April 2008 was the second trip my wife and I made to Punta Cana, both time's staying at the Royal Catalonia.

We stayed from Apr 10th until the 17th, almost the exact date's we stayed last year. I was able to spend my last two birthday's in Punta Cana...... Yes I felt spoiled.

We arrived without any hitches at all, our flight landed shortly after 8 pm and by 10 we were sitting at the main bar watching the nightly show. This is simply the nicest resort we have been to, the staff are alway's smiling and willing to help. When we got to our room we had a huge fruit basket as well as a bottle of rum, which we didn't recieve last year. Other upgrade's over last year were the four poster bed as well as the flat screen LCD TV.

The beach was just as beutiful as we remember, the food and drink were fantastic, the Japanese was by far our favourite. We went on the Sunday which happened to be my birthday, we didn't have reservation's for that night but one of the girls in the group we hung out with sweet talked them into letting us in. After the meal we went to a separate room for desert and to everyone's surprise the staff brought out a birthday cake and sang Happy Birthday, this kind of treatment makes us want to go back for sure.

We met so many great people on this last trip, Scott and Shirley from Calgary (Thank's for the round of golf), Clyde and Naz from Kingston and Tom and Lori from Oshawa. This group made our stay even more enjoyable....Thank's Guy's.

Bottom Line Is.... You cannot go wrong with this resort, in saying that diffently pay the extra and stay on the adult only side, it's well worth the extra............

I had chosen Catalonia Royal Bavaro after weeks of comparing it with Excellence. I was a little worried because I saw a couple of not-so-great reviews on this hotel, but I have to say that they must have reviewed the main hotel and not the royal side.

When we checked in, the room had a huge fruit basket as a welcome basket and had flower petals everywhere.

We had dinner at Thalassa, which is the only restaurant on the royal side on the night we got in. We ate breakfast, lunch and dinner there several times and the service and the food are both excellent! They have outdoor seating, which is right by the pool so most people just walked over there for lunch and went back to the pool.

We tried the Gran Caribe, which is the buffet place on the main resort side several times and there the food was good too. My only comment on the place is, it's better to go there close to when they start serving, because we went there for just dessert one night close to closing time, and it looked really messy. But most of the time we were there when they started serving and everything was great!

We also tried the rodeo steakhouse. I ordered caesar salad and the churasco steak and thought the steak was excellent! My companion, however, ordered a sirloin and said that it was by far the worst steak he ever had. They also overcook the steak. The service was really excellent.

We also ate at the japanese hibachi place. I had read many great reviews on that place so we had high hopes. However, I have to say aside from looking at the cook cooking the food in front of you and eating with others, it wasn't really worth the hype. They gave us sushi as appetizer and it was really, really horrible. But the soup, fried rice and meat entree were great. Just maybe skip the sushi...

The pool by the royal side was really relaxing and quiet. They had two great bartenders making all kinds of drinks all day. Bartenders even came out offering fruit kebobs to people lounging by the pool. We visited the pool on the main resort side, however, and it was totally like spring break over there. I would definitely suggest staying on the royal side.

Overall, our stay was really great and I would highly recommend this hotel to anyone. The only downside to staying on the royal side was that they didn't really explain to us what was offered on the other side, as there were no brochures or anything like that in the room. Another annoying thing was for some reason you couldn't make a dinner reservation on the main resort side for the first 24 hours. The policy also says you have to dress up, no sandals, for the dinner reservation and that got kind of annoying too. But I guess with people acting like it's spring break, maybe it is to deter people showing up only in their bikinis.... All in all this is a great hotel!!

I start out by saying it was a wonderful week. The weather was great. It only rained once for a few minutes. We enjoyed relaxing in the sun. The grounds are very well kept and fun to walk around on the paths all around the resort.

Food well it is very different. We did enjoy the chicken and pizza at the pizza place by the pool. Ordered room service the first nite because we was very tired. Well the salad was just tomatoes and cheese>>>LOL No real salad... both of us hate tomatoes.. We did eat a ham sandwich that was also ordered and laugh about the whole think. I really didnt like to waste food but we couldnt eat the tomatoes

Room that are great. We was alittle upset that we had requested an upstairs room and was on the very bottom. Just stayed where we was never did go to see about another room. It was okay until late at nite you can hear everyone that walked up the stairs. We got use to it.

I want to say thanks to Luis in the main Lobby bar. He was wonderful to us for our last drinks of the nite.

I would say the only thing that I didnt like was there was very few people that understood english. That is the only problem we had.

Royal Catalonia Bavaro
Jim and Freda, County Durham, UK
Visited 4th May til 18th May 2008
We had a fabulous return from the very start when we were greeted outside the Royal lobby as we left the transfer bus. The other couple on the bus were so impressed they upgraded to the Royal as soon as they could, we became friends even though they were on their huneymoon, on the transfer back to the airport they expressed how they had really enjoyed being in the Royal.
Our first two days were like being in a presidential election shaking hands and being kissed by the girls as all the staff in the reasort made a special effort to come and say HOLA.
The French restuarant is no longer as it is now one of the best Italian restuarants we have ever eaten in the menu is very good without the pizza's and pasta's the steaks are to die for.
We will be going back again in December this year as the have started to develop the Royal to make it even better with the addition of disabled rooms. I am a wheelchair user and this will make the whole resort the most accessable I wil have ever been
to.
When I was there a year ago I had a few issues and requested a meeting with the head of Guest Relations I can now say that she listened and took all matters up with the main board of directors in Spain. All my suggestions have been acted on and even the buffets are being enclosed to stop the need to share food with the birds.
I am very proud of the fact that my quiet word has worked and proves that guests here are not just room numbers they are part of an extended family. Should you go here after reading this you will find this out for yourselves. After my last review I was contacted by prospective visitors and guess what they were in the Royal a few days after we arrived this was not a set up.
This is my Luxury home in the sun.