Just back from our stay (actually, at PUJ airport waiting to leave - there's free wi-fi, enjoy it like I am doing right now), and we're going to break down and analyze the main aspects, point by point:

1) Reception/ Front Desk:
- Great, friendly staff, will go out of their way to please you (they changed our room on request for example)
- Good quality internet on the 2 Reception desktop PCs, Wi-Fi was patchy. In some spots/rooms you had a good quality of service, others you couldn't get it to operate at all.

2) Rooms
- Nice and large, with the built-in round bathtub.
- We had an electrical problem and they fixed it as quick as they could, all we had to do is call the helpful front desk.
- They're currently expanding the Royal part of the resort by building two extra villas. But whether you're in the beach or in your room, you won't hear it.


3) Food / Restaurants
All restaurants had their ups and downs.
- The main restaurant of the Royal part of the resort (Thalassa) is great, and so is most of their staff. One glitch is the waiting time: since all waiters tend to all customers, sometimes orders will get lost in the shuffle or take more time than necessary. But on other days service was quick and efficient. But who cares, we're on holiday! Juan, Angelica, Angel Leonel, Rafael and Maria the concierge, for example, are a joy to be served by.
- Breakfast consists of a buffet with some a la carte options.
- Lunch a la carte is available to all Royal guests. One part of the menu changes daily while the other part remains constant every day.
- Dinner only by booking. The menu differs from the lunch menus, and remained constant throughout our stay.
- Food is overall great in quality, and they're willing to tweak the meals a little to your best liking. As for desserts, avoid the tiramisu, chocolate mousse... those are not their specialties, believe me. For something sweet, try the creperie "La Bretonne" on the regular side of the Catalonia.

Thematics:

- La Toscana: Great pasta, shoddy desserts.
- Steakhouse: Good quality meat (not great).
- Mikado: The chef does his little hot plate showdown on a table/room for 12 people. The overall quality of the food is good. The only restaurant without the AC system working and it was in dire need of one! For dessert, try the fried ice-cream.
- Mexican: Spicy. My bowels felt it the day after, but the food is nice.
- Grand Caribe buffet: lots of choice and lots of room (tables on one side, food on the other). The quality is what you'd expect from a large hotel buffet.
- Beach buffet: Smaller and noisier. Tip: go early! Food selection is smaller than in Grand Caribe, but the quality is the same.
- Pizza parlour: Let me tell you, I've worked in Italy for 3 months and tasted a great deal of pizza while there. The pizzas they make at Catalonia reminded me of some of the best I had in Firenze. Warning: they disappear from the serving trays FAST! Get it while you can.

4) The Beach
- Occasionally some coconut leaves on the water surface, some small boulders, but otherwise nice and clear water. Very warm, specially in the afternoon.
- Beach chairs very nice, and lots of shade (even outside a palapa - the coconut trees do a magnificent job at that)
- Drinks from the bar were all very nice and not watered down. Even without having to tip the bartender. Just smile.

You can count on a LOT of Spanish tourists in the Summer months.
The main hotel is just next door, and we can confirm that it has a definite family/regular feel.

We highly recommend the Royal and we'd definitely be back!!

My husband and I booked this resort online on Thursday, July 17 and we checked in on Sunday, July 20th-Checked out Sunday, July 27th We got married on July 19th in Toronto, Canada.

We travelled to the Carribbean many times (Cuba x 8, Jamaica x1, Mexico x 2, Dominican Republic- Santo Domingo x 2) and it's both our first time in Punta Cana. We were looking for an adults only resort to relax to unwind after the wedding. I was on tripadvisor everynight for at least one month to check out the different resorts and this one had the best reviews by far.

AIRPORT- Toronto- flew Canjet - never again. No video monitors, uncomfortable (even after we paid $80 to prebook the first 2 seats 1A, 1B for extended legroom). Flight on our way back was hot - flight attendant turned up the heat because there weren't enough blankets to handout. It's 4 hours 15 minutes to fly to Punta Cana.


CHECK IN - Royal lobby is small and fully enclosed air-conditioned. We were the only couple checking in. Bartender served us two glasses of rose wine while we were checking in. Nice touch!

ROOM- Fabulous!! (Stayed in Room 4425)

Bathroom - toilet flushed properly, stand up shower had removable shower head and cool wood-plank floor but the entire washroom is marble. There is 110V and 220V outlets available! It was awesome, I brought my hairstraightener.

TUB- outside the bathroom - separated by a half wall beside the bed. Used it once and it worked well. Hot water and perfect for 2 people.


BED King size - 4 poster bed with a white draping. Nicely decorated everyday - with towel art and flowers.

SITTING AREA- 4 comfy chairs on each side of the wall and a coffee table. Dark brown rattan.

BALCONY- we faced the Royal Pool. 2 rattan chairs, a bistro table, ashtray and hammock. One of the bracket to tie one end is on the lower end of the wall so if you lie down, your butt will drag on the floor. Not a big deal.


FOOD --So Good! I gained 5 pounds during this vacation. I ate 3 square meals a day. We tried our first breakfast at Thalassa but it's ala carte and didn't have much selection. It's gourmet so there's smoked salmon and prosciutto. We decided to go next door to Catalonia buffet for breakfast instead. So much selection. They even had a crepe station, made to order eggs etc. You will not go hungry. We loved the chocolate croissants and chocolate muffins/bread plus eggs, french toast, bacon.

THALASSA- OMG, I can eat here all the time (except breakfast). Everything is so good. Our first dinner I had lobster and hubby had veal. Service is so fast and the food is absolutely fabulous!


