The Punta Cana area is mostly known for huge all-inclusive resorts, but fortunately The Agua Resort, a botique spa hotel, has arrived in the beautiful Uvero Alto region. What a find this place was!

Arrival at the Punta Cana airport can be confusing with locals hustling for your luggage and the large groups from Apple Vacations and the like being hoarded onto their busses like cattle. It was a pleasure to see a man standing right outside of baggage claim with our name on a sign and a big smile, ready to take our bags into a private air-conditioned van for the ride to the resort.

Agua is about an hour away from the airport, and although some of the roads are not well paved and it can seem as there are no actual traffic laws on this island, the trip was not a problem at all - nothing like the horrendously nauseating drive from Montego Bay to Negril.

The last stretch is on an entirely unpaved road which leads to very large and non-descript doors, but as soon as they are opened - wow! The beautiful outdoor lobby opens up to what appears to be an incredible oasis in the middle of nowhere. Drinks and cold towels are brought over and as seemed to be the pattern throughout the week, the staff are extremely attentive and courteous.

Make no mistake - this hotel is small (just fifty-one rooms) so if you are looking for a mega-resort with non-stop activities it is probably not for you. That being said, it is one of the most beautiful places that either of us have ever stayed. The rooms are simply elegant - not fancy but incredibly warm and soothing. The floors, lamps, bathroom area and everything else were designed with a great attention to the relaxing esthetic. So are all of the public areas. I highly recommend checking out the pictures on the website and then imagining the actual resort being even more beautiful in person.

Our room was on the first of two levels and right on the beach. Now this is not simply an "ocean-view" or "beach-front" room; it is actually right on the beach. Large sliding glass doors open to a patio with a table and two huge lounge chairs which are actually connected to the sand. The view is incredible and it is so nice just to open your door and be right on the beach.

The sand is a fine golden color and the water nice and blue; just the typical perfect beach that the Punta Cana area is known for (although the sand is not the pure white of some of the other beaches).

All in all, this was the perfect setting to enjoy five days of pure relaxation, excellent food, great service, long walks on the beach and lots of lounging around.

After reading some of the reviews on Trip Advisor, I actually started getting cold feet and almost cancelled this hotel and thought of moving down the beach to "Excellence." What a bad move that would have been. With that in mind, I would like to address some of the concerns that I had while reading these other postings.

No doubt the hotel is new and is experiencing some growing pains. Some things just do not work and apparently repairs in The Dominican are none too swift. Thankfully, the excellent management makes up for any problems quickly.

Two examples -
Upon our arrival the main pool was not functional, so we were upgraded to that fantastic room right on the beach. I don't know why anyone would want to use the pool anyway with that beautiful beach right there, but it did look pretty cool.

The wireless internet was not working correctly in our room, and since it looked like repairs were a long way off, they gave us a key to a vacant room which had a strong wireless signal. So problem solved, and who wants to spend all day on the internet anyway when on vacation? Also, the business center has a free computer with internet that was always vacant. So no problem there.

As far as the food, they must have gotten a new chef or maybe threatened the old one, because the food was plentiful and delicious. Our only comment on the food quality was that we would have enjoyed a few more simple dishes such as plain grilled fish in the Mediterannean style. This stuff was a little heavy at times (although they can prepare it any way that you like). That being said, although the menu was small, every night they had dinner specials which were quite good. Definitely ask about the Dominican dinner, which if you don't mind eating goat is not to be missed.

Many seemed to comment on the cost of the food. No question, this is not an all inclusive and they don't charge Denny's prices, but then again it is a high-end resort spa. If you want piles and piles of mediocre food and long lines perhaps an all-inclusive is for you. Even so, the prices were much lower than what you would expect at a Four Seasons or Ruth's Chris. The big disadvantage is that it is pretty tough to get an inexpensive light dinner if that is what you are craving.

But the great thing is that they always throw in some little special sometings that you don't order, so the value always turned out well. An example would be delicious lobster bisque in a large shot glass topped with a snail that came with dinner one night. Yum! Also, one of us was celebrating a birthday and they were extremely generous with goodies that night.

Along with the food, the food service was superb. Definitely order lunch at the beach grill and have it brought over to your beach chairs. What an experience! We ordered club sandwhiches, and they just went wild. First came ice buckets for our beer, then nachos and guac one day, fresh fruit the next, tropical punch the next; all complimentary. We even asked if they had fresh coconut and ten minutes later it showed up beautifully sliced and delicious. Keep in mind, this was all at no charge. So while the prices may be a bit high-end, all the goodies come along with it.

Another typical complaint was that not much English was spoken. Well, DUH! It's a Spanish speaking country! The world does not revolve around Americans. Even so, take a few minutes to make an attempt at Spanish and you will be treated extremely well. There are enough English speaking staff that communication is really not a problem.

