We (2 couples 2 rooms)booked through Travelocity flying out of Boston (Weds. to Weds) on Delta with 7 nights at Barcelo Golf for 610.00 a person including hotel transfers. When we got on the bus to the hotel the guide said the Golf hotel was closed. He called ahead and stated we were booked now at the Caribe. Having stayed there before I was happy with that because I knew it was closer to the beach. When we got dropped off there the desk stated we were actually at the Casino ( not excited about the move). We had golf and diving equipment to drag around. But a bellman came right up and loaded everything up and took us to the Casino. No lines anywhere at check in. The rooms were not ready yet but got checked in and went to buffet and bar and they were ready when we were done. Rooms were on the 2nd floor and had two full beds downstairs with a bathroom and a king upstairs with a bathroom. Easily could sleep 6 or 4 with room to spare. They had just put a new featherbed top on the king upstairs so we slept there. During the week new featherbeds came for the downstairs. Thought it was the best room we've had on this property having already stayed at the Beach and Caribe hotels. At first I thought it would be to far away from the beach but it was fine. It is actually no further from the bars, buffet, dive shop, pool etc. of the beach hotel than the further rooms of the beach hotel are. I never have a problem with the food here. I extremely enjoy the Steak House and Italian Restaurants. We ate at these 2 for dinner all week. We did the buffets (all 3) for lunch and breakfast each day. I'm a beer drinker so the bars were fine for me. For the girls (tropical drinks) the bar tenders had to be reminded to put alcohol in every time. The one place I see a lack of speed is in the bars. I would put an extra bartender in them and pull some help from the buffets. We golfed one day but was very disappointed. They've let the course run down and only had the back 9 open. Driving range was also closed. It wasn't worth taking the time to do it a second day. The casino has been updated since we last visited. It was good entertainment but never very busy. Not that I'm ever in the room but found only CNN in English but a card that stated there was more English channels. When we called down they said it was 5.00 a day or 20.00 a week(we said no thanks) We did the Fun Buggy tour off the resort and really enjoyed it. We did the Segway tour on the resort and had a lot of fun with that also. We've seen the property run down a little over 5 years but would recommend it for a first timer to Punta Cana on a limited budget.

I and my boyfriend stayed at Barceló Casino from 21 to 28 of September.
I’m writing review now, since I been really busy after we came back.
We are not of those people, who would expect a 5 star treatment at a 3 star accommodations.
It was my 4th trip to Punta Cana. Previously I stayed at Occidental Flamenco (Occidental Grand), IFA and Ocean Bavaro. I also been to Jamaica and Mexico at a 3 star accommodations and liked mostly everything. I had no complaints about those other places I visited in Punta Cana and Mexico. Starfish Trelawny was good – but beach area there was terrible. There’s an only one bad experience I had before in Caribbean – disappointing beach of Starfish hotel at Jamaica. Beside that – no complaints at all!
Since my positive experience at other 3 star hotels I had no worries about negative experience. We didn’t expect anything fancy or classy. All we wanted just a basic accommodations and terrific beach, where we could snorkel, parasailing and just chill under beautiful Dominican coconut trees.

Check in:We arrived at hotel about 11 am. Waited more than 5 hours for check in… Ok. It is not a bad start… We just took our time to explore a new place, getting familiar with this big complex. We went to eat lunch at Steak house, which is located right on the beach. My tenderloins we soft and juicy, but my boyfriends steak was dry and didn’t taste like a “cow” at all… He was afraid to eat it and kept sniffing the meat… and couldn’t really go on with his lunch… I tried and it’s true, this steak had a weird aftertaste… I wouldn’t it too…

Room:Two stories room on the 3 rd floor. No elevator… But there’s another set of a long and rough open stairs in the room. Some people must consider!!!!
Decent size bed and a full bathroom on the second floor. Too bed toilet had no power to flush!!! No matter how much I complained at front desck, to our Apple Rep. nobody ever came to fix it. Even though made was there every day… Hm…
Thank God there was another full bathroom on the first floor.
One time there was no water at all… Surprise!!!! I’m not talking about just a hot water… I’m saying that there was no water at all… But that happened only one time from the morning to the lunch time…
In the room, downstairs were really old and moldy ugly yellow couches. Couches and soft chars had moldy stains like somebody was peeing on them over and over… I didin sit there… Was disgusted event to look at it. Beside it had strong moldy odor… it smelled! No… “Smell” it’s a soft word. It stunk!
I just brought two plastic chairs from the balcony for sitting.
Electric outlet upstairs was scary! It was made for both – European and American standards. But I couldn’t plug my hairdryer to it anyway. It should be a special unit. I guess old style unit they used in US long ago. Hotel's fan had american standart plug, but different kind, with a small head. Outlets were made fo both standarts, but I woudnbt advise to hook your gadgets there. It scary, even though it's made for it. I looked for other outlets, but they were out of reach, or at inconvinient place.
Weird!!! I had been to Punta Cana 3 times. Never experienced this problem!

