Barcelo Bavaro Palace Deluxe - All Inclusive

I take 10-14 of our sales people each year to a 7 day all inclusinve resort. This is the third Barcelo resort we have stayed at. We love Barcelo resorts. This resort is very nice and similar to our expectations of a Barcelo. Now, why I gave it one star... The people who work here are very rude. I have only met one staff member that can speak fluent english. Yesterday they did not make-up our room. If you call for towels, make three phone calls and wait an hour and they will arrive. They have a casino here. I have never been in a casino where not one of the dealers smiled. If you did not place your bet fast enough, they hit there hand in front of your bet spot until you bet. We have been to two other Barcelo resorts. Barcelo Palace in Riviera Maya Mx and Barcelo Puerta Villarta Mx. The resorts were great and the staff were better. I beleive it is the Dominical people in general. From the moment we got off the airplane, we noticed how rude the people were. And they charge everyone $10 to get into the country... The food... The food is not very good compared to the other Barcelo resorts. Again, I beleive the staff really takes no pride in their work. If you are considering this resort, I suggest considering a Barcelo in Mexico. You will enjoy your time much better with a staff that cares about their guests.

I will never ever return to this hotel! First off, they claim to be this 5 star establishment, which they are not! I stayed in the Junior Deluxe Suite with oceanfront view. They stole my tmobile phone from my room on the night before my departure, and they all stole my companions watch. Now I can replace a phone, but not the pictures of certain memories in it. To top it off, we noticed these missing items at the check out desk, they acted very non-chalant and uncompassionate for any of our losses. It took them 2 hours to bring a "hotel manager" to us, and although we gave them a timeline of when the robbery must have taken place (we were at the casino from 10 pm - 2 am) they could not pull up the security information about the card access opening our suite door. Now they must be used to dealing with people that don't know how to defend themselves, or just have the luxury of not feeling the loss of a 500 dollar phone, but I DO! Its the principle and what a personal violation. Poor customer service, highly overpriced gift shops, no kind of lost and found or claims center, and to top it off they didn't even comp the two phone calls we made from the room. Don't fall for the scam, they know when you are in the casino, at the theater, in the restaurants, etc. so they can set themselves up to enter your room while someone else in the scam is watching you as you are out of the room. They can't print out a security door access log, but they can sure print a check out bill ASAP. Mark my words, I will be reimbursed in some way shape or form!!

Let me start by saying my family and I are very easy to please. So here we go.... The check in process was fairly quick as they escorted our luggage for us. As we walked to our room, we were impressed by the beautiful landscape and the Barcy water park, which our 6 year old fell in love with. It went down hill after that. The first night we discovered our room was INFESTED with bugs and mosquitoes. No.. No...I mean infested as we did not sleep at all that night. As in buzzing in your ear all night long. We told the hotel the next morning and they said we had to wait for another room. We showed them the 34 bites on our 6 year old and said we needed another room. Yes of course we covered her with sheets and anything we could do. The hotel still did not change our room until 2 days later. We were furious!! They did however spray the our room with with toxic bug spray hich we all breathed in. Where else would we stay?...and we opened the doors to vent..but the bugs...what a mess. We finally had our room changed after arguing with the manager. COMPLETE JOKE. AND VERY RUDE!!! Yes- they had free rooms because he was going thru a list of open rooms which we saw on the sheet... So we put on our happy faces and tried to enjoy the restaurants and food. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!?!?! We met other couples from the States and they too thought the food was DISGUSTING!!! Like I said in the beginning..we are very easy to please! I was aching for a Burger King by day 2! Bottom line the "Buffet" and Restaurants are HORRIBLE. Specifically the Italian and Seafood Restaurants. The best "food" I had there was a hot dog at the golf course! Of course the Beaches and Landscaping are beautiful. And the Barcy water park was great for the 6 year old, but besides that..STAY AWAY. The Managers and staff are very lazy and rude. I thought I/we were being too hard, but we met A LOT of other couples from the US and other Countries that were disappointed in the "quality" of service, food, etc. Ill be more than happy to answer emails if you have other questions. Just pick another resort because this one is TERRIBLE. NO...Horrendous We just got back on 4/16/11 and wanted to warn all of you! Matt-

