We have been here for 4 days now and can NOT wait to get back to the states...our entire trip has been nothing but a nightmare....first we waited in line at the airport (with NO air conditioning) to get through customs for about 2 hours...the girls dont even pay attention to your passport...then we had to find a taxi to shuttle us to the resort....they were surprised we were going there and said they'd have to find someone who would take us...we show up to a backroad entrance with a cheap plastic sign and ENTIRE lobby full of Russian travelers. There was NO order. People and luggage were everywhere...there was NO air conditioning inside of the lobby and it took us over 2 hours to check in. This resort backs up to a local area (which is pretty dang scary) They have barbed wire around to keep the locals out of the resort. Our FIRST room directly overlooked this ghetto. The room was beautiful but smelled like mildew. This is our honeymoon and they gave us a room with 2 full size beds....We demanded a new room. We were switched to the building across the way...the room, again, was beautiful but this one smelled strongly of cigarettes and mildew. My husband and I have both been pretty sick the entire time because of the food ((whatever you do...do NOT eat the meat)). The food here is absolutely terrible...The resort itself is beautiful...but we are starving....everything we eat makes us sick so we are constantly rushing to the restroom to get sick. People here are hustlers....the food and drinks are "all included" because they are so terrible. Everything tastes watered down. We regret the decision to come to this particular resort and were contacting the airport to leave after only being here for 2 days!!! The staff members are pretty nice...Not too many of them understand english so it's hard to communicate. The excursions are expensive because you pay everything by the person...We have snorkled - which was great - but paid $70usd....then we deep sea fished with was $120usd...to get a water taxi to a nicer beach (because this resort has the worst, dirtiest, seaweed filled beach) is another $30usd - per person!!! All in all, I would not recommend this resort to anyone...and as a matter of fact...would be pretty embarassed if I had. There is constant construction going on so parts of the resort look absolutely terrible. If you do make the mistake of coming here make sure to pack LOTS of snacks and water....DO not drink the softdrinks...they are all flat and syrupy. Maybe I'm a spoiled American....maybe I just know what I like...but I will say this....this has totally made me want to stay in the USA...I don't care to ever travel outside of...ever..

We just returned from a much needed vacation at the Be Live Grand Punta Cana. Upon arrival we were handed a glass of "juice" in the lobby and our room was not ready. They held our bags but signed us in and gave out our wrist bands so we could have some lunch and get a drink. It took quite a while for the room to be ready. We quickly learned that 30 minutes is an hour and a half dominican time. Many people were in the lobby waiting for their rooms. Most were not happy, but we took it in stride, enjoyed a few beers and eventually got into our room.

Tip! Don't forget to ask for the safe key! $15 extra for the week.

The room was nice, tile floor, white cotton bed covers, nice bathroom. Our sliding glass door did not work but we were not offered another room as some others were in other reviews. We told the staff about it and they came to fix it. It was not fixed correctly, but they quickly came back and replaced the lock, so I can't complain. I would have liked another room. We were in Building 12, and our room faced away from the property, looking at the razor wire and the path which the workers took to get to the beach in the mornings, causing the dogs to bark every morning at around 6am.

The room was nice in that it was bright and clean. The bathroom was nice, although there was some mold and it smelled pretty musty. Luckily our AC worked very well. The maid service was great, but be prepared for 3 or 4 different people to enter your room during each day. The maid, the towel guy, and the refreshment person. We asked for extra water and got it no problem. Drinks from the fridge were replaced as we used them.

There were plenty of other rooms available, but we were never moved -- I'm guessing this is because we were Groupon people.. but I later learned that folks got a better deal and better rooms through hotels.com. It appears to me that they book a lot of discount rooms in the hopes to sell everyone the Lifestyles VIP service. (more on this later)

The resort itself is in a state of construction, but most areas are fine. The pools are nice and vacuumed each morning, with the exception of the main pool which needs to be repainted. Many buildings, including what I believe to be the original lobby are being re-done and we got to hear the jack hammers several of the days we were there.

The food: There are several restaurants on the property but the main one is Windows. It is a nice buffet open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and it offers a good variety at most times of day. The staff is wonderful and they are quick to bring you coffee or beer or whatever you'd like. The ala carte restaurants are open for dinner but you need to make a reservation with the girl outside of the windows restaurant between 9am and 3pm. We ate at the Japones, Sport Bar, Italiano and Rodizio.

The Japones and Rodizio were pretty good, but the Sports Bar and Italiano were poor attempts at both styles of food. The Italiano was terrible and the only similarity to italian food was the fact that pasta was involved. The Sport Bar was chicken wings and burgers and such, but again, the sauces are all wrong and the burgers aren't really beef.. not sure what they are.

Late night they open the Japones for "bar food" and if you're going out early for an excursion (before 7am) then your breakfast will be leftover bar food from the night before.

