I just came back from Dreams Palm Beach Resort after 8 days stay last week. This is my second trip to Punta Cana. I chose this resort because of Dreams brand(so called luxury name), 6 apples rating and re-opened in Dec, 2008 after complete remodel from previous SunScape.

Location: Located 20 minutes ride from Punta Cana International Airport. The resort entrance is not grand at all. The driveway barely let Apple Tour bus to park and go by. A very plain check-in desk and a couple of sectional sofa completes lobby area.

Landscape: Palm tree everywhere and well-maintained lawn and flower bed. The whole resort is on a limited real estate and don't require you to walk much at all.

Room: We were assigned to building 6 first floor room after being told all upper level rooms were full. The room was very damp and you can feel the wetness of the bed sheet. Next morning I went to front desk requesting for switching to an upper level room and also was told they were full. I complained to Apple rep and miraculously I was allowed to move to a third floor room with a partial ocean/pool view room in the same building. The room came with balcony with nice place to sit after whole days activities. With sufficient air-condition and ceiling fan, this is only cool shelter from hot humid weather during the whole trip. The remodel probably just means to re-paint the wall. Bath room is simply not touched at all. Also you probably already know by now, there is no door for shower and water always spills to bathroom and you have to wipe to dry using hotel towers every time you take a shower.

Dinning: World Cafe is main buffet dining facility, we ate breakfast and lunch there. Most food is good and delicious. The problem is that the place is in open air. I know we went there was not to enjoy comfortable weather, but eating while sweating is not very comfortable at all. Beer and coke glass start dripping water from outside after merely minutes. Also the cold cut meat, salad, cheese, and desert were some times in the pool of water. Other hot food are simply delicious, grilled whole fish, grilled calamari, goat meat stew, and roast pig to name a few.

The A La Cart restaurants are relatively small in size, probably less than twenty tables in each restaurant. Every night one hostess, five or six waiters/waitresses took care the service. When I was there, I have to wait one or more hours to get in and wait another half hour or more to see our first appetizers. But the restaurants are air-conditioned and well-decorated. Food are good, similar the ones served in buffet area.

Beach: White fine sand tropical Caribbean beach and blue ocean with palm tree. Nothing can top that. That's why we were here for. The wave is very calm and water is clear. Some days there were no seed weeds, others were lot of them. I guess it depends on the current. The palapas is very hard to find and beach is a little bit crowded. We were forced to move to the border area between Dreams and Nature Park(another resort) to find palapas. On the beach often you also can spot fish swimming beneath your eyes and there was constant breeze. It's really a nice to read and relax.

Pool: Two pool area. One with swim-up bar was always crowded. Another is relatively quiet. But towel game was in full swing. Even before 8AM, all the shaded seating were occupied by blue towel. It's ridiculous to see only less than 10 people in the pool but all the seating surrounded were occupied by towels not people. There is no rule in this resort on anything. Just a few lines in the Daily Sundial (resort daily paper) like please don’t' reserve seat but no one enforces rules.

Service: People work very hard in this resort form daybreak to sunset from cleaning sea weeds on the beach to delivering towel to your room. But it's very difficult to communicate with them about what you want. A couple of key spots (restaurant, bar etc) only have limited personnel, which cause customers to wait unacceptable long time.

In summary, we had a good time but certainly not a dream vacation. If you only care about beach and have some decent food to eat it's a good place for you. If you can manage your expectation well, you will have a good time. By the way, I also observed a group of people calling their travel agent in the US asking to change hotel as soon as they step in the lobby. On the day I left for home, I asked a guy standing next to me why he cut his vacation short. He simply put it "This is not a 6 apple resort".

This property was highly recommended by our travel agent. as a luxury resort geared towards adults (singles and couples). This was not the case. It was a budget hotel geared towards families and large groups.

PROS:
-Value
-Great pool
-Good for families or large groups on a budget

CONS
-Terrible Food
-Watered down drinks.
-No Customer Service
-Need to be fluent in Spanish to communicate with the staff
-Small rooms
-Gross Bathrooms
-Nightly entertainment consisted of a show geared for small children
-No nightly entertainment for adults.
-Front desk staff was useless
-Entertainment staff was overly friendly bordering on annoying.
-Tipping was confusing.
-Many, many Mosquitos

This was our 8th vacation to Punta Cana and our 7th resort.
The layout of the resort is great, eazy to find everything.
The Room= Our room was comfortable, cleaned everyday. No problems with anything. The A..C works great. Room service was only used in the A.M. for coffee. Always fast.

Dining=We ate at all of the restaurants. If you go 10 minutes before they open you can get in, however if not plan on waiting 2 hours.The Bordeaux and the Himitsu were the best. When going to the buffet we were always greeted by "Katherine" who would find us a table under a fan. There was plenty of choices and were sadisified at every meal. I wish the resort would enclose the area. Sometimes you just need to get out of the heat.

The Beach= The greatest beach , clear water, always a breeze. Beach service was fun because of our new friend "Simon". Simon would find you with a drink even when we were in the water.

The Problem= The Towel Game. Dreams does not require towel cards that allow one towel per person. People would take 4 or 6 towels and save loungers at the pool, then go and save loungers at the beach. Sure everone plays the game, but, there were days when we were on the beach from 9:00 a.m - 5:00p.m. and some loungers had towels placed on no-one sat there. After talking with other people on vacation everyone agreed.
Why dont they install more Palapas.

Overall it was a great vataion and we met some great people.

Just returned to Ireland after a wonderful relaxing holiday at Dreams Palm Beach Punta Cana. We have visited a few carribean islands and the Hotel here was the best, Everything you could wish for. We were in the Preferred Club and it was well worth the extra. Room 5306 was fab. Ocean view. Big high ceiling. Great air con. Bathroom big and bright. The Maid service was great. Room cleaned
everyday and really cleaned. Towels changed during the day and again with turn down service at night. Mini bar filled everyday. We had room service delivered no problems. Food arrived within 20 minutes.
Beach lovely and pool area hugh. Lovely selection of Restaurants and the food was good in the all. Seaside Grill was great with lovely Staff (Carol) and the waiters. Steaks were big and tender. Never had to wait long for a table. But if we did no problem just went to Preferred Club and got ourselvers a drink. Whats the problem?, No rush on holiday. All the bar Staff and restaurant staff very helpful and always happy and smiling.
Would definately recommend this hotel to anyone if you are looking for a wonderful relaxing holiday. Best in the Caribbean.