I traveled with 3 family members from Feb 1 - 7 2012 and had read alot of the reviews and have to disagree with some of them. This is a great resort!

FOOD:
The food was great too! There were a couple of things on the table that did not meet my tastes but I just past them the next day. The meat is tough but that is a given as I have been treveling for 22 years and is normal for a seasoned traveler to the islands. The Grouper was VERY GOOD! as well as the potatoes. They even had a KFC style chicken that was very good. My nefew really liked the veil. I did not care for the ravioli meat sauce they used but that is me. ..... YOU WILL NOT STARVE!!

RESORT:
The resort is not as big as I had been expecting from some reviews. The layout is very nice and met our needs. I have been on some much larger resorts. Our room was close to the beach which was perfectly located as the reception is in the middle of the resort and the other way are villas which we went and checked out the pool area. Just outside the reception is the main pool where all the activity is. The pool activities would be noisy for some people from 11:00am till 4:00pm (rooms in the 3000's). The pool near the Teatro was very quiet and this is the pool before the walk to the beach (about 100 meters). It would be considered noisy by some peole from 8:30pm-11:30pm as this is where the nightly shows are (rooms in the 4000's). This is where we were!!

BATHROOM:
The bathroom in the rooms are something to experience! The toilet and shower are seperate and the toilet is in a tight space. If you are a big person you could have issues! Then again if you were drunk you could rest your head on the wall in front of you.... I'm just saying it is tight!! There was always Hot water and not any issues!

GYM:
As a guy that works out I have to give the resort cudos! to there gym!! It has everything for a perfect workout. A very nice mix of free weights and machines. It was nice to keep the chest tight as they had a bench press! ..... AGAIN AWSOME GYM!!!!!!!!!

STAFF:
We also did not encounter any rude staff! They were all great and helpfull some more than others but none that were rude!

This was our 5th time to Dominican and our worse vacation ever. It was so bad that we tried to make arrangements to go home after our first week. We were told that in order to do so we would have to pay our airfare back. We decided to tough it out. Most of the staff were pleasant, especially the ones working at the pizza place. The beds and pillows were horrid. We read all the reviews and decided some were probably over exagerated, but after experiencing this resort we found them not too far off. Too many people for one buffet restaurant in the morning. Never had to stand in line for breakfast at any other resort we stayed at. Canadians were very few and lots of foreigners. Not enough chairs. If you were up at 6:00am you might be able to find a chair to put your towel on, both at the main pool and the beach. We tried all the a-la cartes. The Mexican was the only one we liked. If you wanted wine with your dinner you had to buy a bottle. Again, never heard of this before at an all-inclusive. The best part of this holiday was the beautiful weather and the IFA cannot take the credit for that. We definitely wouldn't go back.

My boyfriend and I spent 1 week (our first vacation ) at IFA Bavaros Village. Our first time in DR. Prior to going, I read several reviews for this property and was a bit apprehensive about the food, and staff.
It was absolutely the BEST vacation! The resort is beautiful, the staff are friendly, and the food was excellent!
For those of you writing reviews saying that the staff are not "all that" please keep in mind that these people are making about $200/month to wait on you hand and foot! We found the staff in all areas of the resort to be gracious, friendly and helpful.
The rooms were spacious and very clean -what more could you ask for?
The buffet was excellent - a wide variety of food - well prepared and very tasty! There are several a la cartes here, and only one was not very good. The Italian one, at the beach - not so good. The rest were fabulous!
The pool area and grounds were very well maintained and beautiful.
Check in and out were a breeze - no issues at all.
Some reviews I read said that the beach was "quite a walk" NOT! The resort isn't right on the beach, but it takes less than 5 minutes to hit the sand.
Our overall rating of the resort was excellent! The weather and temperature were perfect.
We had a great time and would certainly stay there again.
Pictures of the resort are actually what it looks like!

