I want to start my review by saying I went with an open mind. I had read MANY reviews before I went. So here we go...

The Good,
If you think a carnival cruise is about as good as it gets, your going to love this place. If you think Disney isn't crowded in June & July, your going to love this place. If waking up early on your vacation to jog down to save a chair fits in to your workout routine....you guessed your going to love this place.

The Bad
This resort is really showing it's age around the edges. We had 3 separate occasion that our door would not un-lock. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the Lobby wasn't in a different zip code. Every room has well stocked mini bar if you only want 2 warm beers and a couple of warm Pepsi's. Each room has an umbrella.......scratch that, some room's have umbrellas.

The Ugly,
After handing out more $$$ than Obama in tips and not getting 1 single TY, I stopped that about mid week. Except for the maid. Never know what they might due if you stop. The beach are is so so so so so crowded never spent any time just sitting and enjoying the veiw. Mostly walked the beach wishing I was staying next door or next door to that or that... What's up with not picking up after yourself when your on vacation? And smokers, the beach is not a giant ashtray.

As you can probably tell I will not be back to this resort. I will however be back to the DR.

P.S You can tell the resort doesn't really care about what is being said here because they never reply. The goods one always do.

We stayed in the Bavaro section from Feb. 4-12.

The grounds are very mature and well maintained.

Staff are very nice, and the resort is kept very clean. Staff were always cleaning around the pool and beach area. Didnt have a problem with the language barrier, if someone couldnt understand me they would find someone who could.

The resort was at maximum capacity, which meant it was really hard to get chairs at the beach or pool unless you were up by 8am to save a chair. It was just too crowded for my liking. It felt like you were sitting ontop of other vacationers.

The food was a huge disappointment. Let me start off by saying I am not a picky eater at all, and having travelled to many other resorts this was the worst. The food is always cold. Breakfast the eggs and omlettes were pre-made and then sat out. So the hot food was cold, and things like fruit which should be cold was warm. The food at the main buffet was awful, cold over cooked just blech. Food for lunch by the pool was decent.

Last February 4 of us went to Varadero for the same price we paid for 2 of us to go to this resort. Wish I would have saved my money and gone somewhere different this year.

We just returned from Gran Bahia Principe Bavaro, we went from Feb 4 - 11th.
First lets talk about Thomas Cook & Sunquest, not a good plane and our flight times were horrible, we arrived at after 2am on the 5th, and our return flight left at 1:00 am to return to Toronto @ 4:30, well it was more like 1:30 and 5:00, so after waiting forever for luggage, it was long after 6 before we left airport, not to sure I'd travel Thomas Cook again,

Check- In

well it wasn't so nice, some people got wristbands on the bus before we even left for the hotel, about 30 minutes sitting on the bus, we finally left for the hotel.
ONE staff member there to greet us, almost a hour to check in, we had to pay $28US for a safe. Well it didn't work so I called the front and they said someone would be right there to fix it, almost a hour later before someone got there, I tried to cancel so we could sleep but they kept saying they'll be there any minute.
Check in experience......3/10

The Room

Beautiful, jet tub, raised sea shell sink, really big & nice shower, fridge stocked with beer, pop & water. I left a tip everyday but never had towel art, I love towel art dammit, we talked to others and they had towel art, I left 2 or 3 dollars everyday but nuttin.

Rooms.........9/10


The Staff

Nice, pollite, sometimes hard to communicate but always willing to help.
Pool bar staff were great.
Staff.........8/10

Food


The food at the buffet was good, never had enough bacon, but food was good, I dont wanna sound like Im a fussy person, Im truely not, just trying to give u the big picture.
BBQ a la carte was in my oppinion the best, the Garden Grill Steak house was good as well, and the Italian at Esmeralda was nice, hard to find but nice.

Food.......8/10

Shopping

I think this was really convienient, as a guy Im not that into shopping, I wanna get some stuff for the kids but not wanna take all day to do it, well no need to leave the resort, lots of shops & vendors, make sure you barter with the vendors, they'll try to rip u off unless you do.

Shopping.....10/10


Tours & Excursions

We went on one tour, the Seona Island Catameran Tour, is was a long day, about 12 hours, but nice, they stop in the middle of the ocean where theres a breath taking patch of water where u can sit in waist high water and relax, then we set off to an island for lunch & drinks, we had a few hours to swim & tan or whatever. Booze was included o the island and the catemeran, it was about $96US a person..

Tour....8/10

The Resort

The gardens are kept well, the staff work hard to make the place look awesome, the only small negative is figuring out where everything is, and depending on what colour your bracelet is you can't go in every pool or restaurant, confusing as hell, even after a week we haven't figured out where we can or can't go. But it was a beautiful place.
(They do have shuttles to help get around)
The Resort........7/10

The Booze

Ok, so the mixed drinks were incredible, Banana mamas, coco locos, choco bananas, pina coladas...I'm a rye guy, they dont have it, they think scotch is rye, yuk, but lots of options for other stuff, ofcoarse there not stingy with the booze.

Booze.......9/10

Over-all


The resort was fun, bavaro beach was beautiful, food good, staff ok, resort huge but beautiful, I would recomment and possibly return one day.....

Overall ....8.5/10

We had a group of 8 staying at this resort. 3 of which had previously been to this resort a couple of years back. We were there from Feb 1st to feb. 11th. We stayed at the hacienda/diamond club suites and it was well worth the extra money to be close to the beach and having our own restaurant for breakfast and lunch!! We all stayed in building 27. I contacted Virgina from the hacienda club about 3 weeks prior to our arrival and she was awesome!! She made sure that all our rooms were in the same building as well we booked 6 a la carte dinners with her that was confirmed by email a few days before we left!! Virgina definitely made our trip a much better experience.

We all enjoyed all the a la cartes, especially the Japanese restaurant- we went twice, and the grill were our 2 favorite but all a la cartes were a good experience!!

The only issue that we had with the food was that the hamburgers were never fully cooked and we tried them everyday at lunch time and once the ribs (at lunch) were raw. Other then those food issues, the food was plentiful and good!!

The other issue that we found quite apparent was that most of their "front line" employees spoke very little English and most did not speak English at all!! I totally understand that we are in their country but according to the resort, 70% of visitors were from Canada!!! We are talking about simple request, like a coconut rum with pineapple juice, we got rum and coke, or asking for extra towels and we got toilet paper!! Just saying.

We were definitely more appreciative to have Virgina around to make our requests in Spanish!!

Would definitely recommend this resort.