My husband and I arrived in Punta Cana on October 6, 2009 for our 9 day honeymoon at Paradisus Punta Cana.
We were greeted by beautiful grounds, a gorgeous lobby and a courteous bell boy who took our bags. When we went to the counter to check in, we were immediately brought a frozen drink (The Paradisus - delicious!). Unfortunately, when we checked in, they immediately tried to up-sell us on the Reserve area of the resort. This didn't give me a lot of confidence in our regular room. Then we met our "concierge", Leonardo. His sole purpose was to get us to purchase their vacation club. He told us we had to meet him tomorrow morning at 9:30am to give us the list of open restaurants for the next few days. If we had known he was just trying to sell us something, we wouldn't have gone. He was pretty useless.
Upon check in, we received our resort bracelets, room keys, a safe lock and 2 towel cards. We were then taken to our room via tram car. Our room was was lovely. Very clean and cool. It was located right next to the pool, beach and most of the restaurants. The lobby was a 10 minute walk or a tram ride.
The bell boy checked our mini fridge to make sure it was full and it wasn't. He called down to guest services to get it filled, but they never came. We had to call later that evening, but that was the only time we had to call to get our mini fridge replenished.
When we were getting settled, they brought us a complimentary bottle of champagne and a fruit basket. We ordered room service our first night bc we got in late and just wanted to get to bed. We both got beef tenderloin w/ rice and vegetables. It wasn't great, but it was edible. I thought the food in the restaurants would be better. Boy, was I wrong.
The next day we had to meet with Leonardo. We're not morning people, so this was highly annoying. He was busy with another couple when we arrived in the lounge area and told us to get some breakfast and come back.
The breakfast buffet is frightening. "Exotic" doesn't even describe some of the items. Everything was mislabeled (cucumbers were labeled "lettuce", etc) so I wouldn't touch anything I couldn't identify. Keep in mind, It's about 90 degrees w/ 100% humidity and the food is sitting in an open air buffet. Everything was sweating. There were ants in the syrups and honey. Flies on the food. It really was gross.
There was absolutely NOTHING appealing on the breakfast buffet. The fruit had no taste and was warm. The orange "juice" was warm and wasn't even real orange juice. It was some kind of sugary sweet orange drink. The eggs were runny and how could you trust eggs that were sitting out like that? Maybe we have a different standard of hygiene and food quality, but I just don't see how anyone could find this food acceptable. The only good thing I can say about the Hybiscus breakfast buffet was that the service was good. Water glasses were always filled and the staff was friendly.
I knew we wouldn't be up for breakfast most days. I figured we could survive on toast until lunch if I had to... After staring at our empty plates for breakfast, we headed back to meet with Leonardo. He spoke very little English, but I expected this. Communication was difficult. He had me write down the list of restaurants that were open until Sunday (we arrived Thursday). He then tried to sell us vacation club and get our info. We declined and told him we really just wanted to get out to the beach bc it was so hot. He then tried to give us a free dinner at the Gabi club so they could up-sell us on the reserve. He told us that we had to meet back with him on Sunday to get the list of open restaurants for the next week. He also told us we had to come back tomorrow morning to get our coupon for our free dinner. We never went back and he didn't bother us the rest of the trip.
We then went out to the main pool. When we went to get our towels, they tried to sell us excursions. Annoying. The main pool is huge with a swim up bar. It is very warm, but it wasn't crowded at all. The resort as a whole wasn't very crowded. The pool was clean and there were plenty of chairs. The music was island music, techno and some American pop. The bartender at swim up bar didn't make the best drinks, but it was good enough. The split the majority of our time between this pool and the beach.
Lunch was in La Palapa (which is also Marino, the "seafood" restaurant in the evening. I will not even get into the revolting lobster dinner I had from there, but I will post a picture). Another open air buffet. This one was on the beach. Beautiful scenery! Food was disgusting. Again, sweating food, bugs, and indescribable, unmarked cuisine. I couldn't believe that we had 8 days left of this food. I couldn't even eat salad as the the lettuce was wilted and sick looking. I ended up eating a lot of cucumbers and balsamic vinegar. My husband ate bread and sometimes cake, if they had something decent. The only pleasant aspect was the staff.
Dinner was at the chinese restaurant. It wasn't good, but it was the most edible meal we had the entire trip. We ordered fried wontons, dumplings and sweet and sour chicken. It came with minute rice. Seriously...Instant rice. Oh well. I had a pretty bad headache from not eating all day. That in conjunction with the heat cut our first night short. Also, all the restaurants are open air and it is HOT and HUMID all the time. This makes dining slightly uncomfortable, especially when you're starving.
To sum up the rest of the trip, we were hungry the entire time. 2 days before we left, we spent $50 on snacks in the gift shop and ate those until we went home. We couldn't stomach any more of their food. The room service all starts tasting the same and whatever you do, DO NOT ask for a grilled cheese.
We enjoyed ourselves during the day in the pool and at the beach. If you can, go over to the reserve pool. It's cooler and no one will hassle you if you keep a low profile. The resort was beautiful, the service was good, I can even deal with the up-selling, but I would not recommend this resort to family or friends because of the poor quality of food. It ruined the trip for us. You can't enjoy yourself when you're hungry all the time.