The trip to celebrate all of my children's graduations was tainted when I discovered a well-planned scam by the hotel employees. We checked in as four adults as I have a 23 year old college grad and 18 year old twin graduates from high school. I received TWO room keys when I checked-in, instead of the designated four I was required to receive by the front desk employee. I booked excursions within the hotel from the traveler's agency. The second to last day, we left the hotel for six and a half hours and during that time, someone with a key that was registered and recorded on the hotel room door's digital memory as one of my keys, was used to enter my room. Cash was stolen. Of course, I thought it could have been the maid, until further investigations outlined the truth. The security men told me that it was not possible someone else entered my room because the door record shows at 1:40 pm one of the four of us used our key. However, I showed them a credit card receipt for payment at the excursion two minutes before that time for the four of us and the excursion was a 25 minute drive from the Barcelo. Also, I have a disc depicting pictures of the four of us at the excursion and a receipt for those pictures at 6:05 pm, just before we got back on the bus to return to the Barcelo. Upon check-out, I just happened to ask the desk clerk how many keys does the hotel give out for a room with four adults and that employee told me FOUR. Needless to say, I was extremely upset at that point. Two desk managers would not answer my questions, give me a receipt for when I checked in with that employee's identification and basically hid in their back office. This experience destroyed all positives about the accommodations. The hotel and grounds were very nice. The food was so-so. The entree's we received at the seafood restaurant were awful. Most of the hotel employees were rude, and I learned from experience, have a well-planned scam amongst them.

This hotel was a nightmare from the very beginning until the very end. Upon arriving it took us about 5 hours to check in. The service was horrible. The employees are rude and unaccommodating. They insisted their supervisor would be out within minutes to help serve us better. It took 5 hours to meet this mystery supervisor who was less than enthusiastic to help and looked extremely annoyed and uninterested. My friend has recently hurt her back so we needed to downgrade from a family room because their elevators were out of service and it was 4 flights of stairs to climb and they turned it into a unnecessary situation. The gentleman helping us would walk away from us while we were speaking to him because he did not want to listen anymore. [...] After 5 hours, they finally managed to give us a closer room on ground level. The rooms are dirty, they smell like mildew and are filled with mosquitos (on our last day we found a crab in the room). Room service is horrible. I ordered chips for the mini bar and had to call them about 6 times in a span of 4 hours before they finally brought them up and every time I called the gentleman on the phone would say, "oh they haven't brought them yet!" Anything you ask for, you will not receive. That includes robes, towels, food, etc. As for the food in the hotel, it's not good. It's edible, but it's not good. Once again, customer service is at an all time low. Nobody cares. I've never met such rude people. The beach and pools at the resort are beautiful. The excursions were well organized and a lot of fun. But 2 out of 10 isn't exactly my ideal vacation. The day we checked out we brought our own luggage to reception because we didn't want to miss our flight given that they don't answer requests. Lastly, while checking in the gentleman who would walk away from us constantly while we were speaking to him made a comment that stuck: "please don't write a bad review for us [...]." I'm not the one to write any reviews or give feedback, however this was the most horrible experience- and I can speak for all 4 of us on the trip- in our lives that I felt if I didn't write a review for those planning a trip or considering the Barcelo I would be doing something wrong. If I am ever to return to the Dominican Republic it will surely NOT be to the Barcelo.

Beautiful Hotel. Very nice and freindly Dominicans. Very disorganized resort. Everybody in our group got bad food poisoning, even other people we met there. Excursions, even through the resort, were very unsafe. We took two excursions, the other two were cancelled. If you go, I DO NOT RECOMMEND ANY WATER RELATED EXCURSIONS SUCH A SCUBA DIVES even if booked through the resort. Take a satellite phone with you and an emergency plan to get proper help if needed. Take someone that you know with you on the excursions if you go.

