We visited the DR from Jan 5-11, 2012. We have been home three days and I am not sure when our intestines will return to normal. The food, the service, the filth, the 24-7 guards standing at every corner of the resort are all negatives! The room was so infiltrated with mold in the vents and air conditioning, we had to open the window, which had no screen, which allowed mosquitoes in, made it terrible to sleep there. We stayed one night - the food was disgusting besides making us super sick! No wash clothes-typical of the DR!- getting bath towels took 2 hours of chasing maids! $300.00 a nite for 3 people. I'd never go back to the DR and would not recmmend this place to anyone!!

This was my 4th all-inclusive resort experience, so I would say that I had some expectations, but they were not unreasonable. (We were a family group of 8, btw). Having said that, this resort was not great. Here's why:

Positives:
The location is great. Lots of nicely landscaped beachfront and nice water (although you need water shoes for all the rocks). Compared to other resorts/properties along the same beach, this one has clear water and a very wide section of beach. There are palm trees along the beach too for shade, so that was nice.
The grounds were beautiful. They were meticulous in maintaining all the trees and other vegetation, and the resort really did look beautiful, especially at night with many of the trees and bushes lit up. The pools were great too. And the free pool dive was fun.
Two restaurants (one buffet and one a-la-carte) are right on the beach, and the ambiance just can't be beat. We loved eating there looking out over the ocean and feeling the breeze. It was just fantastic.

Negatives:
Rooms. We stayed in the 200 block and the rooms were old and totally run down, somewhat dirty, and damp. Room service (ie. cleaning) was pretty terrible. They ran out of bath towels on a regular basis, and they didn't do too much to tidy the rooms or refill things in the bathrooms (shampoo, soap, etc.).
The service was bad. Hardly anyone spoke any english. Checkin took about an hour, and they seemed frazzled and confused the whole time. Checkout was also much harrier than it needed to be.
The food was average at best. There was a wide selection at mealtimes, but it didn't always taste great and the quality was not consistent. Plus, service during mealtimes was such that you had to go out of your way to find coffee/tea in the mornings, and water at any meal. There weren't enough staff that were interested in making sure you had water to drink with your meal. At the a-la-carte restaurants the service was a little better, because it was totally table service, but it took ages to prepare the food, and again, sign language and signals and pointing to menus was required to place an order, and they still got at least one order wrong each time.
Most of the beach chairs were extremely dirty and greasy, which meant that you really wanted a beach towel to lay on. But they ran out of those everyday too. Their favourite line was "come back in 20 minutes", which you'd do, only to find out you need to wait an hour this time. Frustrating -- I just want a beach towel!
The beach is also frequented by locals trying to see you everything from sarongs to towels, necklaces, wood carvings, paintings, massages, and everything in between. I'd say we were saying "no, gracias" on average every 2 minutes. It became a bit much, although you kinda get used to it too.
The activities and entertainment left something to be desired, and again, most of these things were in spanish. If you're looking for spanish immersion to practice, this place would be good for that. Generally, if you just want to lay on the beach and go for the occasional walk, you're good. But if you want to do anything more, you'll be bored.
We tried the half day excursion to Santo Domingo, which started with our waiting on a bus at different hotels for the first hour, then being whisked past a few cool sights, and eventually leaving behind 2 people from our tour in the capital city because they got lost somewhere along the way. I have no idea what happened to them. The colonial zone and the old cathedral were cool to see, but the trip was not organized all that well.

In general you really got the impression that no one at the resort was interested in your satisfaction with your vacation. I hypothesize that the management there is weak and uninterested in making sure people are happy and want to come back. Very few people seemed happy to be there or happy to help you if you had any issues.

Overall, I would not recommend this place. We went because we got a reasonable price at a high-season time, but now we know why.

Cheers!

OK, reality check, this place is in a developing country and it's not five star, so don't go expecting that. It's not five star prices either!
What is does, it does well and that's a great pace to relax on a lovely beach and all inclusive food and drinks. We stayed in one of the older rooms (3000 series block) and whilst it did have some faults (see below), it was also private, clean and had a great sun deck. We had hot water most of the time (when it ran out around 1830 most evenings you just waited for the hot water systems to generate some more - it ran out about the time that most people, us included, were back from the pool or beach and were scrubbing up before dinner!) The room had a TV with plenty of choice in channels, a decent sized safe, plenty of hanging space, a comfy enough bed, a bar fridge to keep the complimentary water in and an air con which worked well.
The beach was great to lie about on (just tell the vendors "no, gracias" if you don't want anything and they'll leave you alone - please remember that you're a visitor to THEIR COUNTRY and that all beaches in the Dom Rep are public space) and the water was fine to take a dip in, although there were hardly any waves so no body-surfing or anything other than just floating about. We also walked about 30mins down the beach in both directions away from the Barcelo and felt safe (plenty of others were strolling about too).
Good and bad points:

BAD
- Worst one first up - every night there was a ridiculously loud disco held down by the beachfront and it sounded like it was just outside our room. It generally started about 2300 and went for a couple of hours. Only 20 - 25% of resort guests are there, so surely turning the volume down for the betterment of the majority who are trying to sleep would be a good idea? Not sure if this disco happens all of the time or just because it was getting close to Xmas holidays.
- There are plenty of native woodpeckers in the area and one family had designs on the wooden roof next to our room. Generally about 0800 one or two would start hammering away. They would scare away easily enough, but not what was needed when trying to sleep in on holiday and after the noise of the disco.
- We're generally get out amongst the locals type of tourists but other than a brief stroll around the local streets, we wouldn't have wanted to walk around in Juan Dolio. The most prominent form of employment seemed to be security guards sitting around doing nothing - not sure why they needed that much security, but I generally don't need to get out and experience the world when its armed with pistols and shotguns.We felt perfectly safe at the resort.
- The employees, for the most part are friendly and helpful enough but are not the most proactive and don't fawn over the guests - if you want something...ask for it. (and even better, ask for it in Spanish which is the official language of the country you're visiting!!!)

GOOD
- The food. More than enough choice and it varied every night with a different nationality theme. Breakfast was great with so many options. Fresh fruit available at every meal and plenty of it - we overdosed on sweet pineapple and so much papaya! Plenty of salads too for healthy eaters and plenty of full fat, high sugar options if you wanted those. It looked like hundreds of satisfied diners every night based on the people we spoke to and saw.
- The room. Even with the noise we were happy to have our private balcony and to be above the ground floor so stuck with the spacious room.
- The resort grounds were nice to just wander around in and then to end up at the beach.
- Last but not least - THE BEACH. This is the reason you'd probably book this place anyway... It was just like on the postcards: nice white sands, plenty of sun lounges, breeze blowing in the palm trees and refreshing (but not too cool) water to take a dip in.

I'm glad we went there and will remember it fondly.

PS: I finally settled on the Barcelo from my short list after reading the (in my opinion) completely ridiculous statement that there were too many locals at the resort. Imagine that: in the Dominican Republic there are Dominicans at a Dominican hotel. It scares me that there are people out there in Western countries that would even think that it's a bad thing...
Travel broadens the mind...of some.

We were very dissapointed with our beachfront room. We asked to change rooms and it took 90 minutes for someone to show up and take us to a new room. Since the second room was as bad as the first one, we had to go to the front desk and ask for our money back. Not fun when you are hoping to have a relaxed vacation with the kids!
*Noisy air conditioner, broken floor tiles and ripped bed covers.