I went to this hotel during Christmas Vacation and I promise I will never go back. My first impression was : Wow, this is an amazing place! Look at the pools and the room is so amazing! It lasted for only one day!
FOOD : The buffet is not so good. The food was really ordinary, lot of meat and seafood. Not many vegetables and salads. Everything was to same or almost every day. They add good fajitas one day, but that's all. Pasta bar was really average. Same ordinary greasy food every morning for breakfast. The pizza was good, salty but the best meal of the week. I ate that almost every day! And white rice and coleslaw at the buffet. Everything was so fried, sweet or salty, it was difficult to find something healthy to eat. If you are a vegetarian, avoid this place because it's really complicated to eat for real!
RESTAURANTS À LA CARTE: Don't go to them if you can avoid them! I tried the oriental and the Italian one and it was awful. Nothing oriental in the first one (except a miso soup) and the Italian one was really awful. Same noodle as the oriental for the pastas with different sauce. Big plates, super greasy and the food was doubtful. My boyfriend didn't eat is plate because it was smelling funny and he didn't want to be sick. If you want to try them, don't do the line up for the restaurants à la carte every morning, you can just call from your room. I did it one morning and I waited 45 minutes for nothing. I would have called to make a reservation, but the phone in my room was out of order.
CHAIRS: People at this resort are so egoist! They literally run to the beach to reserve chairs in the morning, then they run to the pool to do the same thing and they go someplace else. I spent a day at the pool and all the chairs were reserved, but there was only 5-7 people there (for 40 chairs). Same for the beach. I had to "steal" chairs twice from people in the morning. When they arrived at the end of the afternoon, they were not really happy with that, but it seems to be the game. I think the chair is not yours if you're not sitting on it and people should not be allowed to reserve chairs at all.
THEATRE : The shows were so bad. Same thing every day. The animation crew were selecting some women every night and they were sensually playing with them on stage. Humiliating, I should say. And they were always shouting and stopping music to say annoying things. My room was just behind the theatre and it was awful. You should also know that I was in the section with the "beach front" room.
BEACH FRONT ROOMS : not really beach front. You can't see the sea, but you can listen to the music from the theatre all night long! For 8 to 15$ extra per night, it's definitely not worth it.
MARKET : two times a week, there's a market in front of the buffet and the reception and the sellers are really harassing people. They try so hard to sell you things it's really awful. I had to take a detour to go to the reception to avoid them the first night. On the second night, I ate pizza far away from them to be sure I didn't have to confront them again.
MUSIC : On the beach, on the main pool area, you have to avoid it because it's bad and too loud. You also have to avoid the animation crew because they sometimes are a little insistent and I think they sometimes makes fun of the tourists, especially during the "sexy" gym session (girls in bikini making sexy moves to exercise. Old man were loving this part!).
ANIMALS : they have animals one the site but it's a little sad. The pond for the flamingo is so polluted, I think it's really bad for the animals. There's plastic bags, plastic cups and dirty mud in the pond where the animal feeds. The peacock are nice and there's chicken everywhere! That's the nice part!
POOLS : As I said earlier, there's a big pool in the middle of the resort with music and animation. Avoid it. There's a small pool near the theatre, it's calm and nice. And there's wi-fi there to. There's another pool at the other end of the resort. It's the better pool and the less occupied one. The bar is nice and you can have some shade there. It's a nice pool to swim in, but it's smelling toilet under the bar, not a good spot to swim. If you don't go to this spot, it's the perfect pool on the site. There's also 4 Jacuzzis at the end of the resort, near the wonderful pool, but there's no comfy places to sit there.
BARS : The drinks are good, but you sometimes have to specifies that you want alcohol in them and the quantity. You cannot sit at the bar because the chairs are so uncomfortable. Just take your drink and go away.
BEACH : The beach was really nice, but too windy. With the sun it was ok, but on a cloudy day, it can be cold. There were a lot (A LOT) of noisy boats in front of the beach. There was also a strange flying boat with a loud engine passing many times per hour on the water on in the sky, really annoying.
OTHERS : the room was amazing! The bed was so big, it was difficult to reach my boyfriend during the night! If they had the right size of sheets, it would have be perfect. Be sure to take a shower before 5pm because there's no more hot water after this time. There's a fridge in the room with 2 bottles of water every day. That's not enough, you have to refill them at the bars during the day. There's no screen in the window so you have to close it during the evening and the night to avoid mosquito (and malaria)
If you still want to go there, be sure to tip the waiters, maids and every people who helps you. They are not responsible for the resort and all you misery and they are here ALL the time (waiters are there from breakfast to last supper, more than 14 hours shift, 7 days a week. Same for the waiters.). I didn't see a lot of people tipping and I think that's really important for the employees and it's not that expensive for you. I spend almost 60-80 dollars on tips for two persons on one week and I was glad to help the employees because they are not well paid and they work really hard all the time. Make sure you have change (US or other) before you arrive because it's really difficult to change you money on the site. I tried a few times to have change for a 20 or a 10 and they didn't have it. Be sure you bring a lot of 1$ bill, it's simple.