We travelled with another couple with Sunwing Vacations from Jan 19 to 27, 2012. Our ages are early to mid 40's. The 4 of us were braced for some low quality food based on the past reviews from other travellers but we were all impressed with the great food and especially at the buffet. A lot of variety and excellent quality. Our favourite waitress in the buffet was Maira (no not Maria) she was great. Always brought us a glass of champagne with every meal (yep even breakfast) and even an extra one just in case. She even gave us a great big hug on our last day too.

Joel was our favourite at check in. Got our friends a room with 1 king bed instead of 2 doubles but apologized that it could not be until the next day as the hotel was filled to capacity. No problem as they got the room next day as promised.

The hotel is truly lovely and people need to stop complaining about the little things. The hotel employees are excellent. The vendors are really pushy at the flea market. If you don't like it don't go!! If you are a negotiator you will get some good deals. Got a lovely larimar flip flop charm on a silver necklace for $20 - the vendor started at $65 and I wasn't sure if it was real so $20 was all I was willing to pay. I was happy and the vendor wasn't so it must have been a good deal for me!!

The rooms are your typical rooms you find in all inclusives. My husband and I have been to at least 8 different countries in the past 11 years, some 4 star and some 5 star. These rooms are larger than an average hotel room here in Ontario and are very clean. Sometimes the room was cleaned first thing and sometimes not until supper but always cleaned. How much time are you spending in the room anyway?? You sleep, shower, shave and brush your teeth and off you go to the beach or the pool.

How can you give a hotel a bad rating because the weather network lied about the weather?? One of the recent travellers wrote that in their review. OMG!! Get real people. The weather was beautiful when we were there. Sunny 95% of the time with the occassional cloud here and there. Windy, very windy but that made it feel cooler than the stated temperature. It is a phenomenon called "wind chill". I will gladly take a wind chill of 25 degrees Celcius over our winter temperatures in Ontario any day. You want scorching hot then go to Central America not Dominican in January.

The lounge chairs at the pool and the beach are nicer than the usual blue and white loungers. These ones had multiple adjustments and were really great. Around the lobby bar and pool bar were many more comfy style chairs for those non sun worshippers. Many a lounger was spoken for early in the day by guests putting their towels on them but you soon figured the "saving system" out and got the spot you wanted too.

The Barcelo Bavaro Palace that is attached to the Beach hotel is huge. Our group loved to go down there for a shop in the many stores and watch the more elaborate shows they had at their Theatre but we all preferred the quieter Barcelo Bavaro Beach atmosphere for your everyday relaxing. You can stay at the Beach for a lot less than the Palace and you still get all the benefits of it. Having said that we did pay $15 extra per person to do the Japanese a la carte one night. Was well worth it as it was quite entertaining. Small negative....food a little too salty for me but no big deal.

All in all we really enjoyed ourselves. A vacation is what you make it. If you focus on the negatives you will have an overall bad experience but if you have a positive attitude, are easy going, want to destress, enjoy some wonderful beverages you will have a great time.

Cheers!!