt get up a lot of speed. The other big problem was the boards were extra slipperly. There is no water skiing and no jet skis.
The rooms were recently re-done and very nice. We stayed in a 3 bedroom beach villa that was really clean and nice. Each room has its own bathroom, and all were connected by a little roof, in the center was an open air living room. This was right off the beach.
Overall , its not an action spot. If you like to take your book to the beach or pool, this is the place for you. The pool music was calm(harps), no loud crazy music at all. Maybe because you need to pay for drinks, there were no trashy people. Everyone was quiet and well behaved.
The golf course looked fantastic, many holes right along the ocean, nice and green, unfortunately I didnt have the nerve to ditch the family.
The horse back riding was fun, the guys were nice. If you know how they will let you gallop along the beach. We fell for the 11:00 time slot(hot) . Later we found out there were earlier and later spots.
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