We had such a great time. First thing - I asked for a room near the beach - and while none were available when we arrived, the next morning we were given a 2nd story room as close to the beach as you can get! It was superb! We are not your typical vacationers, I think, in that we enjoy doing things - being active - and using the ocean rather than a pool. We also are picky eaters in that we like to eat healthy food. We were not disappointed. While the menu does not vary much at the buffet, there is always plenty to choose from. Each night they had more than one fish entre, plus chicken, pork, ham, etc. along with fruit, vegetables, fresh breads, desserts, etc. Breakfast they had just about anything you can imagine - except oatmeal - and the fruit smoothies were the best!! But the buffet closes at 10am - then only a marginal continental b'fast until 1pm - so don't miss the buffet or you go hungry....... The waiters were exceptional. We ate at the Italian restaurant - a really nice change of pace - and also there was a night with dancing and special Caribbean food - and that too, was a nice change of pace. You can also walk over to the Riu Bamboo at any meal and eat there. Their buffets were larger, offered a different variety of food and I'd suggest going over there at least once. Watersports - not touched on much in these forums - so I will since we used daily. There are watersports buildings with 2-3 catamarins, sailboat, numerous windsurfers and kayaks about every 200 feet or less. You go there and sign up for an hour usage. Best to go the day before you want to use a catamarin as it fills up as the day goes on. But you can sign up every day for a week all at once if you want to - or go one hour one place and walk down the beach and sign up for an hour at the next place. The catamarins are in demand, but the other equipment is not, so the hour rule isn't enforced I don't think. Punta Cana doesn't have strong winds like the north coast and the beach is such that it's only shallow a short ways out and then deepens quickly. Thus, it makes it hard to learn to windsurf or to even get started. Noone ever planed there. We had a blast with the catamarins. Had never sailed one before, but they are easy to do and quite safe. There are reefs galore out there, however, so you have to watch scraping the boat. We actually surfed waves with them. It was fun. The equipment is in decent shape - some of the windsurf boards have missing footstraps and such, and there were no harnesses. The snorkelling was just ok. The Taino has a grassy reef enclosed in their swimming area, and fish will flock to you looking for food (I brought out bread and mashed bananas in a baggie to feed them the 2nd time.) But, the reef is pretty much dead so if you go anywhere else, there's no fish, no life to speak of. We also snorkelled WAY out near the wreck offshore (had to watch out for boats speeding by..... and that was neat - got to only about 40 feet of water and clear as a bell. Nice reef formations, but its pretty dead. Worth doing tho. Ok - the rooms were...... decent. Never had trouble with power, airconditioning or hot water. There ARE two beds tho - one double bed and one twin. We had no problem sleeping on the double, but for some people, it might present a problem. We preferred Taino over Bamboo in that the rooms of the Bamboo were quite a distance walk from the beach as opposed to our room - a few steps. Otherwise, the Bamboo has several advantages in that the nightly entertainment facility is an open air one - so the smokers don't bother you like they do at Taino's facility which is a closed room; the buffets are larger and have more variety - plus they greet you with a Tequila Sunrise upon entry at dinner; and the lobby area is gorgeous. But, the vendors were there more frequently than at Taino. Oh, vendors are not a problem at the beach. They may walk by, but don't stop to bug you. Only stop if you ask. We didn't see much of the nightly entertainment - for one, it was smoky in there, and for another, the talent is mainly locals - and while they CAN dance, once you see them, it's basically the same thing in different costumes. The Michael Jackson show tho was superb. We only caught the tail end and wished we'd seen it all. Regarding tipping - these employees make about $50US a week and work 10-12 hrs a day and do a super job. We ended up tipping many of the waiters and waitresses a $1 here and there - and once gave a guy $5 - then realized that's half his wages for one day! not a big deal to us, but a BIG deal to the Dominicans. So, don't be stingy, We didn't know it, but you can change your large US bills for $1 bills at the front desk. They are happy to do that for you, as they know where they are going.... Taxi from the airport cost us about $33 with tip; gas is close to $6/gallon there. We also took the public bus to Santo Domingo and then another one up to Cabarete. Email me if you have any Q's. We also loved the dancing they had at night - a pool and beach party; aerobics in the sand in the morning; Merengue lesson in the afternoon. We did not go to the Island Sanoa. It is a two hour bus ride each way - and didn't want to spend our vacation time on a bus. Hear you can take a catamarin tho. Now - That might be a great way to go!

My girlfriend and I stayed at the Riu Taino from May 24-29th, 2008. We had a great time, and would certainly go back to the Taino. We aren't very picky, just give us a beach and some sun and we will have a great time; and that's exactly what the Taino offers.

Beach/Pools:
We absolutely loved the beach and pools. We never had a problem finding chairs on the beach. It could get a little crowded near the main pool, but you could usually find a couple chairs if you looked hard enough. The swim-up bar was fun. The activities put on by the Animacion staff were fun to watch.

Room:
Our room was perfectly fine. Maybe a little older, but still perfectly clean, and the AC and everything worked fine, no problems. We even had a nice little private porch, which was nice to sit and have a drink on. The maid did a great job keeping the room clean, and the mini bar was always replenished.

