I traveled with a group of approximatley 35 people from Toronto through

Sunwing Vacations from April 26-May 3 2008 for a wedding.

We arrived at the airport and found our bus. Check in was done on the

bus to speed things up. First order of business once we got there,

purchase the safe! It's very easy to use, and unlike many resorts

doesn't require a physical key but rather a combination you pick.

The resort itself is beautiful. The grounds are in immaculate

condition. The lobby is spotless, as are the restaurants. The rooms are

great. We had one queen size plus one full size couch, that didn't pull

out but still by all accounts, was very comfortable. Maid service was excellent. One day I requested mucho cerveza por favor, which I didn't get- a quick call to room service rectified that.

The pools were spectacular. 3 swim up bars in total. One for regular

guests, one for diamond and club hacienda principe guests, plus one "

party pool" located right at the beach. All three seemed to be very

clean and fun places to be.

This is VERY important. If you are getting a slushie drink ( daiquiri,

margarita or the like) not all bar tenders automatically put rum in

them at the pool and beach bars. Some do, some don't. Just ask for a

daiquiri with rum and you're golden. John, my favourite bar tender for

the week would actually just give the bottle for you to mix your own

and then reply " I love you my friend".

The beach was very good, but not great. It's very weedy. I'd rather

take weeds than rocks and what not, but it's still very weedy. The sand

is gorgeous,clean, and white.

The restaurants were very good as well. I ate at a mix of the A'La

Cartes and the buffet. I ate at the Mexico restaurant and while I

didn't find it as good as the Bahia Prinicpe San Jaun's Mexican

restraint, it was still quite good.

The french restaurant was very good as well. I had the steak. It was a

good cut of meat and cooked to my liking.

The buffet was also good. Good selection, 2 cooking stations, a full

pasta bar with a variety of sauce. The omelette's although I only saw

breakfast twice as I'm not really a morning fan were incredible.

My only issue was the bacon seemed to be a bit of a rarity. There is

definitely something for everyone, even the pickiest eaters.

The beach snackbar was where I ate many meals. Good food, good

selection, great location. The pizza is great and can only be found at the snack bar and lunch, although is available on the buffet at dinner.

At 11pm, Puelbo Principe ( Principe Town) is where all the of the festivities relocate too. The karaokee bar was a ton of fun and the disco is good, but the music is the same night in, night out. At the karaokee bar the musical seleciton isn't the best and one night we were there they gave us a book that many, many songs that weren't in the computer.

The burger point is where the 24 hour all inclusive comes into play. I had a cheese burger, ham sandwhich, and hot dog at various points throughout the week, they were all quite good.

To those people who complain about being on the Bavaro side as opposed to the Punta Cana side- grow up. They are the same. A mirror image of one and other.

I was there for a wedding which seemed to go off without a hitch from my vantage point. The wedding planners there seem to take care of most things.

Also, to the people who complain about the distance from the lobby to the beach- it's an 8 minute lesiurly stroll. Exercise would do a lot of people good down there. I was in the furtherest vila from the beach, #39 and found it an enjoyable walk. For those who are not well enough to walk, there is regular tram service right up until 3am.


All in all, I highly recomend this resort to others. It's good for a wedding, get away with friends, a week away for a couple and it seemed like a great place for families.


I'll be back to the Gran Bahia Principe eventually, but I plan on trying the Riu ( located next door, first)

