We loved our 2 week stay, we did upgrade upon arrival to "club". It was a few dollars more, but we loved the extras and that side of the resort, it was worth it. The property is absolutely beautiful! The food was excellent. The staff was exceptional, they called our room a number of times to ask if we needed anything and if we were enjoying our stay. Our room always had fresh fruit and fully stocked mini bar, cleaning service two times a day plus nightly turn down. The room had bath robes, slippers and a beach bag for use during our stay. As Club members we had use of the lounge which had a huge flat screen TV, movies and books to bring back to your room, food and drinks, coffee, desserts, internet access and conceirge personel. We enjoyed massages, facials and the wellness pools at the Spa! There is a gym we enjoyed too. The shops were convenient with great things to purchase. They keep the resort exceptionally clean! The waiter service poolside and at the beach was great. There are great pool & beach side double beds if you want to take a break from the traditional lounge chairs they have. We are from Long Island, NY in our early 40's and loved this resort. It is secluded and a wonderful place to relax and be pampered!

This was our first trip to the Dominican Republic and to an Excellence resort and I think we definitely chose wisely! As others have written, the drive from the airport is horrible but you do get to see some of the countryside and realize what it is like outside of the resort. That is all the good I can say!!

We upgraded to the Excellence Club upon arrival and while it was nice, would not do again - not really worth the extra money to us.

The grounds of this resort are impeccable, the drinks always flowing and the food for the most part very good. Highly recommend ordering room service for breakfast - tasted better than in the restaurants. As for the dinners, yes, if you go after 7:30 you usually have to wait but well worth it at Chez Isabelle and Toscana. The entertainment team, especially Alexandra and Ines, "the crazy hair lady and dance teacher" were great! Make sure to look them up when you are there - they are in the Disco at night too. The disco is small but fun, casino VERY small and Sports Bar fun place to watch sporting events!

Everyone on the resort is extremely friendly and we were fortunate to meet a really nice couple (hopefully now lifetime friends) that we plan on traveling with to another Excellence resort next spring.

Take bug spray - the bugs are bad at night but nothing that can't be dealt with. This resort is first class all the way and I can't imagine going there and not having a memorable time.

I know this review is late but here goes.
My partner stayed at this fab place from jan 28th for 3 weeks and we could not find any major problems.
When we landed in punta cana we could not believe how quick everything took and we were in our car and of to excellence in about 20mins.We had the car to ourselves so did not have to wait for anyone else.
Yes the roads are not very good and the 1 hour drive was a bit bumpy but i actually found it amusing and enjoyed it.
We arrived and was greeted like royalty we got the usual cool flannel and was taken to reception.

We were then taken to the club office and the general manager Gonzalo Fernandez was there to greet us with a bottle of very nice bubbly and wow a upgrade to a club room we spent an hour chatting and then went to our room
Our room was fantastic block seven with a vaulted ceiling and a great sea view wow we were in heaven.
we settled in and went to have a bite to eat after an early night we rose at 5.30 the first day and went to explore.
The weather was great the whole time we were there the beach was fantastic and the sea out of this world we would walk every day the beach was clean no rubbish and we did see life guards on the beach 2 of them were there all day .

The food was great we never went hungry did find that the waiting time was too long in some of the restaurant's especially the french we waited 2 hours one night but it depends what time you want to eat ,6.30 you were OJ but we like to eat about 7.30 and so it seems did every body else but what the hell i was not going to get too stressed about it , I had been out in the sun all day waited on with long cool drinks by Juan the pool boy who we miss so much NOW became a dear friend as did a lot of the wonderful staff

The shows on an evening were not too bad we actually enjoyed them we thought Michael Jackson and the circus were great ,but we were there for 3 weeks so got a bit fed up in the end of watching them but again we did t not think it was a big deal
We did not see any creepy crawlers or mosquito's if they were there we were lucky they avoided us.
To sum it up we work very hard all year and look forward to our one holiday a year and could not of spent it in a better place .
It was weather was great,,food good ,staff Gretna we came home with a fab tan.Would we go back,yes in a heartbeat.
Yes we did tip the staff because we thought they worked so hard to keep us all happy on our holiday and some times some people can be so rude to these people, they are not slaves they are human beings.
And yes it was me who got all the floaters from under your beds when you went to lunch and put them back in the pool,they are for all of us and i wanted one
Might try the new one in Mexico next year has anyone been yet

