Just came back from this resort after staying 4 nights for a wedding. The overall experience was fantastic, BUT, alot of that is due to being there with a large group of fun and interesting people who were all connected through the wedding party. There was only one real negative that I saw so I will report on that first and then give my take on the rest of it:

I was there from Wednesday to Sunday, and from Wednesday to Saturday afternoon, the resort was made up of primarily American, European and Canadian tourists. On Saturday, I observed several bus loads of "local" tourists arrive in the lobby. Some said that the resort heavily discounts weekend rates for locals. Not sure what the story is, but the population at the pool and pool bars was "different" and much more crowded on Saturday. The nightclub which played great American music the prior three nights, switched to accomodate all of the locals and played nothing but Spanish music all night. This was unfortunate because even with our group, many couldnt take the positively endless barrage of Spanish music. It was 3 straight hours of it (and Im sure much more after I left).

I give the food rating a C+. If you like to have great food on your trips, this may not be the place for you. I didnt mind the food and its not like anyone was getting sick from it, but many of the offerings are just average at best. They do the local cusine very well (rice, beans, churiso, salsa, bananas, etc), but things that arent their specialty really suffer, which is a lot of dishes. Luckily, Im not a foodie so this didnt bother me at all. Not sure if other resorts in the area have better food, this was my first time in DR.

The pools are huge and relaxing with good service at the pool bars. They play alot of local music during the day and have contests and classes at the pool. This is fun for the 5 or so people who get involved (in a salsa dance lesson for example) but Im guessing that for the rest of the people at the pool who are trying to relax or have conversations, its a bit intrusive to hear these classes broadcast over the loud speakers.

The nightlife was above average. Lots of bars to choose from and they have the live dance shows every night if thats your thing. Again, I was with a big, fun crowd so it was pretty easy for us to enjoy the nightlife (except on saturday at the club which was TERRIBLE).

The beach was great. Plenty of seating and shade and I walked the beach at one point to about 10 other resorts and Ocean Blue was at least as good as those, and in many cases, Ocean Blue was far better laid out.

The resort was a good size. Not too big as I have heard others are in DR. Everything in less than a 5 minute walk away. This is important because some resorts are way too big and its a chore to go from one part (beach) to another (the pool or your room, etc). Building 8 or 9 are the most centrally located group of rooms. Closest to everything, I recommend those.

Ok , thats all I can think of. Feel free to email me if you have any questions. Overall, I had an unbelievable time attending this wedding. Not sure that I would necessarily go back to this resort, but it was a great location for a destination wedding, particularly if you have a decent sized group.

I find it amazing that people went to the same resort as I did and had such OPPOSITE opinons! One person said there was no language barrier.....are you kidding me? They could barely communicate, if at all.

My biggest complaint was the food. The only thing I liked was the pizza (when it was just out of the oven) and the pasta. I ate it for lunch and dinner every single day....We were there 7 days and I was so freaking tired of the food by the end I could die. I'm not a picky eater it just was nasty food.

My other complaint was you could get your own food at the buffet but not your own drinks...so you sit down with your plate of food and you're almost done eating before they come over and ask you what you want to drink. If you say diet coke, you get a little glass of diet coke that you chug because you're so thirsty by now, and then forget ever getting a refill. I walked up to the bar area myself to ask for another coke and the waiter yelled at me!! "I GET YOUR DRINK FOR YOU"......ok, fine, but you aren't bringing it. And as many others have said, I found everyone very rude except the bartenders.

The one girl in the lobby bar would joke around with the fellow bartenders and then when she looked at you, it turned into a scowl. I tipped like crazy the first few days and like others said, there is no point. It makes no difference. There was a girl at the casino possibly named Maria (I was trying to read her name tag to report her) that was so blatantly rude I wanted to punch her in the face.

The pool is absolutely gorgeous. I will say that. The grounds are beautiful. The beach in front of our hotel was horrible. I'm sure the beach contour changes often but you'd have to walk through a ton of little twigs and dirty stuff to get to the water. Right next door it was spotless. Maybe our place was like that when others said it was perfect.

Someone said they had Heineken at the bars???? That is an out and out LIE...we asked at every single bar what kind of beer they had. The Presidente smelled/tasted like sewage sometimes. We got Bud at the sports bar and it was very cold. But if you don't watch, they pour it in a mug and then you turn your head and they refill your mug with Presidente even tho they know you are drinking bud. If they had Heineken then the bartenders all lied. We were there for a week and asked at every bar every day.