Now the good! Despite the construction the hotel is pretty lovely. The beach is beautiful, the pools are gorgeous, and the staff are amazing. They engage with the guests and make you feel at home. All of the activities people were awesome as well!

With the exception of the front desk staff, most speak several languages very well. It seemed to me that the bag guys had a better handle on English than the folks behind the counter.

I've read reviews about the seaweed on the beach, but it's raked and removed at least once a day along with all the other garbage that washes ashore. We felt the beach was beautiful and they did as best they could keeping up with what came in at high tide.

You can walk all the way down the beach - the shoreline is owned by the national government, so you can walk and walk, which is nice. Lots of vendors walking up and down the beach selling excursions and gifts, hair braiding, clothing, cigars, etc. For most a nice "no" works, but others are more persistent.

Speaking of persistent.. the Lifestyles VIP guys are everywhere! They lurk outside the restaurants to catch you on the way out. We are nice people and it seems that was construed as interest.. No didn't work and we had to try to avoid the guy during our whole stay. If it is uncomfortable for you to have to say no to people all the time..be forwarned. "But they'll give me $50 if you come upstairs.. my family needs the money".. It really turned us off. Even after we explained that we were not interested, we were approached and approached time and again by the same individual. We were also called on the phone by a "groupon guy" who met us the first morning. Sure, he had some tips like don't drink the water in the shower, but he was just someone else trying to sell us excursions that were much more expensive than some others.

Overall we had a great time, the Dominican people are amazing. Special thanks to the dive shop folks -- Paul, Sarah and Nicolas -- they created new divers out of us in a very non-threatening environment (the lessons were free!). Anyone considering learning to scuba should go and see them! We took one day trip to Catalina Island on their recommendation and felt that our guides were the best on the boat.

As for the hotel, I think I'd rather pay more and not be hounded all week to upgrade.

I work for a travel agency and had the opportunity to stay at the Be Live Grand Bavaro Punta Cana from October 12th to the 19th. Here are some details:

Rooms:

We were in Cameleon Gold and stayed in building 10 on the second floor (room 10211). Building 10 has nice marble-style floors, an elevator and stairs and is right next to the small lobby (the large main lobby is under construction).

Our room was very clean and modern with a comfortable king-sized bed, a day-bed, flat-screen TV, lots of storage space and a roomy bathroom with a jet-tub/shower and separate room for the toilet. The balcony was large and had a nice view of one of the pools. We had no complaints of our room other than the bar fridge not working, but this didn't affect us.

In our room we also received three bottles of alcohol (two of dark rum and one vodka) which came with our Cameleon Gold package. We also purchased a safe for $3.00 per day where we kept all our valuables.

We had the opportunity to see buiding 4 as there was a mixup with our rooms when we first arrived (the mixup was rectified very quickly and we were changed to building 10). The hallways walking into building 4 are very dark and the lights turn on and flicker as you approach them which was actually creepy. Building 4 is close to the main pool and the 24-hour bar and we noticed it was very noisy in the room. It was a standard room which was quite plain, empty and there was really not much to it. Building 10 was much more attractive and quiet so I would suggest to stay in the buildings on that end if you stay here.


Grounds/Pools/Beach:

The grounds are stunning at this resort. It is kept very clean and there are lots of palm trees and vegetation which makes it look lush and beautiful. The resort is quite large - not large enough to be tired of walking but large enough where it isn't too crowded in any one spot. There are always places to go to lounge, swim, walk etc.

There are many pools to choose from. The main pool was our favourite as they play music, offer water activities, it has a swim-up bar and is close to bathrooms and the buffet. We loved the atmosphere and thought it had beautiful surroundings. Sometimes photographers will come and take pictures of you (we got pictures with a monkey and parrots) which you can view above the pool bar and purchase if you wish.

The beach has white powdery sand with palm trees growing out of the sand which was beautiful. There are plenty of huts and chairs to choose from to stay out of the sun. The water is turquoise however there was seaweed on the beach which did get cleaned up. Our first night we arrived there were mounds of seaweed on the shore where you could not even walk over it to get to the water. This did not leave a good first impression and did raise some concerns for the rest of the week, but it was completely cleared the next day. There is some floating seaweed in the water and some bark from the palm trees. It really wasn't that bad at all, but I have swam in clearer water so it might bother some travelers. If you walk down the beach to the left it is very beautiful.

Staff:

The resort staff was extremely friendly - such wonderful people. They have such big smiles on their faces and always joked around with us. If you treat staff with respect you will absolutely get it back in return. Although there were many guests at the resort they would always remember our faces, greet us with smiles and talk with us. The employees which impressed me the most were Pechuga, Coca Cola (Animation team), Damaso (Waiter) and Abel (the bartender). They made our holidays so enjoyable and gave us wonderful memories. These individuals provide true customer service and really knew how to make us feel at home.