Food:
The breakfast buffet in the main dining room was always fine. We typically stuck to the fresh fruit and muffins, which were fine. The INDOOR lunch buffet in the main dining room was fine as well, but the OUTDOOR lunch buffets were a bit more interesting. There seemed to always be some bugs, flies and birds swarming around the outdoor lunch buffets, and didn't seem to be too sanitary. The dinners were great. The dinner buffet in the main dining room was fine as well, but we much preferred the specialty restaurants. For some reason due to either scheduling or being late on making the dinner reservations, we only ending up eating at the Italian restaurant and one other specialty restaurant (Mexican night), and we didn't get a chance to eat at the Steak House. However, both were good, but we enjoyed the Italian restaurant so much we ended up eating there 3 nights in a row (Gustavo and Johanna are a great waitstaff).

Other:
The little shops on Caribbean Street were fun to browse through, and all locals we met seemed very friendly.

If you have any other questions feel free to contact me, I'd be happy to elaborate on any aspect of my trip. It was a great time, and we would certainly go back in a heartbeat. I miss the beach already!

I stayed at the Riu Taino from May 21-26, 2008 on the recommendation of friends, and here are the pros and cons:
Pros:
Beautiful beaches; efficient service; clean rooms; Bavarro Runners has great, fun excursions; the hotel has many activities that kept my husband occupied while I laid out; the spa had nice massages (could have been a bit better); fresh juice servied daily

Cons:
The hotel compound (including the casino) has NO ATM anywhere, so bring lots of cash!; the villa rooms are very old and run down, so only good for those on a budget; the hotel is very loud and not fit for people looking for a really relaxing vaca; Food - most of the food was served buffet style, and it was left out, and outdoors, for long periods of time. Nothing is made to order. That is very unhealthy! Even when trying to watch what I ate and drank, I still managed to catch an E-Coli bacterial infection as a result of the food at the Riu Taino. It's miserable and I'm still suffering through it. I would definitely go back to the Dominican, but never again to this resort!

We stayed at the RIU Taino from May 3-May 9 2008 for our five year anniversary. We had a great time because we are easy to please, but we will not return to a RIU again. This is a good hotel for the $$ we spent, but there were some problems.

The good:

The beach was beautiful. If you walk out of the hotel grounds on the beach and take a right the beach/sand is amazing when you get to certain areas. There was a lot of seaweed at and around the resort areas, but the hotel staff cleaned it up every morning and did a great job of keeping the beach cleaned up. There were plenty of loungers on the beach.

The maids kept our room very clean and the grounds were kept up very nice.

The food was good for the price.

The staff were very nice and spoke many languages. I was able to understand them all, but my husband had a hard time sometimes.

There was a VERY quiet and relaxing pool, although smaller, on the resort that was nice for those who did not want the busy/party atmosphere. We were always able to find loungers w/grass huts above them in this area. However, it was near impossible to find loungers in the larger pool w/the swim up bar unless you came early in the morning and reserved one.

The bad:

We did not have hot water for 5 of the 7 days we were there...not one RIU customer did in all the resorts in our zone. The manager was very nice, but did not compensate us for the lack of a much needed service. We were given information when we left on who to contact to get this issue resolved and have to contact corporate. In my opinion it should have been resolved when we checked out. People that booked w/travel agents were told to contact their travel agents that RIU could not do anything for them. In my opinion, that is not an acceptable way to do business.

There were some bugs in our room at times which was fine, that sort of thing is to be expected in return for the beautiful vegetation all around the resort. However, the one cockroach we in our room left me itching all night long.

My husband said some of the food he had was not very warm. I thought it was fine, but we didn't always eat the same items.

The food did get very repetitive. This would have been okay if we would have been able to book at any resort restaurant other than the Italian. Even the day we got up and watched the sun rise and ate breakfast at 7:30 am it was the only restaurant w/reservations left.

The most unacceptable thing for both of us was that they allowed vendors on the resort. When I say ON the resort I mean it. The Caribbean street is right beside the resort and offers services/goods to RIU customers and the public. There are vendors on this street...that is fine. However, in my opinion it is unacceptable to have vendors in the lobby and especially by the pool. They set up at the quiet pool one day and ruined the afternoon for us. We had to say no at least 5-6 times EACH before they stopped asking us to come to their booth every time we got up to go to the bathroom or refill our drinks. They were yelling across the pool at people to try to get them to come over. They were there almost every single day. Nothing like being hounded every single time you go to the bathroom, go to dinner, or go get a drink every afternoon while on vacation...inappropriate!!!

Tips:

Be prepared to have cash coming into the country. There are fees you have to pay as soon as you check in at the airport ($10pp). We were told there were fees ($20pp) to check out of the airport, but we did not have to pay anything.

Use the taxi service provided for you if you book through the website. It was nice not having to pay for a cab and knowing we would be taken care of. Jose, w/hotelbeds, was very helpful w/setting this up for us and offering us the excursions.

We left tips when we received good service...they work hard and they deserve it. However, tipping was not expected on the resort. I recommend taking small bills because it was sometimes hard to get change for larger bills if you do want to tip.

If you want a good margarita ask for Jose...they have it but you have to ask.