The best vacation ever. The people are great! Food was some of the best we ever ate. All the fun a bunch of friends getting together could ask for! We were grateful for the wonderful food, drinks, and staff. Simply amazing!!!!!!

Six of us shared a 3 bedroom villa. Beautiful resort. Make sure you attend the VIP Welcome party Sunday evening. The food was great with many stations and something for everyone. The entertainment that night had a little something for everyone, even the kids. We enjoyed the VIP Beach early on, and eventually upgraded and spent most of the time at Serenity and Harmony Beaches. I had a 1 hour massage at Serenity Beach with the sound of waves in the background. It is a big place and with our upgrade we got golf carts which was fun. Their is 24 hour shuttle service available to get you anywhere on the resort in short notice. Some of us took the helicopter tour. There is free WiFi in some areas. Skip the nightly show in the Coliseum - very bad! Our our inclusive package included breakfast prepared for us in our villa and it was wonderful (omelots, breads, fresh fruit, and fried cheese - I know). We ate at the Brazilian restaurant and it was great. We also ate at: Azul, Jazz, and Simply Gourmet (upgraded restaurants). No complaints on food at all. Service was awesome. We truly felt that the Domincan people appreciated us. We hired a taxi driver to take us on a 1/2 day trip to visit the Brugal rum factory, a jewely store, tour of poor and more affluent areas, and a cable car ride to the top of the mountain. He charged $50 for the whole group and we tipped him nicely. That trip through the resort would have been $79 each.

This is my third review of this resort and I am going to start with the bad. There is much more good, but we had some problems at the beginning of our stay. We rented from a shareholder and received gold bracelets again. We took the helicopter to and from the resort as part of our package, which was wonderful. The problems started with our villa.

Bad: we were put in villa 2C, just like last time. We did not want this villa because we had had some problems in December. This time the air conditioning in the master bedroom didn't work. It is the only bedroom in the villa with a king size bed, so we were not happy. They came to fix it and said it was not on and would be fine in half an hour. It wasn't. We complained several times and it was not fixed until the following morning. We were very angry. They told us that the family we rented from had not requested anything, but the family forwarded us the emails recommending a newer villa. After a whole day of arguing and having them show us 2 other villas that were even older then the first one (one with no eating area indoors and one with no A/C in the main living area or on the same floor as the main living area), they finally moved us to villa E10, which was lovely. Everything in it worked fine. Although everything after that was much better, we really shouldn't have had to spend a whole day of our trip arguing.

We tried to order the turkey sandwich at VIP Pool and the sports bar, but they only had turkey ham, not regular turkey. My husband ordered it anyway and there was only one slice of turkey on it.

The Good: we liked the sandwiches at Serenity Beach as well as the Brazilian restaurant at Confresi. The food at Belini for lunch was good as well.

The Very Good: Breakfast cooked to order in the villa was always very good. Dinner at Simply Gourmet, which we had twice was very good as well. We really enjoyed dinner at Indochine. The weather was perfect and we looked over the pool toward the ocean. A man played guitar and another sang at our table-very romantic. Drinks at VIP Pool and the sports bar were very good and so was the Sunday night welcome party.

The Excellent: Dinner at Jazz was excellent both times. It was much better then it was in December. Our BBQ in the villa was excellent as well. They cooked and served fish, lobster, pork, steak and chicken as well as lots of sides. They brought dessert and some extra cookies for us to keep in the villa. We loved that.

The Amazing: Drinks and cool breezes at Serenity Beach, as before, were fantastic. There is a restaurant at Serenity called Oh Crepes, which was fantastic. We had either beef or chicken Crepes for lunch almost every day and chocolate, peanut butter and caramel or chocolate and strawberry Crepes, among others as a special treat there as well. This was by far our favorite food and dessert at the resort. Drinks at Serenity were better then those at Harmony and VIP Beach and VIP Pool. I am not sure why, but my husband and I both thought so.

Our second villa-E10 was amazing as well. What made it amazing was the total privacy. This was the very last villa on the street. There was nothing beyond it and nothing behind it. We swam in our villa pool every day. It was warm and clean and very pretty.

