Problems right from the start. I was traveling with my husband and our four boys ages 19, 14, 12, 8 and my sister ,her husband and her kids ages 19, 16, 12. We booked three rooms. When we got to the resort we were told that our rooms where in buildings 7, 34 & 65! Now 7 and 65 are about one mile away!!!! I said this will NOT work! I can't have my kids so far. Plus my sister and I didn't want to be that far considering we booked six months before. They blamed it on Expedia. We demanded to speak to someone in charge. NO ONE SPEAKS ENGLISH! It was "impossoblio" to get better rooms. My brother in law who speaks Italian can also speak Spanish, thank God. They miraculously came up with three rooms all together.

BAR~ After the plane ride and the room mix up I just needed a nice tropical drink. After all I was not letting anything get me down. I was on vacation. OK that attitude lasted about two minutes. No one spoke English at the lobby bar. My tropical drink was disgusting. It had some weird liquor in it that did not even get you relaxed. They add a dot of alcohol. Now I would not consider myself an alcoholic by any means but I would like alcohol in my drink, mucho not a dot! What the hell is Classico anyway? That is all they have. No grey goose, no Pucker, no Bacardi. Forget an apple Martini, nothing. I was sooooooooo bummed. This was the same which ever bar you went to. Including the TRASHY Casino. What a lame casino! The girl behind the bar was so freakin rude!

KIDS~ Nothing at all for kids to do. They put these lame games together and (God forbid your kids should win at a game) they have the kids go to this lame place at 9:45 PM(!) to pick up a certificate. My poor eight year old, he dragged us to get the certificate, they didn't have it! They said, in Spanish, tomorrow at the beach. Yea, that never happened.

PICTURES~ OK, once again the girl behind the counter at the picture desk in the lobby was so rude and did not speak a word of English. At ten dollars a picture she should have been nicer. So all week I am buying pictures. My kids with a snake, monkey, lizard. We take mucho pictures with the parrot, they accidently erased all the pics off the camera. OK, I posed like a moron with a parrot on my head for nothing, fine. How about all of a sudden I notice people haggling picture prices! Oh yea. I was paying full price and some people where paying half price. Now I did my share of haggling on the beach but I did not think of doing it inside the hotel.

SHOPS~ Oh my goodness! They charge 16% sales tax! Can you imagine? Rude as hell too. One young man was very nice.

RESTURANTS~ Food was OK. I am still sick though. I was sick first, then my sister and my husband. My husband got it the worst but mine came back when I got home.
YOU NEED DRESS PANTS!!!!!!!! We had to buy them there. My husband looked like a weirdo in his white see through pants. He was so pissed. I usually don't pack dress pants, but I will pack dress shorts. No, only MALE kids 10 and under do not need long pants. In fact only males need to wear long pants, woman can go with there asses hanging out that seems to be OK. So we went to the rude 16% sales tax store and found gay traveling pants for everyone. My sister had male capri pants for her oldest son. They said no way they needed to be long pants. After going and spending hundreds of dollars on pants we went to the Mexican resturant, it was not the best. I got sick the next day.

ROOMS~ Mine was always kept very clean. The shower leaked into the toliet area so we had to keep a towel there. No face clothes ever. That did not sit well with me but I got over it. They put a board under the pull out mattress and the beds had sharp springs popping up. I did however like my junior suite. Thank God it was clean.When we were leaving we gave the maid our usual $5.00 per day tip. She was screaming like she just hit the lottery. Then my sister gave her the same tip and we then tipped her for our 19 year old's room. She was so thrilled. I was so happy for her. I had tears in my eyes seeing how happy she was.

NO WASHING MACHINE. I had to rinse everything in the tub. I could not pack bathing suits with sand in them!

POOL~ Dirty always, way to warm and the drinks SUCKED. You could however always get a lounge chair under a beautiful tree.