CATALONIA BUFFET AND RESTAURANTS You can never go wrong with going next door to eat at the buffet. There's so much selection -- like I said. I gained 5 pounds during this vacation- This is the first time...we've been to so many other all-inclusives and I never gained weight at any of them.

ALA CARTE RESTAURANTS - Mikado - Japanese - we ate the steak teppanyaki. Sushi and miso soup appetizer.

All of our ala cartes were pre-booked for the week! We ended up skipping Mexican, Rodeo Steak House and Italian. Sometimes we ordered room service and other times we decided to stay in our room at night watch some DVD's we brought and other times we just weren't hungry.

CREPERIE- we went here a few time and it was good too. Open only from 4pm-10pm

BEACH - was probably a 5 minute walk from our villa. Royal beach had different beach loungers that Catalonia. It was padded. Nice beach but I've seen better beaches in Varadero and in Jamaica. It's still white sand and clear water but I preferred other beaches.

POOL - we hung out by the pool most of the time. The loungers have this thick padding and it's sooo comfortable. There are 3 built in loungers in the pool too which was popular.

Other guests in the hotel were mainly from Spain. We met people from Bolivia, Germany, Switzerland and U.S. We didn't bump into any Canadians in Royal, but we met a young couple from Montreal who stayed in Catalonia.

SERVICE - Amazing. Extremely tentative to your needs and very quick. We called in for an extra pillow and blanket and less than 2 minutes later someone knocked on our door with them.

GOLF- our package included 2 rounds of golf. We only played 9 holes in the onsite golf course. We gave our other 18 holes voucher to another couple we met. It was good too.

PARASAILING - We went parasailing $90 for 2 people. Cool experience. I've done it before in Mexico but it was hubby's first time. We were dunked in the water twice but it was fun.

Nothing bad to say about this resort. We will definitely go back.

We paid $2500 including taxes for one week 2 people for this resort.

Any questions, feel free to e-mail me here.

Thanks for reading.

My husband and I are in our 30s and stayed at the Royal from July 15 through 20th.

We arrived at Punta Cana airport without a hitch on a direct flight from Atlanta to Punta Cana (PUJ). We took pictures with the Dominican ladies upon our arrival, purchased the $10pp tourist cards, picked up our luggage, and found our transfer company in about 30 minutes. Next, we were off to Catalonia Royal!

The drive to the hotel was not nearly as bad as people had described it to be! Yes, the roads are a bit bumpy and they do not have the driving rules that we have in the US, but we felt very safe as there are not as many cars on the road.

We arrived at the Royal, checked in and were in our room in about 15 minutes. We immediately went to Thalassa restaurant for lunch.

The room was very nice. I think everyone else has given ample attention to the rooms, so I won't go into much detail. We never had a problem with our room, everything worked well, we always had hot water and air conditioning. There were about four resort wide power outages during our stay, but it was back on very quickly. Remeber, if you open the patio door, the air conditioning will automatically shut off. Keep the door closed, it's very humid in PC! :)

The beach was very nice, nicer than we expected! Everyone talks up the seaweed on the reviews, so we expected a mangled beach and thankfully, we were very pleasantly surprised. Only complaint here is that there is no butler service while on the beach or in the pool!!! You do have to get up and get your own drink from the beach or pool bar. Otherwise, it is a very relaxing, calm, quiet area to relax and enjoy nature at its best!!!

The drinks were great! I have seen other reviews stating that the drinks were watered down. One rule of thumb...a dollar or two will go a long way! I NEVER had a watered down drink!! As a matter of fact, at the pool bar, I would go back to the swim up for the next round and it was prepared and ready before I got to the bar to pick it up...allot $5-$10 per day for tipping...you will NEVER have a weak drink! Keep those strong capirhinhas coming, please! :)

I would give the food an overall rating of B-. You can ALWAYS find something that you like at this resort. If you don't, you truly need to go back home. There are four nice restaurants and a Creperie on the "regular/family" side of the resort as well as a buffet and pool bar. The Royal guests also have the option to order 24 hour room service. We took advantage of the room service four out of five nights. The sandwiches don't have a lot of meat, but if you ASK for more, you will get more meat! Again, tipping is very helpful! $1 per night for the room service delivery guy will go a long way in PC.

Overall, we had a great stay, my husband and I really enjoyed spending quality time together and reconnecting away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life with our 3 year old daughter (she was at Grandma's) and this was a great, cost conscious option! We would, absolutely, return to the Royal again!

Word to the wise: It is vacation...don't sweat the small stuff. Just enjoy some quality time with your partner and enjoy this large, all-inclusive resort with many food, activity and entertainment options! :)

This was our first visit to the DR, and also our first all-inclusive! After having been to the Royal Catalonia, we are definitely in love with the all-inclusive idea! This resort was beautiful, relaxing, and enjoyable. However, I thought that for the amount of praise it was getting, the service should have been better. Not that anyone was rude or anything, that never happened. But I would have liked to have drink/food service at the pool, and esp the beach! You just have to sit around on the beach or pool and get your own drinks, which I thought was not so lavish. And I didn't think anyone really went out of their way to be extremely nice or helpful. They were just "there." The lady that sets up the reservations for the restaurants was not very helpful, and even had a somewhat nonchalant attitude. Same with a lot of the waiters. Another thing was the mixed drinks--they were very weak and watered down. I don't think either of us ever even felt buzzed!

The resort itself is very beautiful though, and very clean and feels relaxing. Having said all this, I would not likely return, only because I want to experience better service and feel more "pampered!" We are going to another AI resort in Cancun, better luck there!