My girlfriend and I stayed at Excellence for 7 nights at the end of April/ beginning of May 2008 and had a terrific time. I am so surprised at some of the bad reviews, I definitely would not let them stop you from going to this beautiful, well kept, clean resort.
I will break things down in categories and try not to be too repetitious of the things already said on this site.

Arrival- The airport arrival was smooth, our bags were out quickly and we found our pre-arranged ground transportation with little difficulty. The trip from the airport for us was nowhere near as bad as some people have stated. We were concerned having read some of the reviews ahead of time so we paid a little extra for private transportation and it was great. The trip took about 45 minutes and other than a couple of sections of below average roads the ride was fine.
Check-in at the hotel was also smooth and noone even tried to get us to upgrade to the Excellence Club. Our Junior Suite swim up room was ready upon arrival.

Room- Our room was clean and in good condition. We did not lose power or water at all in our room in Building 4, though our neighbor had some problems with fuses blowing when using the hair dryer. Our A/C worked very well. The maid service was fine, the room was cleaned by 3 pm or so each day, it varied, and with the exception of our first night we received turn down service. Although we left tips almost every night we received no towel animals or drawn bath as others have reported, only a few flower petals on a couple of occasssions. There was a minor problem with the phone not getting a dial tone which was adressed quickly.

Pool/Beach- Absolutely beautiful, clean and well kept. The surf can be a little rough but if you have gone to the beaches in the Northeast it is not much worse than that. You just need to be careful and observe the flags which tell you the conditions. There were plenty of beach chairs, hammocks and beds available, it was not a problem at all, and there always seemed to be plenty of towels available.
The main pool is huge and wonderful to just float in. The swim up bar area was a little noisy thanks mostly to some obnoxious NY people ( I can say that since I am from there...lol), but there is plenty of room to find some quite space. The cascade pool is usually more quiet with less activity and less people. The pool and beach service is good with drink service and pizzas brought around.

Food/Bar- The breakfast and lunch buffets were good, the choices were extensive so you should be able to find something to suit your taste. The dinners were a bit uneven. The appetizers tended to be the best part of the meal for us with the entrees a hit or miss event. Sometimes due to miscommunications what you order is not always what you get, this happened to us on a couple of occassions, but it is not worth getting upset about, just roll with it, after all you are on vacation. Our favorite dinner meal from beginning to end was at Barcelona. The sushi and sashimi at Spice was fresh.
The drinks are plentiful and readily available wherever you are in the resort. Definitely try the mamjuana, it is a rum and honey drink.

Service- The service was really good, the staff try very hard and for the most part succeed. Others have noted that they received better service upon tipping, we tipped quite extensively but seemed to receive the same service as those who did not seem to tip. We did not mind tipping though, as the staff work very hard and very long hours and do not make much money.
We did order room service three times, one time it did not come. We had ordered breakfast the night before but it never came and when I called they had no record of the order. The other two times the dinners we ordered came in a reasonable amount of time. We also asked for a wake up call which never came, not sure if there was a problem with the phone or the call was never made, but the front desk staff were very apologetic about it.

Excursion- We took one excursion which I would not recommend. We had signed up for the monster truck safari but without our knowledge were switched to the funny monster safari which had a different itinerary. We were not told about the switch ahead of time and had no way of knowing since we were picked up for the trip in an unmarked truck.

Entertainment/Activities- There is plenty to do if that is your choice or you can choose to just relax. There are shows every night, although we didn't make it to any of them, all that lounging around can be pretty tiring. We did hear the sax player and he was great.

I would definitely recommend this resort based on our experience. We were already talking about returning again while we were still there.