Just got back from an excellent week with friends at the Gran Bahia Principe Bavaro. The purpose of the trip was a wedding and some fun in the sun and the Gran Bahia delivered on both counts. We travelled with SunWing out of Toronto and I was impressed with both SunWing flights (if not the flight times). The Gran Bahia itself is a large resort (as mentioned in previous reviews) but the transit system is very efficient and moving around from place to place was never a problem. Our villa was quite nice although it overlooked a construction site. The beach area and pools were very good as well and kept clean which was nice. The all inclusive drinks were pretty good and some familiar brands ARE included, you just have to ask (Tanqueray Gin, Smirnoff Vodka etc.). The beer supplied in the villa mini bar was Brahma and it was pretty good, the beer on tap (Presidente??) wasn't the best and perhaps some beer variety would be nice, especially for Canadians beer connoisseurs! The Heineken I had at the airport was my favorite of the trip. The food was simply OK but really can't be classified as 5 star on any scale. The French restaurant came the closest to a fine dining experience and even then there were inefficiencies... very small shrimp in the shrimp cocktail and an OK but not great steak. The house wine included, contrary to previous reviews, is actually not too bad and is certainly drinkable. If you want, bring a bottle of your favourite wine with you and they will cork it and serve it to you!! I also visited the Mexican and Beach BBQ a la carte's and they were both fine. The buffet was pretty good as well but the beach snack bar was a bit sketchy, ditto the overnight snack bar. The wedding itself went off with out a hitch, and by all accounts the bride and groom were pleased with the service. I also took in an optional snorkeling expedition which was well worth the money spent. The service from the maids, wait staff and bartenders was superb throughout the trip. The karaoke bar and the disco were both enjoyed by our group. I enjoyed the karaoke bar in particular but was annoyed when several songs I chose out of their book were not available. If you say you have a song, then you should have it! Instead I heard several repeat songs throughout the week that I strongly believe were dictated by the hosts personal taste (Billy Jean for instance!... yuck). The casino was small but those in our group that visited seemed to enjoy it. I was also impressed with the internet cafe and was happy to check in on the hockey scores etc. back home. One more little rant, with the number of Canadians visiting the resort the Gran Bahia should have at least ONE Canadian Television channel available on the dial. It was nearly impossible to get hockey scores without going online (ESPN's Spanish feed gives every score in the world except NHL). Obviously, no one comes to the DR to watch TV but including CBC or CTV would allow Canadian guests to get a quick update and then get out to the beach!! All in all, I had a wonderful week at The Gran Bahia Bavaro with an awesome group of friends and would recommend it as a very good all-inclusive option in Punta Cana.

I will start by saying i was born, raised and live in NYC and i travel at least once a year. The reason i am saying this is because living here i know food that is good...

People kept telling me i would drive myself crazy reading other people's reviews, and i should of listened, i went to this place with a knot in my stomach waiting for the aweful to start, and guess what? It never did!!!

This place is truly amazing, any picture i found of this place on the internet does not do it justice in comparison to seeing it in person. The grounds are immaculate and BIG, very big. There are 3 pools, the 1 by the beach seemed to be most crowded and have the most kids as it was by the beach , the one in the middle seemed the most quite and the one furthest from the beach seemed to house the drinkers and partiers. one day during the trip their was about 8 drunken Canadian messes screaming and pouring drinks in the pool, but they were at the other pool the next day so it was no big deal. All in all the grounds are spectacular.

The room was great, the bathroom all marble and the balcony had a view of the quiet pool and the garden. The maids do get annoying with the fresh flowers, every day when they clean the room you get flowers on your bed and in the bathroom, obviously it's not that big of a deal. Also, none of the bathrooms throughout the resort had exhaust fans, strange. Obviously when taking a shower it got rather steamy. The mini bar was great, beer, soda and water everyday, even if we didn't drink it we'd hide it so the fridge would get restocked, we wound up leaving 6 beers and a bunch of sodas, but they were there if we wanted them.

The food at the buffets was better than the sit down dinners. Although the sit down dinners offer a nice ambiance, the food is better at the buffets. We chose French, the garden grill and japanese. At the grill i had the mixed grill, it was good, no fireworks went off but it was good. At the french i had some shrimp rice dish also good and the japanese place although had the best view it was the saltiest food i've ever eating, but the experience was cool as it is a very nice place...

