Here is a detailed description of what you get at the Carabella. I wouldnt go back myself but if you got a great price in the 600$ range than I wouldnt discourage you to go if yo are prepared for a 2-3 star not 4 star hotel.

Lobby
comfortable with a bar in the lobby that is open in the evening. At least at this bar they give you a glass not a plastic cup for your drinks

Rooms
The rooms are in need of renovations but were kept clean although you still might find a cockroach and bugs. We had to change rooms because the frist had a very large leak in the bathroom. We got a second room with just a small leak. The shower depening on the time of day and the room had very litlle hot water. The air conditioner worked well and was quiet in the second room. There is a mini fridge with a large bottle of water in it and it is replaced everyday. The sliding doors do not lock and the screen doors dont work. After taking to some guards they said the place is very safe. The safe cost 10$ per week. You have to ask for a remote control. There are two english chanels one movie channel.


Breakfast
Americn type foods, eggs bread hams and cheese lots of fried meat, fruit smoothies and only 4 types of fruit. Coffee is terrible. If you want a decent tasting coffee get the double espresso in the vending machine.

Lunch
There are 10 hot dishes to choose from and usualy fried meat two types of pasta, make your own fajitas, rice and a traditional meat dish. There are two salad bars. The desserts were good usually 5 to choose from. At least 5 of the hot dishes were not edible.

Dinner
The same as above, a fried meat of every type of animal inc. fish. I found half of the dishes unedible. There is a make your own pasta bar which was good. you choode the ingrediants you want and the sauce and the chef mixes and cooks it on front of you.

A la carte resturants
The grill/seafood resturant was very good everybody enjoyed there dinners there
The mexican resturant was goos but spicy and upset out stomachs later.
The Italian resturant had good pizza
The beach bar has ice cream hamburgers hotdogs fried fish and french fries.

Drinks
A lot of cheap brands alcohol, the beer was good the mixed drinks were too sweet and they didnt use any fruit in any of the drinks. The pool bar was not manned, empty and not used

The grounds and beach
The grounds were very pretty and kept clean. The beach was small, with nice sand and nice clear water. If you want to sun tan do not go to the beach there wre too many trees and most of the beach is shadded. Lot of charis no matter what time of day you go

The pools
The pools were fine small but comfortable. Lots of chairs.

The shows and Bar
We didnt get to any of the shows as were were travelling with a 3 yr old and a 1 year old. But everyone one enjoyed the shows and the bar.

The staff
They were frendly but almost none of them spoke English. When our room needed repair someone came within the hour, when we asked for another room they were helpful.

I went to the Carabela Bavaro Resort in Janurary and we had our money worth. It was so much fun. Before leaving, I was a bit stressed, because of all the bad reviews, but I can assure you that it's worth every penny. There's a lot of activities and the people at the resort are very friendly. Theres always something to do and some place to eat! We did the banana boat and it cost only 7$ but we laugh all the ride. You should try it! The hotels room were very clean. Always lots of chairs available beside the pools and on the beach! Foods and drinks were really great. It's a excellent resort for family, older crowd and teenagers.

Having read the other reviews I wasn't expecting much from the food. And it was indeed not too good. Which is strange because the food was not cheap, it was just prepared strangely and usually too salty. However, I had great meals eating mostly fruit, which was fresh and abundant every day. There was fresh fruit juice of all kinds in the morning too. And friday's lobsternight was a nice surprise. There is a wide variety of food anyway, so you will not starve.
I never tried any of the separate restaurants. I should have though, because they were a lot quiter. The buffet means that you enter in a room where about 150 people are eating and talking at the same time.
Snacks were a disaster. I didn't like the soft-ice machine much either, it only had chocolate flavor and it tasted cheap. Same with drinks at the bars. The slush-machine distributed horribly acidy and sugary slush, but most people seemed to liked it. Most drinks are distributed in plastic cups, a big contribution to the local waste problem.

The appartment was fine, big and with working airco. The television set was more of a problem but that didn't bother me. I had to change rooms once because I was at first located opposite a bar (La sirena) that had very loud music on all evening and night. Changing rooms was no problem. The room was kept clean very well. Sometimes it would have a bit of a sour or musty smell, but I couldn't determine if that was inside the room, or from outside.

The beach was fine by me. It is true that there was a lot of shadow so you have to move your bed around. So if you are a large group it will be difficult to all catch the sun. There were enough beds on the beach. I didn't get hasseled by vendors, they are not allowed where the beds are.
Beachtowels are provided by the hotel, but if you want to go to the beach after you've checked out, you will have to bring your own towel.

I really disliked that when I walked around singly, I often got comments from the men working there. They would call me stuff like 'mi amor' or 'prinzessa'. I found it condescending. And what really annoyed me were the ridiculously short skirts of the girl-waiters at the buffet. When they bent over you could sometimes see their underwear. I found it degrading. Also, it made some of the older male tourist become too 'friendly' with the waitresses. I saw a waitress politely trying to ward off a too friendly hug from a senior tourist.I guess though that this kind of thing is connected with the country and the comparitive poverty of its people. But it is still very disagreeable to watch. Maybe you would have less of this in more expensive resorts.

The resort was quite big and that was agreeable because you could have a walk around without running into people too much. Also there were parts of the beach that were relatively quite, no music from a bar or anything like that.

I never cared for the animation so I don't know if it was good or bad. It did keep me awake untill eleven every night though.

I never went to the pool because there were too many people there.
Do not expect to find intelligent company here. But it is cheap and with the money you save you can get some delicious meals back home. The sun, the sea and the palmtrees are the same everywhere, so you might as wel go cheap and visit carabela beach resort.

5 friends and i just came back from carabella and we were pretty scared to go after reading some of the reviews before we went.we had such a good time and the resort was very nice/the staff was great the beach was beautiful and the food was good for that country.they had lots of choices so if you didnt like local foods there was still lots to eat with the salad bars and some of the main dishes and a great variety of desserts.the drinks were not always consistent9made one way by one bar and another at the next bar.didn,t care for the some drinks.the biggest complaint we had was our room it was clean and spacious but this we coulnt figure out why but there was a big frosted window in the bathroom wall into the livingroom that when you are taking a shower everyone in the room can see you clearly we had to take showers in shifts.we talked to other people there and not everyone had rooms like that so when you book you might want to ask not to have one of these rooms.if not for the bathroom in our room i would give this resort a thumbs up cause we had a blast.