We really enjoyed taking long beach walks every day. This is a perfect beach for a long walk with fine sand and warm gentle waters. Walk to your right when facing the ocean and you can go for quite a while. Plus, eventually you will pass the Excellence Resort with its military bunker styling and be glad that you didn't stay there. Right next to the Excellence there is a small string of shops that are good for souvenirs, island jewelery, cigars, etc. If you ask, they will even bring you back a cold six-pack of the great local beer, Presidente. (Oh - here is a tip. If you leave a few dollars and a note for the evening housekeeper, she will stock you up with water and a few bottles of beer which magically did not show up on our bill!)

The Spa at Agua was just right - nice atmosphere for massages and a really interesting "Circuit Pool" with all kinds of neat things like a hot tub, cool slabs with water jets, a waterfall, water massagers, a mist shower, etc. Very fun to hang out there.

To wrap it up, if you are looking for a mega-resort with beach volleyball, water aerobics, obnoxious music blasting on the beach and gobs of free food and alcohol, The Agua is not for you. But of you want an incredibly indulgent vacation, relishing in the fact that there is not much to do except relax among incredible architecture with fantastic service, this may be your hotel. No question they are still working out a few kinks, but it didn't seem to matter at all. The service always made up for the few problems we encountered. They try very hard to get everything right, and definitely succeed. We will be back!

I stayed at Agua for 4 nights during New Year's and experienced the same problems that some other reviewers have expressed. Yes, the food was awful. Yes, there were water shortages. And yes, there were things not working at the spa. However, if you are upset about the remote location, lack of nightlife and lack of English-speaking personnel, then you clearly need to either do better research on your next destination and/or reconsider international travel altogether. I've never heard of Japanese tourists complaining that hotel employees in the U.S. do not speak Japenese. Additionally & coincidentally enough though, I do recall certain guest's girlfriends not too upset with the hotel's liquor supply as she was drinking herslef into oblivion nightly, making a scene and causing embarrassment & discomfort for the rest of us.

I have close to 7 years in the travel & hospitality industry and can recognize a good product when I see one. The remote location (away from the drunk Spring Breaker-types), the romantic ambiance, beautiful property design, high-end ammenities & linens, extremely friendly staff and gogeous spa is what I am sure will make Agua survive in the long run.

Management made it clear to me that they are both welcoming of all the criticism they have received and extremely eager to improve on the growing pains they are experiencing. Will this happen? I do not know. What I do know is that once they bring in a new chef (something I am sure will happen quite soon as a result of all of our complaints) and once they are sure enough of having gotten to the level they are striving for to contact all of us and invite us back, I intend to do so and give them another chance. I promise to share my second visit to Agua (good or bad) with the rest of the tripadvisor community. But like I said, even Rome wasn't built in a day.

I strongly urge anyone considering this resort to go somewhere else. The best things that i can say about this resort is that the staff were very friendly and outgoing. I enjoyed my trip solely because of my girlfriend. If she was not with me, I would have changed my flight and returned home early.

Besides my girlfriend, the things that I liked best about this resort was that the sun was shining and warm, and they had alcohol.

The problems:

The resort is at least 55 minutes from the airport and any sign of civilization. However, the civilization 55 minutes away is not one worth the travel. This would be ok, or even romantic, if the resort were a different resort.

The biggest problem by far is the fact that the food is unedible. The menu is miniscule, which would be ok, if it was gourmet as they contend. Breakfast is fine, but not good. It is fine because they have a lot of fruit and finger sandwiches. The lunch is served at the bar near the beach. The food here is horrendous. If you are looking for a hamburger with grayish-white meat, this is your place. If you want soggy french fries that taste nothing like french fries, they've got them. We ate next door at Sivory over and over again because we simply couldn't find anything worth getting sick over.

Our bathroom smelled faintly of sewer. I inquired with managment about this and was told that once construction company built half the resort and a different one who knew less about plumbing did the other half. This explanation, while satisfying, did not help with the smell everytime you went to the bathroom.

There was no nightlife unless you want to go to Excellence for the night.

Over the entire week, I believe I only saw 4 people total in the pool. They did not use chlorine, and openly welcomed dead insects and worms to hang out in the pool since no humans wanted to go in it.

All in all, the resort is beautiful, but not worth it unless they pay the airfare and charge 150 per night.

Although I have traveled extensively, I'm sorry to say, this is the first time that I have taken the time to write a review. I love trip advisor and have counted on the reviews to guide me in the right direction. After visiting Auga Resort (Christmas week) I felt I had no choice but to share my experience. The resort was beautiful. Our suite (garden view junior suite) was up there with high end boutique hotels I have stayed in in the past. The service was great...the staff was very friendly, but the fact that the staff barely understood English was a problem. I have to say that my generally positive feeling took a sharp turn south when we ate lunch and went directly to the south pole when we tried to eat dinner. The resort prides itself on having hired a top chef from Spain. All I can say is that the food (aside from Breakfast) was uneatable. If you are looking for a quick weight loss program then this is the place for you. If having the option of good food is one criteria to a great vacation, then Agua is not for you!