There were so many complaints i was concerned about that i read on reviews that i would like to address some of them. "The food stinks", it's a buffet, the food is as good as it is going to get which i think was very good. Each morning they had an omelette, pancake and crepe station making them fresh, plus a variety of fresh fruits, breads, cakes, cereals etc etc... what more can you ask for? For lunch you had so many choices of different buffets to eat at, italian, grill, fish, whatever you wanted was available.

"The free wine stinks"...i thought the red was good, it was dry and nice tasting, i didn't try the white though.

"workers are nasty" , in the 7 days there, i did not meet one rude person and i talk to everyone, even the groundskeepers offered a friendly "HOLA!"

"no one speaks english" - YOU ARE IN A SPANISH SPEAKING COUNTRY, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? actually surprisingly with my limited spanish and their limited english we got along quite well.

With that being said, i highly recommend this resort, i really don't have anything bad to say about it...

ONE MORE PIECE OF ADVICE...................TIP!!! These people work their butts off and to see people walking away from the table without leaving so much as a red cent is a shame regardless of tips being "included"... a couple of bucks goes a long way..i left $3 for breakfast , $5 for lunch and buffets and $10 for sit down dinners....go out with some singles...

Travelled the week of April 25th to May 2nd. Please be advised that if I seem picky on some issues, I've travelled to a Sandals resort, and nothing compares so far.

The Good: Italian, Mexican, and Japanese Restaurants AMAZING! Refilled glasses before they were empty, allowed my husband and father to both try cooking on the big grills, showing them how to do it. Quiet/Nice rooms, nice buildings. The beach is amazing, all the pools are amazing. Lobby is very nice and a good place to sit and relax. Trolley service is amazing, as it is a big resort. Drinks were good. Service from the people who spoke english was amazing. We travelled with our son who is 7 months old and got the best service and treatment for him. Everyone awknowledged he was around, and at every restaurant there was a high chair waiting for him.

The So-So: Main buffet was good, however very repeatative. Service from those who spoke NO english. The maids and some of the restaurant servers spoke no english and it was hard to understand and sometimes frusterating for both parties. The snack bar at the beach was okay, but again variety of food was just so so. Entertainment was so so, put it this way I was tired while watching one of the shows and we left, if it was a good show I would have stayed and watched it. Becareful tipping the maid too much, as they will expect it every day, and if you choose to not do it one day you may get no re fill for the mini bar....haha!

The Bad: The Brazillian, and the Dominican restaurants. The food was good; however, the service was not. Again the lack of english speaking servers was terrible. They took our drinks while we were still drinking them. Awful service at these places.

Other than that it was a great holiday. We took many tours and they were all great. We got asked questions mid week about out stay and if there was anything they could do to help, we asked for some things and they were granted right away. We complained about a restuarant and given another a la carte.
I would have to say that the language barrier was most of the problem, and we made a suggestion that those not being able to speak english should be offered either a french or english spekaing course, this would be easier for both parties.
We also travelled with 22 people, 17 adults, 3 kids, and 2 infants. Occomodations were very good, and we were well looked after, my aunt with her 1 child was in a separte building from her other 2 children (in their own room), when asked to move they accomodated us.

Would I go again to Dominican = NO......

Would I go again to a Gran Bahia Principe = YES......

Oh and 1 last thing, watch that at the airport check in they don't stand on the scale when weighing you're luggage. I caught the man standing on my scale. Apparently I was 8 kg. over....20lbs. I wasn't over going down with all the water and infant food I had to bring but I was 20 pounds over coming back with no baby food, or water. I think NOT! I asked them to re check and made sure that the luggage bags were turned to that I could see his legs as well..........and behold I wasn't over any longer....HAHA!
I WILL BE SPEAKING WITH AIR TRANSAT/NOLITOURS REGARDING THIS MATTER. THEY SHOULD HAVE A CANADIAN REPRESENTATIVE THERE AT ALL TIMES.