I will not be back to Punta Cana. I guess I'm spoiled from other vacations I've taken. The folks I met that thought it was wonderful were in their 20s and had never been anywhere else. If you've been to some nice places with great service and good food, you'll be very disappointed in this place.

What an absolutely stunning place! We were at this resort for our wedding and honeymoon April 22-May 4. There were 10 of us all together. The décor is very modern, and the grounds were extremely well groomed, there were always workers out tending to the pool in the morning and the grounds.

It’s so hard when you are picking a resort from a brochure or from word of mouth. We chose this resort based on the fact that it was new-ish and the pricing fit our budget, and the wedding was included in our package. All of our guests were blown away by how beautiful it was. I had minor panic attacks reading some of these reviews on here but I have to say, some people just have to chill out. Sure there are tiles missing in the pool, but I can assure you that you’d be more pissed off if they had drained the whole pool to fix the tiles. You just can’t please everyone.

First let me say the resort is huge. All our guests stayed in Villa 3 which is closer to the front of the resort, closer to the food! Our villa was 10 (actually on the Ocean Sands side), closest to the beach. There is a shuttle that runs the route of the resort, but it takes a good 20-25 minutes to do the circuit, so count on doing a lot of walking. Anyway, the regular rooms were gorgeous! All our guests had 2 double beds and a jet tub in the bathrooms, which were quite large. Their rooms in villa 3 faced north, so were always in shade. As a result, a couple had a musty smell, but I had brought a bunch of scented candles and that took care of it.

We had the honeymoon suite for the full 2 weeks we were there. I’m glad I booked this suite right from the start, as there were a few brides that week that had requested one but they were booked (there are only 10 honeymoon suites in the whole resort in villas 6 and 10). These rooms were AMAZING. The main floor had the king bed, dresser, living room and ocean facing balcony. The second floor had a second sitting room a 2 person jet spa and an outdoor shower. One minor problem with the shower clogged, but maintenance had that fixed in one afternoon.

Our wedding on the beach was an absolute dream come true. The wedding coordinator, Julissa is a total peach and can multi-task like nobody’s business! Our reception at LaBrasa was fanstastic, not one complaint at all.

Every staff member always had a smile on their face!! From housekeeping to grounds crew, waiters, bartenders, reception, everyone was extremely pleasant, saying Hola to everyone! Each bartender has a specialty drink, so make sure you go and explore all the different specialties! If you are ever there, make sure you say hey to Victor in the yellow pool bar and have one of his specials, unbelievable!!!

Anyone who could complain about the food here is insane!! You could literally eat at the massive buffet every single day and have something different to eat, but there were so many more options! For a la carte, there was the American (Route 66) and Mexican (OMG the chimichanga was amazing!) and the carribean grill at the beach that you could dress casually for, and the Italian and Dominican the men needed to wear pants for, also all amazing! The staff were amazingly diligent, but not to the point of stalking you to finish your plate. After 2 weeks the H10 time share people got so annoying, that would be my only fault of the whole place, the whole 2 weeks we were there. We met many fantastic people and we will for sure be going back as it holds a special place in our hearts for being married there.

Great place! We stayed the week of April 20th to 27th and attended a friends wedding. The food was great. The service friendly and the drinks were flowing. (Go to the yellow Pool and ask Victor for Victors Special!!!! OMG they were good) We unfortunately had to make use of the medical services (I say unfortunate because no one wants to be sick on vacation) for my 3yr old daughter. The doctor was also excellent and even met us at 1:00am to examine our daughter.

Of all the places I have been, Ocean offered by far the most shade on the beach and there was tonnes of shade around both pools. You never were stuck without protection from the sun.

The only annoyance was that the gift shop/store on the resort didn't take credit cards. So we ended up wasting alot of money on $15 sun screen. Next time I will either bring bigger bottles or more cash.

Resort photographers are VERY talented and take beautiful pictures. I believe you can set up a photo shoot and have a special portrait session. Mind you, not cheap, but you can't put a price tag on memories. Again, no credit cards taken. Stupid if you ask me because people would buy allot more if they could use their cards.

The local artwork is BEAUTIFUL. Again, if the stupid gift shop took credit cards we would have purchased something there. Instead, we got something at the airport before we left.

Rooms were very clean and tidy and the air conditioning worked very well ... brrrrr.

If you are there anytime soon, please make sure to give the nursing momma and her puppies a piece of chicken for me!