There was a language barrier as most of the guests were Spanish or Russian. For the first half of our trip we thought we were the only English-speaking people there. Because most of the guests are Spanish and Dominican is a Spanish-speaking country, all of the activities and nightly shows are in Spanish. We did enjoy the shows because we could get the idea of what was happening, we even got on the stage one night and went along with the show. The animation team was very energetic and funny. This language barrier however does get in the way when you are ordering drinks, you will often get a blank stare or they will point to a bottle to clarify what you are asking for. You do have to be patient and explain what you want...we found when we used less words it was easier...pina colada, dark rum, two. This wasn't the case with all of the staff, but most of them did have a hard time understanding.

Service:

There were always clean tables to sit at, not like other resorts where you sometimes have to wait for tables to be cleared before you can eat at the buffet. As stated previously the staff was very friendly.

Our only complaint is with the maid, as half of the week she would take our old towels and not provide us with new ones. We think there must have been a shortage on towels. We had to call four times to request new towels which would take about twenty minutes to receive. This was quite a nuisance. We started leaving notes requesting new towels.

Activities:

Everyday in the main pool there is water aerobics, but there isn't really any variety with the daily activities. This may be because it was off-season, as Pechuga did advise us that in peak season it is busy and there are many games. The shows are different each night and they usually involve guests coming onstage which is always hilarious and fun. The Michael Jackson show was amazing, the impersonator was so talented and I was in awe. The "backstage bar" right behind the main pool bar is always a great place to spend time at night. There are couches, tables with candles and it seems to be where most of the guests would spend time at night. It was great meeting new people here, and we did play bingo here one night as well.

There is a casino, shops and an internet cafe in the resort which was great. You can barter with the shops to lower the prices.

You could sign up for activities with tour guides within the resort if you wanted to go on an excursion which was convenient. This wasn't entirely a good thing, however, because they hang around the main pool during the day and approach you multiple times even if you continue to say no. I just told them I didn't bring any money for excursions and they finally stopped asking me. If you seem interested you will continue to be approached.

Food:

I was happy with the Windows buffet, they did have a good variety if you didn't pile your plate everyday, otherwise some dishes do appear the following days so if you eat one of everything I think you could get bored.

There are plenty of a-la-carte restaurants which I suggest to book at the beginning of your holiday to ensure you get to experience them. We went to the Japenese, Italian and Mexican restaurants. The Japanese was delicious; they cooked the food right in front of you, offered Miso soup, sushi, then chicken, steak, shrimp and fried rice. It was wonderful. I also loved the Mexican restaurant, the enchiladas were delicious. The Italian restuarant wasn't that impressive. There wasn't much flavour and the portions were small. We ended up going to the buffet afterwards. This does sound gluttonous but other couples we met also had to do the same thing. There were other a-la-carte restaurants which we didn't try, these were Brazilian, American, and Gourmet (Dominican).

One big complaint I have is that there are too many "solicitors" within the resort. I am used to locals selling souvenirs etc on the beach when I have been to resorts, but it was all over the resort at the Be Live. The tour guides would approach you with their brochures even if you say you are not interested, this holiday company advised us that we were invited to VIP by our tour operator (sounded legitimate) and we ended up wasting a half an hour finding out they were trying to sell us time shares. If you get approached regarding VIP, save your precious vacation time and just tell them that you've been advised about it and are not interested. In addition twice in the week at night there were multiple tables set up with jewelry throughout the resort as well as paintings. We found we had to duck and dodge these merchants because you could not get by them without being stopped multiple times. Even if you say no they are just way too pushy and will tell you to just come look at their products and try to push you to purchase them. It made us feel very stressed having this forced on us (by four tables within a small time-frame). We couldn't walk anywhere in the main area of the resort without being disrupted. We ended up planning routes to get around them and running past them which was ridiculous. This is something the hotel should not allow, as people go on vacation to relax and this definitely caused unwanted stress and hassle.

All-in-all we had a wonderful vacation and thoroughly enjoyed this resort. The complaints we have were very minor and did not get in the way of enjoying our holiday. The staff, grounds, beach and food were great and we would definitely return to this resort. I will be recommeding this resort to friends, family and clients.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. I'd be happy to help.

We stayed in Be Live Grand for four days, it was our first time and we were worried because of some reviews we had read but let me tell you that we had the best service ever. It is not comparable to other resorts in Punta Cana, but the price is not either. There six rests, 5 a la carte and one buffete, 6 bars and food and drinks are available 24\7. The rooms are nice, some nicer than others depending the type of room booked. We paid 400$ for the two of us for days, if you want more for the price, book anoher resort and pay 1200$ and you will be fine.
A big aplause to the employees, they really make the difference.