Just spent a week at the Barcelo with 25 friends. I was so nervous about this vacation after reading the reviews on trip advisor. Got there on Saturday February 4 at 6:30pm, went to check in and it took 10 mintues for us to do that. The staff was amazing. The resort was beautiful, clean and we had an ocean view room. The view was gorgous. The food was great at all the speacialty resturants. The buffet was huge and you could always find something you liked.The beach area was amazing. Plenty of chairs to go around. The pool bar was alot of fun and so were the bartenders. So don't let the reviews scare you. Its a beautiful resort and I loved it and so did everyone else. Make sure you take the taxi boat ride to the market. It was a blast.

My new husband and I along with another couple stayed a week at Barcelo Punta Cana from Jan 28 to Feb 5. Overall we had an awesome time!! The only issue we did have were our rooms. When we checked in we were assigned to ground floor rooms in building 7 which is in the old part of the hotel. Our room wasn't great. It was a lil rundown, there was no lock on the door and water was leaking from the light in the bathroom. There were also lil tiny ants on the floor but that is to be expected with a ground floor room. So the next morning we asked from another room and was told to come back around 3 to see if any were available. Luckily when we went back at 3 we were able to get another room on the 3rd floor in building 6 which was much better. It was still an older room but it was in better shape than the first one and had a nice view of the pool, plus I felt much safer being higher up.

For those who expect fancier rooms, you might wanna pay extra for the Club Premium package, which include rooms in the newer part of the hotel.

The important thing was that our room was clean and that we felt safe cuz really we were only in our room to change, shower and sleep anyways.

For everything else, we could not have asked for more. The pools were great and the beach was amazing. It was a lil windy so we spent most of our time by the pool but we took a long walk down the beach and it was gorgeous. By far the nicest beach I've seen! The food was very good; buffet had lots to choose from and the restaurants were really good. We went to the Pizzeria, the Paris and Tokio restaurants. All 3 restaurants were really good but if you go to the Paris restaurant, don't take the French onion soup or the creme brule....they do not taste anything like what we expect. The filet mignon and cordon bleu chicken were VERY good though. We also really liked the barbecue by the party pool. The burgers and fries were great!

The nightly shows were good but the ones we really enjoyed were the acrobatic show and the Michael Jackson show. The others were just ok.

Drinks were good and strong!! The best drink we had were mudslides. YUMMY!!

The staff were really nice and friendly. Especially Jose Carraseo, the friendly Bellboy! The maid service was very good. We came back to our room on a few occasions with lovely towel art which was nice.

So overall we had an amazing time and were really sad to go at the end of our week. We would definately not hesitate to go back.

We had a party of 22 people for our wedding, arriving February 2, departing February 9. Overall, we had a great time, but we definitely hit a few snags along the way.

Check-in: a disaster. It was alright for the majority of us, but they started off with no record of one couples reservation, and when they finally located it, they turned around and lost the one for my parents. Not kidding. It was a sheet of paper that the staff just up and lost in the shuffle. The staff also had one family of 4 showing as a family of 3 which was apparently not easy to rectify.

The showers: the first morning, no one in the hotel had hot water. And pretty much every day after that it was a hit and a miss. On our second last day, there was no cold water, and the shower went from normal to scalding!

Food: the main buffet was alright. I am very picky, but I was always able to find something to eat. We went to El Marlin, the Dominican, and Tex-Mex for the reservations. They were all decent, but the Chicken Surprise at the Tex-Mex was... Fish? No clue what I ate, but I spit it out in my napkin. It was terrible. I would definitely recommend the pizza place for lunch... It was delicious!!

Our room was always clean, and we had a great suite (#4425). Others in our party received fumigation notices, and we are fairly confident that one of our groomsmen got bedbugs.

Three of us could order the exact same thing at the various bars, and walk away with three different drinks. It was really hit and miss.

The wedding: our wedding was perfect. The entire day went off without a hitch. The wedding planner (Ariana) was amazing. The setting was beautiful, the weather was perfect, and the dinner after was SO GOOD!! They had a private buffet for us on the second floor of El Marlin (the pizza place), and everyone agreed that it was the best meal of the trip.

Lastly, the beach was the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. The weather was amazing, and those loungers on the pool were wonderful!

Would we go back to this resort? Probably not. But all in all, we had an amazing time!

Two weeks in hell would have been better...a premium suite ocean front excellent view ...but the room broken furniture....clogged drains..no hot water 95 percent of time and the worst roaches black and brown in bed on floor ...disgusting...they fumigated the room but more roaches i spoke with other tourists in different rooms and some others had roaches problems also. Food is ok but have seen much better in other resorts.. the beach fantastic the site is clean outside lots of workers everywhere. This is not a 4.5 resort its a 2.5 to a 3 at the most. Renovations date from over seven years ago and some buildings where never renovated yet so over 25 to 30yrs old. Ok its a tropical country but this is no bloody reason to have roaches in your room my wife was bitten twice by those suckers wich can carry disease. If you are not fussy and dont mind roaches roaming on you and in your room go ahead and book it. The staff from Transat are more proccupied to seel you excursions than talking about the state of the resort rooms. I will never never go back to that resort. One exception is Mr Alexander Perez who goes out of his way to help you with problems but he can only do so much due to the age and no respect from the owners of this barcelo.