BEACH~ I liked the beach. It was busy but not overly crowded. Getting lounge chairs after 10:30 was OK but you could not get under a hut or tree at that time. My kids played on the slide everyday. It is $30.00 per day but once again you can haggle. We where down to paying $10.00 per day.
My husband HATED all the "sales people" on the beach. There where tons of people CONSTANTLY asking if you want to buy something or go on an excursion.
Lots of the woman were topless. My kids saw so many boobs that it stopped phasing them after one day. A woman walked up to the beach bar with her boobs hanging to her waist and was drinking and talking to the people she was with like nothing was "different" about her. One dad was surving his topless wife and topless daughter drinks like they where fully clothed. Not what us Americans are used to. I told my kids, that's it mommy's top is going. They all started running out of the water screaming. I could not stop laughing. Of course I was joking!
Jose at the beach bar was so nice and very friendly.

EXCURSIONS~ The ATV riding was terrible! They take you on a bus through the poverty stricken island. My husband almost ran over a wild horse on his ATV! There were kids begging, the ATV's kept breaking down. We saw the horses that they rent out to ride on the beach, we planned on doing that the next day we had already given a deposit, well the horses looked half dead. We cancelled and they gave us most of our money back.

SPA~ The message was nice. The manicure pedicure, terrible! No base coat, no top coat, filed all my nails uneven with a broken file. I paid $39.00 for a horrible manicure.

TRAIN RIDE~ We thankfully where right next to the beach. To get around you must take the train. Once you were on it it was fine but waiting stunk.

SUM IT UP~ Go somewhere else. The vacationers where rude, the staff did not speak English, the drinks where terrible.

Beaches Turks and Caicos was awesome!

well what can i say about thjis resort????
This was our first visit to yhe carribean and prob. not our last......we chose this as our honeymoon and what a great choice this was....the beaches were tidy....the food was good.....the drinks were above average......and the blackouts were cool!!! oh and the staff....... superb.....especially as my spanish is poor yet the english was very good. I wont lie we had a sewage pipe leak twice and our mini bar was not always filled but this did not deter us from enjoying this stunning country.....the service was great....the food was good....the drinks were of what u would expect from an all inclusive resort (even had smirnoff, jim bean and bombay) i have experienced alot worse fro other all inclusives) def. will return in the future

I booked through Apple vacations and they were great. We arrived at the Resort before check in and our rooms were ready.

The Room:

We stayed in the Junior Suite which wasn't anything special. The beds were hard but after the first two days this didn't phase me. The air conditioning worked great in our room which was a plus. The jacuzzi in the bathroom would have been great if it worked. Finally after awhile it decided to kick in and work. There was blood on the shades in the bathroom which I found disgusting. We had the first floor and some bugs did get under the door so watch out they could be quite big.

The Beach:

The beach was nice. A little small for my taste. Very narrow. The water was beautiful. Never had a problem finding chairs, even after 11:00.

Pools:

There were so many to choose from. The Bavaro beach wasn't anything thrilling compared to all the other resorts I've been to. They don't really take the time out to clean the pools at all during the day. The pools at the Punta Cana were much nicer but still nothing special.

Drinks:

If you are looking for a strong drink ask for mucho anything becasue you drink will barely have any alcohol. Roberto at the lobby bar will take care of you. He was great.

The People:

Well if you speak English good luck finding someone else who does. The language barriers are huge. We are very social and this was a big downfall.

The Food:

The only good one was the Tex Mex one. We ate there twice. The buffets were OK. Definitely not a 4 or 5 star rating food. Don;t get me wrong there is enough to choose from and you won't get hungry.


Don't get me wrong this isn't a bad place for maybe 3 stars. You can find a much better resort in the D.R. I wouldn't waste my time going back here. There are far better resorts on the island. Choose wisely. you'll have a better time somewhere else. Was it pretty? Yes. But you could have five time nicer somewhere else and spend the same amount of money. I'm lucky I got a good price on this resort. had I spent what the rates are now in July i would be completely and utterly unhappy.

I will never return here. Try the Majestic or the RIU. Both gorgeous places and well worth the money.

I you do decide to stay here you won't have a terrible time but trust me for an extra $100 go somewhere nicer. You'll be much happier.

And p.s. the burgers at the sports bar were gross. I don't know what spice they put in there but it was just bad. really bad.