The hotel is gorgeous but the service is HORRIBLE!!! My room A/C will not get cold enough, I complained to the housekeeper, front dest and to customer service. And no one could help me. I spoke with other guest and NO ONE was happy. And the food was horrible. First and last visit to D.R. I will stick to cruising where I am always treated right and feed well.

Beautiful beach, rude staff, service was AWFUL !!! Don't know where to start and don't think have enough space to list all the awful things that happened to us during our stay, we spent most of our time at guest services begging them to comply with at least the basic service which are expected from any hotel like toilet paper and towels that we weren't given to us during our stay(we had to use pool towels instead) Unfortunately the customer service appears to be non-existent in this hotel, which is supposed to be a five star service as offered , please don't waste your money on this 3 bad stars hotel, to add insult to injury personnel doesn't have the slightest idea on how to talk to guests, one of the waiters screamed obscenities at my 4 yr old son thinking we didn't speak Spanish, which we speak fluently - we didn't meet one staff member that spoke fluent English. We've never met such rude people, several times the response we received when we requested minor items such as a lime was "we don't have any, they are off season and very expensive or don't even try" or when requesting a spoon "we already gave you one or use the same one just clean it " or "don't give me attitude or we won't give you anything" when requested a drink in a bar. They lost my sons suitcase and told me weren't responsible for it even though it was stored at their bag room during our 6 hrs wait until a room was given to us upon our arrival, they disconnected the electricity and obviously A/C in our room daily from 11.00 pm till next day "to save energy", our rooms was infested with bugs and cleaning staff left our door wide open for several hours providing access to all our things. Food is awful everywhere, buffets are the worse and service is dreadful which mean you might spent sometimes half an hour waiting in between dishes at any a la carte restaurants. Most of the guest we talked to had the same perception regarding service and food some even experienced worst nightmares than ours, won't come back to any Barcelo in my life. Beautiful beach though, but you can always find a better Hotel at nearby Bavaro beach

The hotel is beautiful, clean, and nice amenities. The buffet is terrible, the restaurants are bad chain restaurant food, and people are really rude. Men have to wear long pants at night, it doesn't matter if it is dress pants, sweats, or jeans ripped to shreds, but no dress shorts. Doesn't make any sense, women can wear anything. The beach was beautiful, but I would not go back. There are many other islands or beach resorts with beautiful beaches.

I have never posted a review before, but I feel obligated to do so after my recent stay at Barcelo Bavaro Palace Deluxe - All Inclusive Resort. This resort was very beautiful and had many wonderful things to offer. But when you are on vacation, you do want to be able to RELAX in your hotel room when you get ready. Unfortunately this did not happen for my husband and I. We did not get much sleep at all because there were HUGE Tropical Cock Roaches in our room! They were all in our belongings, suit case under our bed, on the walls, everywhere!!!!! We were paranoid and very jumpy and for good reason, they can even fly. Our room was switched a total of 3 times during our 4 night stay. It was awful. The staff was overwhelmed with this issue. So many people were complaining. It was very obvious that this resort has a BIG problem, but when you complain you are made to fill like they have no idea what you are talking about and they have never heard of Roaches being in the rooms. If you have already made travel plans to this Resort and cannot cancel, please take the following precautions once you get to your room. 1. Remove all food that the hotel has left on the counter for you, even if bagged up. This along with the coffee pot etc is calling the Roaches to your room at night when the lights go off. 2. Put all liquid medicine, toothpaste, sugar, etc anything that may have a taste in the refrigerator in your room. 3. Do not leave any empty bottles, plates, remnants of food anywhere in your room. Get it out of there. 4. Leave some type of light on in your room at night. The Roaches did not like the light, our problems were mainly at night time. I wish this was a joke, but it is not. I have no plans to ever return to this resort because my experience was life altering. I wish you more success in your travels. May God Bless You!