The Bahia Principe Punta Cana is located on Playa Bavaro just 15 minutes from Punta Cana airport, 40 minutes from La Romana airport, It overlooks a marvellous white sand beach and is surrounded by tropical vegetation, as well as being ideal for golf lovers thanks to its closeness to three golf courses in the region: Palma Real - Cocotal, Punta Cana Golf Club and Casa de Campo. It will have 660 junior suites distributed into villas, all fully equipped with air conditioning, ceiling fan, complete bathroom with oval hydromassage tub, coffee facilities, telephone, satellite TV, Internet connection, minibar, and much more.

The Property's Architecture: A Caribbean-style hotel with touches of Colonial decoration, surrounded by tropical vegetation.

Unique Property Features: Two huge lagoon-type swimming pools with a children's area. PUEBLO DOMINICANO (Dominican Village)-shopping and leis

Property Location: 15 minutes drive away from Punta Cana airport and 40 minutes from La Romana airport Hotel overlooks a marvellous white sand beach and is surrounded by tropical vegetation

Beach on site: Yes

Beach Description: Sandy white

Daily Activities: Water Soprts Center on the beach and Diving Center Tennis courts, Fitness-studio

Evening Activities: Daily entertainment with live music(merengue,salsa,...)and a variety of shows held at the Amphitheatre,Disco,Piano-bar,Karaoke

Number of Restaurants: 7 Number of Bars: 3

Restaurants Description: Gourmet Restaurant
Air conditioned Gourmet restaurant
Italian Restaurant
Air conditioned A La Carte serving Italian dishes.
Japanese-Tepanaki
Opening Nov.2004
Main Restaurant

Mediterranean Restaurant
Air conditioned A La Carte serving Mediterranean dishes.
Mexican Restaurant
Opening Nov. 2004
Rodizo (Brazillian) Restaurant
Air conditioned A La Carte serving Brazilian dishes.

OK but needs improvement

3.5 Rating by Aleksandra on April 25, 2005

Bahia Principe Punta Cana - week of April 18, 2005.

Well, maybe I am picky and expect a lot from the money I invest into my vacations but I did not like Punta Cana as much as I thought I would. Don’t get me wrong - the resort itself is beautiful and people are trying to please you. The only problem is that many of the service people don’t speak English. I guess it’s not a problem if you don’t have any special needs – like food allergies or special diets. I tried to explain to a waiter in one of the restaurants that I want sauce on my pasta but it cannot include meat or milk and he brought me plain pasta with no sauce at all (“Yes salsa or sauce and No meat and No milk” with hand gestures). And that’s just one example of misunderstandings we had. Can’t they teach their staff to understand at least some English that is specific to the area where the person is working?! Like teach the waiter what “milk” or “meat” mean? Nobody told us that we could enjoy our stay there only if we knew Spanish.

Additionally, we all got either food or water poisoning – I don’t know what it was and the doctor at the resort could not determine it but there was a line of people out of her door (not encouraging). We tried to avoid drinking water but it’s almost impossible to explain to the waiter in sign language that you don’t want ice cubes in your drink. You might as well give up. We had terrible vomiting and diarrhea but could not get more than 8 bottles of water out of the resort staff. We told them we don’t want any beer, soda or whatever – just give us more bottled water and they said that we are allowed only 4 per day and the maximum they can give us is 8 bottles. We tried to explain that their own resort doctor told us to drink more bottled water to prevent dehydration from the stomach problems but with limited Spanish how much can one explain?!

When we arrived to our room, we noticed that we had lots of mosquitoes there. We went on a hunt hoping to reduce and eventually eliminate the number. Well, the ritual repeated every night with not much success – we’d find the same or greater number of the bloodthirsty insects every night. Eventually, we figured out that our maid left the door open while cleaning our room and the bloodsuckers were waiting in the open hallway to get inside. Needless to say, by the end of the week our bodies were literally deformed with mosquito bites.

Also, if you have children and don’t want them exposed to bare female breasts, don’t go to Bahia Principe. As we discovered, there are many German and French tourists who have no inhibitions to taking their top off at the beach in the presence of children.

The local shop was prohibitively expensive. I got 2 pairs of earplugs for $10! We also had to buy medicine for the kids and it was unbelievably expensive.

They do provide beach towels (1per day, our manual said) but if you don’t get there early enough, you may not get any towels at all. They don’t keep track of who had taken a towel that day, so some people keep exchanging used towels for fresh ones.

I am not even going to discuss the shows at the resort’s theater. The dancing group was good but on subsequent nights one realizes that although the costumes and music changed, those were the same people making the same moves every night. Other shows like karaoke or some games were all conducted in Spanish, which we don’t speak. I’d rather watch a good movie (in English).

Bottom line, if you speak Spanish, don’t have children you are trying to protect from nudity, if you are immune to mosquito bites and have a strong stomach – Punta Cana is an excellent place to vacation at. Otherwise, stick to USA resorts – the staff speaks English, there are FDA regulations, clean water and laws requiring people to wear bathing suits.

1 Gran Bahia Principe Bavaro Punta Cana Reviews
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