We spent 5 nights, from June 30 to July 5, at the Royal Catalonia Bavaro and had a great time. I will list the good things about this resort and lastly list the very few minor things. Although this was my first time in the Dominican Republic, it was not my first time to the Caribbean, nor was it my first time to an all inclusive resort.

For couples, the Royal Catalonia Bavaro is a great place to spend a vacation. The beach is beautiful and the pool area is relaxing. While at the pool, ask Carlos to mix you his specialty drink. The people were all friendly and always gave you an "Hola" as they pass you by.

The food at the Thalassa restaurant was great. We did eat at the Carib buffet restaurant a couple of times and we didn't see any bad problems as stated in some of the other reviews. The Carib is open air and yes, there will be birds and insects, IT'S THE TROPICS. The food at the Carib was plentiful and had something for everyone. If you walked away hungry, it was your fault.

We tried the Japanese Steakhouse and the Italian restaurant. They were both great. The lasagna at the Italian restaurant was superb.

The resort grounds was well manicured and kept up daily.

It was great to be able to go the the other side of the resort and enjoy the activities and then return to the Royal side and relax. By the way, if you are not a Royal guest, the guard will stop you.

The nightly shows were fun. The entertainment team were fantastic. They are doing the activities at the pool and beach during the day and then do the shows at night. They are awesome. It's a different show every night and after the show, you can go to the disco.

Ok, to be truthful, I have to add the bad things to, so here they are.
We arrived around 4:00pm and our room was not ready yet. It was an hour later before the room was ready. We did receive a glass of champagne while we waited and enjoyed the view of the pool.

One day, after a day at the beach and pool, we found we had no water in our room. The problem was quickly resolved when I found our maid in another room and told her about it.

Another day, after a day at the beach and pool, we had no hot water in our room. This problem I had to go to the desk to get resolved. I found out the it wasn't just our room that had the problem. They were repairing the hot water unit, this took a little more time to resolve.

Other than those, that was the only bad things I found with the Royal Catalonia Bavaro. We never had problems with wash cloths as some have stated. We never had problems with rude people as some have stated. We never had problems with bugs as some have stated.

In conclusion, The Royal Catalonia Bavaro is not a 5 star resort. If we treat people as we would want to be treated, they will do a lot more for you. Even though tips were included, we tipped anyway and the service was great. Would I recommend The Royal Catalonia Bavaro? Yes. Is it the best all inclusive I have ever stayed at? No. Would I return to The Royal Catalonia Bavaro? Yes.

We just returned from the Cantalonia Royal on June 23rd. Our vacation started off poorly as we were given a smelly , warm room. We took the problem to management and they assured us it was because the room had been empty and it takes time to cool off. The next day we were still having problems with the air conditioning and again we went to management. They offered us 2 other rooms, both of which were no cooler than ours. The second night things got really bad and the air stopped working completly. It was a long night. At 6 am I asked management to come to my room - they agreed the air was no longer working and they had to move us right away. They gave us a new room in a different villa and it was 100% better. So.... after our second night - third day.... we were finally able to relax and enjoy. I enjoyed the rest of my vacation but felt like I was robbed of 2 enjoyable days. It's difficult to leave a warm beach for a warm room and just as challenging leaving a warm shower nto a warm room and then dressing for dinner. I thought the resort on the Royal side was well worth the money because the regular side was crowded and full of loud partying kids - young and old. The Grand buffet was not so good and was often warm and full of flys. The restuarants were nice and the beach was beautiful. I won't go back - I will return to Majestic.... they take you seriousely when there is a problem.

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!!