Beach: Great location, great beach!!! Wonderful!!! But... :-((( We were so excited to come to the beach… Finally!!! Ops… What a hell is that?! There were plenty available chairs, plenty of shade…But it was sooooo dirty. I never seen beach being so filthy before. Beach was overflowing with plastic cups, empty bottles, bags and other garbage.
I’m a not a princess. I can pick up somebody else’s garbage and throw it away, if I’d find a perfect spot on the beach. But there were so many of that garbage all over the place... I almost cried. Same garbage was floating it the sea…
Beside that music was so laud, it clogged my ears. Tourists on the beach were so laud, it was unbelievable! There’s going to be a special word about those tourists. And yes, it something that has to do with hotel itself.
Because of this it was impossible to have a nice time at the beach. Too many people, that are too laud. Music is blasted your brains off... All the same tunes over and over. Garbage all over the place. We couldn’t be there… No way! We had to go to the beach at other place, next to Caribe.
Next to Caribe was some other resort. Very nice, clean and quite beach. German and French tourists, that are pretty quite and clean. We had no problem. Drinks were a short walk away to Caribe. Fine! Not so bad at all… To bad that is our beach a piece of hell in the paradise!

Special word about tourists at Barceló: Who are they? Where they all came from?
I don’t wan to describe their appearance, so somebody can misunderstand what I’ trying to say here. Let me tell you something. Those people were extremely loud, one tried to out scream another. They were extremely dirty, throwing trash all over the place. They were extremely rude, didn’t know what waiting in line means. They would push you out of their way, or scream behind your back to get served first. “Americano Stupido! Americano Stupido! – That’s what we heard sometimes… How nice of them…
Resort train ride with those people was a special experience… There were many of them in the resort, but it seems like they all knew each other. It was not very pleasant, riding with a crowd, which behaved like a spoiled kids, screaming as laud as they can.
On Monday my boyfriend told me that he heard somebody was saying in English, that “all of them going to leave on Tuesday”… And a miracle happened! All those tourists actually left on Tuesday, leaving hotel as filthy as place could get. But It became nice and quiet.
New tourists came. Most of them spoke Italian, French, English, and some of them spoke German. I saw next day how new tourists would pick up trash on the beach, and throw it to containers. Hotel Stuff never cleaned trash out of the beach. I watched cleaning stuff. They never cleaned thrash! They just cleaned seaweed by the sea, that’s all.
Tourists cleaned after themselves. We finally moved to the beach at hour hotels chain. Since new tourists from Europe and Canada made it a little better, since they didn’t make noise and cleaned after themselves beach area became more decent.

Best of our trip.
Please, get your own snorkeling mask and explore offshore waters. First, it seems like there’s nothing live there, but there is so much! We so a lot of beautiful kind of fishes right off shore. Try area at the Beach resort and Barcelo Premium. Try dark spots in the water, where is grass. A lot of beautiful and interesting fishes live there.
Put on snorkeling mask. Get some bread or fruit to feed the fish. You came to the water... You don’t see anything… Just throw the food and wait couple of minutes… Aha! There’s is fish! So many of them! Some fish stay in schools, some fish by themselves.
Wait a little longer. More fish are coming. Just a little longer and don’t use all of the bate. You will have some more visitors for a treat, just be patient. There was couple of fishes, they always came late, but they always came! One fish looked so funny, with two horns on the head and flat stomach. Her mouth was small and round. Another fish had legs, arms and wings. I was following this creature one time all the way. But when my boyfriend saw it, he dived to get a better look at the walking fish with the arms… Fish just opened it beautiful wings and flew away… Ah…
Definitely take a snorkeling trip! The one for 30 bucks a person, to the more remote reefs. It was unbelievably beautiful! So many colorful fishes, coral reefs are breathless. We really enjoyed this snorkeling trip on catamaran.

Food: Comparing to other resorts I've been food wasn’t that great. I’m Russian and my honey is Amercing born. He didn’t really like their food. We didin starve, but havan't been thrilled with it. Nothing special, nothing delicious.

Hotel Grounds:
Too bad resort grounds were not given a proper treatment. Ponds were filled with garbage that floated among water lilies. Service at hotel never cleaned this garbage. The same plastic cups and empty beer butles were floating in the ponds during all our stay. Same kind of trash was seen practically everywhere.
One really unpleasant thing. By walking to our room, that was located on the 3rd floor, we coudl enjoy looking at the filthy roof, of the building next. Roof was filled with all kind of trash - broken furniture, dry plants, brocan containers, different garbage... We hare to rest. I understand it's not a 4 star resort. But all this garbage right in front of our eyes every time we go to or from the room, why we shoudl see it? That area on the roof - it was like an attick of the broken old stuff.

Anyway – our best experience were snorkeling and time, when all those “ghetto” tourists left.

I had the chance to stay at this hotel for free, as a perk received from my company, for one week. I must say straight off that the location could hardly be better for a sea only vacation. the Beach is really wonderful as are the many swimming pools. The double standard room was rather well appointed, considering the star rating of the hotel. service was courteous and there were plenty of attendants available at the common services. I must say the food was of rather bland quality, except at the mexican restaurant of the complex, where it was downright terrible. since I know the price of my stay , I consider this hotel to be very good value for the money. It does tend to get a bit boring after one week, as it is located very far from the capital of the island, so you really need to plan some excursions, if you are not in the mind of having a sea and relax only vacation. the casino was a pleasant surprise.

Had a fabulous vacation with my wife and our seventeen year old twins boy/girl. The staff was very friendly smiling and helpful Travel Hint: TIP THEM! smile back at them and treat them with respect, they are wonderful people!. The food was great at the many included specialty resturants and the 4 buffets. The beach is fanatastic with plenty of water sports at hand and no one pestering us to purchase things or look at time shares. When our flight was delayed a day by hurricane Dean they and Conquest gave us 2 other rooms for the extra night with the all inclusive plan no charge. The resort is huge with plenty to do. It was the most relaxing vacation yet. I'll be going back!