Before going to Punta Cana I eagerly awaited the latest reviews and forum updates on the Grand Palladium Bavaro Hotel. Since returning and reading some of the more recent ones I felt compelled to give some balance to future potential visitors as it's all too easy to write a solely negative/positive review.

A little background - 2 couples travelling together aged 27 - 30 years old. Have been on similar trips before, including all inclusives but not to the Caribbean itself.

(1) - Reception - Utterly incompetent and rude, regularly over 14 days. Absolutely zero communication between them and a glazed look of "I don't care" as they begrudgingly dealt with issues. Example - Door was broken to room which locked us out. At least our friends were beside us. 6 phone calls and 2 visits to reception over a 10 hour period followed - No help. At 2am, a maintenance crew member broke the door in for us. Worse still, 3 phonecalls were made the following day to have it fixed for obvious security reasons. Result? Nobody had a clue about the problem. We sat in the room until 3pm until they finally arrived to fix it. Manager didn't help at all and demanded we pay for the night as our things were in the room and as a result we technically stayed there. There were more unreal attitude probelms ahead but I'll leave them out. I must point out that I have no doubt that others may have had great service from reception. We didn't and it left a bad taste, maybe we were unlucky. There is a massive difference between laid back and unhelpful.

(2) - Rooms - First room was a deluxe until we upgraded. It had filthy stained jacuzzi, leaking AirCon, broken toilet door, leaking shower, broken phone and old musty sheets. Second room, Junior Suite, was far superior even though it cost almost $400 to upgrade. Unfortunately, if you don't tip on Day 1 the lovely flower petals and folded towel animals are omitted. Over 2 weeks our room was not cleaned 4 times, once for 3 days. Despite calls to reception and customer service desk, this was never explained or even remedied.

(3) - Food - I enjoyed it a lot as I didn't expect Michelin stars. La Cathedral got a bit dull but the others such as La Uva were worth a visit. The 'A La Cartes' are just a 5 option menu so don't get too excited at the prospect. The Italian restaurant is the best of those by a distance. 3 of the 4 in the group had stomach problems but this may have been more a combination of heat and new cooking styles and seasonings.

(4) - Beach - Best part of it, absolutely fantastic. Glorious sand and sea. No problems getting beach beds but this was low season and I imagine it can get worse. Lots of activities going on and the beach vendors were nowhere near as intrusive as I had been led to expect. A simple 'No Gracias' with a smile is plenty if not interested.

(5) - Resort Spa - Thoroughly enjoyed this place. An oasis of calm, staff were excellent and the massage treatments were top drawer, thoroughly professional and modern. Gym was befitting of such a nice place. A great spot to shade from the sun during the midday heat.

(6) - Facilities - Sports centre was impressive and courts and equipment were in good condition. Pools were busy and had a great atmosphere but there were a number of broken tiles and dodgy cleaning areas. Entertainment staff were nice and friendly and made a hell of a good effort. . Drinks were great and floor service was excellent. Elizabeth in the Punta Cana section deserves special mention - Thank You!

A few pointers to the ridiclously exaggerated review about everything being 'perfect'. For example, The Sports Bar has a pool table which is 20 years old at least, no cue ball, no chalk, broken pockets and comes with dodgy cues. Hardly perfection but even if you don't care about playing pool, it's indicitive of the resort as a whole, except for the spa which is first class. The place is not 5* as we know it and I would say closer to 3*, 4* on a very good day. I got the feeling it was low season and everyone was less enthusiastic. The other 2 hotels within the resort were a completely different experience and full of helpful, attentive staff. I still can't figure out if the Bavaro is where they go to learn their trade, vice versa or if it is a punishment to be there but it stands out like a sore thumb.

The place is idyllic and the weather was amazing, I defy anyone not to enjoy it. I wouldn't be returning to this resort as there were some stunning places on view up the beach that I would like to visit instead.

Great experience and a fantastic trip in spite of the hotel itself rather than because of it.

P.S - Don't even dream about renting a car, the locals are bonkers on the road!! Lovely friendly people and I recommend the trips out to the countryside to meet them....