Excursions: We went to Ocean World, which as stated before, was a nice half day trip. It has birds, dolphins, sea lions, sharks and a man made reef to snorkel in. We walked back from there, on the beach, to the resort. It was a nice walk.
We did the half day "funny buggy" excursion as well. My husband really liked it. I hated the drive to the place. We had stops at two resorts to pick people up, which we did not know about. The buggy part was fun but the trip to a shopping area in a very poor community was heartbreaking. Seeing children pushing each other to get candy that was thrown to them made me very sad and the poor conditions that they live in is quite an eye opener. I thought I was prepaired for that, but as a parent I really wasn't. On the way back to the resort we went through different neighborhoods where children were coming home from school in their school uniforms. That was much better to see.

The resort has grown a tremendous amount over the last three years. Perhaps it is getting a bit too big for the management team. The changes are beautiful and there is always something more to see and do, so maybe they will hire more people and find a way to avoid pointless complications like the ones we had on our first day. The good far outweighs the bad here but it was a difficult start and it did not have to be.

Pricing: We flew using miles again so we payed about $110 round trip each from JFK to POP.

We took Jet Blue there and American Airlines back. No problems on Jet Blue. No problems from POP to MIA, but huge problems from Miami to JFK. Almost a three hour delay that was announced about five minutes after boarding time. Flight earlier had been canceled so people were desperate to get on the plane and there were not enough seats for everyone. They sent my suitcase to Texas and it took almost two days to get to NY. They were very difficult to deal with.

We payed $1160 for 8 nights in the villa and $100 each to upgrade to gold bracelets. ($1,360 total for 8 nights in the villa.

We payed $57.50pp per day for the all inclusive package ($920 total for 8 days-2 people)

Ocean World was included in our package.

Funny Buggy excursion $55pp ($110 total for 2 people)

We tipped $5 per day to our maid in the villa and a few dollars for tips each night. We tipped $10 each to the chef and server at our BBQ and about another $100 to various servers and staff.

I wish I could give 5 stars, but with the problems the first day I really can not. We may go back again, and I still recommend this resort very highly.

Dont waste your money...my review is exactly the same as the previous post for a July vacation.

Extremely poor customer service - at the administrative level
- Upon our arrival at the resort 2:00pm. several promises were broken right off the back. We immediatley asked to speak to a manager... we were told that she was booked for the day and would not see us on Friday (arrival day)...we had to make an appt for Monday...NOW is that something you say to guests who have traveled across the country for vacation....Lifestlye Resorts Admin level staff is in dire need of Customer Sensitivity Training.

Time share- Gold - they show you a Mercedes and when you get there give you a volkswagon
- the old BAIT and Switch
- the better restaurant Azul - was booked by share holders our entire eight day stay, however thats not what they tell you when you purchase a time share.. Lifestyles promises you will be able to eat at Azul. What BS!

Technically, you can get bumped everytime by a Platinum shareholder and will never enjoy the better restaurants,or villas.

Beautiful grounds but over shadowed by horrible food, broken promises, unorganized, they lie right in your face,

Food - Every body in our group got terrible diarrhea...that will speak to the food there..really sad... I dont know how they expect to continue to attract tourist. I WILL NEVER GO BACK...Oh by the way the maid serves the same food every day for breakfast in the villas, that they have in the buffet.with the exception of oatmeal we found at one buffet....

The golf cart was raggit and leak fumes ...we turned it in for another. ..the head light didnt work

Villa - we reserved a 4 bedroom villa in advance, upon arrival they placed us in the worst place I had ever seen..dirty, hot, outdated, unkept entrance, bathroom fixtures old with rust and deposits (unhealty) mold in bathroom, 3 bedroom...just horrible. The attendant called the front desk to voice our concerns and they walked us down the road to another villa. This villa was better, bigger pool, still outdated, still 3 bedroom...remember the reservation was confirmed for 4 bedroom.....

Needless to say , we spent 40% of our vacation in customer service......

Lastly, the better business bureau needs to be notified for false advertisement....