Just ot back Jan 2 1013-Jan 9 2013 from the Barcelo Punta Cana booked through travel agent upgraded to Presitge Class got about 1/2 what was sold for upgrade. We have traveled to Punta Cana 12 years ago stayed at Barcelo Bavaro Beach Resort was great!! Always said we would be back. This is our second time taking our daughter 7 out of Canada. Have previosly travelled to Playa Del Carmen (Sandos Carocal) and Las Brisas in Hualtulco.
Check In
This was a crazy everyone about (28 people)in Presitige line and two front staff one at the reception desk one for Prestige Class and one at the far end dealing with guests without luggage.Need more staff!!! We did get the botttle of rum from lady at the counter.

****Note this is a smokers paradise**** there was an abundance of it everywhere even though there were no smoking sections no one really cared, hard to enjoy sitting in lounge areas with your kid and a purple haze or lingering smoke even though it is all open this was not cool for us and one reason we will probably not come back to this resort

Room 2110
Comfortable double beds (had to sleep with daugter as husband is a big man)
Hot water was a hit or miss I think it was a time of day issue
the water that you hear leaking and see on floor is from A/C in room shower has wierd glass that does not divert water into shower well
they has 3 English TV channels that we found

House Keeping ** Need more staff noticed 2 key ladys that were working others I noticed alot of younger ones chatting with eachother no work being done

Tip*** use the do not disurb sign at night as someone is knocking in morning to ask for laundry and see if room is vacant lots of guests has them come in thier room in the morning

If your make up room sign is on door it may get done not a gaurentee ours was flipped over to do not disturb??? $ still on bed

They do not seem to know when guests are leaving or checking out poor communication in from reception

I asked for more towels right from the start had tips on the bed $3 every day many times came back to room with $ still on the bed I flagged the girl down and asked every time to have the washed floors and do the toilet gave her $ directly to her to stay on top of it which she did with smiles.(I was surprised too pay for Presige Class and not have at least the beds made everyday ands fridge stocked everyday with water (the bottles we did refill at the lobby bars) bottle 1L for 3 people was not adequet gave more $ to maid to track down fridge stocker asked for xtra beer and water this was taken care of only once.

Beach towels were in room only 2 recieved an additional one with no fuss

Food
One Crazy Buffet not a fluid line of people we felt like it was a free for all, we always found something to eat service in this area was poor as there was no order the way tables were cleared and set up sometimes you has cultlery ,sometimes you could get a drink and sometimes it was a miss and you had to go looking for the basics from other tables

In the a.m when you were wanting a good dominican cup of coffee and hot milk it was disappointing to only have one:( if you were lucky!

Noticed that Mayo was in ice here but not at the Burger shack it was sitting in sun

The A la Carts were little odd too

Dominican ***Good food , service good
Japanese*** nice atmophere, awsome service!!!!!! but seen some food prep that would not go over good eg. cutting raw chicken and beef with same knife as it is being cooked seeemed a little wrong to me I was not well that night or next afternoon
Sea Food Grill service good, food ok
French "Paris service good food was not beef tenderloin but we ate it even though we only had a butter knife to fight it with.***note for staff give the people a chance eating the meat to cut it with something sharp***

Wii Fi in room had decent signal, Internet Cafe quite a hike up the stairs as elevators in building of lobby and near rooms were being serviced (We saw a maintenance person so I can confirm that they were working on this)

Safe fit IPad and all other stuff was pleased

Shopping Go 10min walk around the corner and be prepared to grind.

Beach Awsome!!!!!! although a little rough for a young child yellow and red flag were up everyday but the pools especially the quiet one was nice for family and bathrooms always clean and bar not too busy.
Tip*** if you do not see chairs flag guys down in white to get you what you need and have a Tip for them (they went to beach and worked dragging loungers all day and we seen them cleaning pools regularly)

Kids area good seen lots of security and beach police packing guns felt safe
***husband noticed in party pool people smokin illegal stuff in a corner so we kept to the quiet pool

Did see a manager pointing out to staff at the beach to clean up and make steps visable I think on the maid and reception end some observation should be noted and tweaked

We knew going in that this was not going to be perfect in all ways I read the reviews and still gambled we felt we got what we paid for... awsome beach, clean pools perfect weather and decent rooms with adequet food. Even though this review seems bad it was not bad all the time we made the best of it we also met some workers that made our daughter feel special and they were open to learning how to make our drink of choice with premium liquor what more can you ask it was ok! Fair $ for what we paid.

The resort need some more attention it is showing its age.

Our group first started traveling together last year for our 30th birthdays to Jamaica, we decided to continue with your destination vacations and have expanded to include more friends in our travels. Prior to selecting the Barcelo Punta Cana in DR as our hotel destination, we reviewed the ratings on this hotel and while many were rated as poor, we looked at the good ratings as well. We decided we weren't the type that needed every single thing to be perfect on our stay, we usually create our own fun and the room is basically to sleep in anyway. The package we purchases included an All-inclusive Plus Plan, offered through our travel agency, we were to get VIP treatment, however everytime we tried to explain to the hotel we were to have unlimited A la carte dining, upgraded amenities, turn down service and beach towels in our rooms. Non of this happened, everytime we tried to explain that we weren't getting what we were suppose to, they igonored us. Finally our travel agent representative was able to get us most of things we were to have. (The pool towels was a definite perk, they never had enough, nor any clean ones, lucky a couple of us were early risers, we would switch them out with the towel hut by the pool for "clean" dry towels as they resort never brought us pool towels to our rooms.

First off the good. The beaches are beautiful, it looks like they are making steps to upgrade the hotel, so it is what it is, comfortable beds, hot showers(a few ants in the bathroom) and the mini fridge(if it worked) was restocked(sometimes we had to ask for more items as it would be late evening before they got around to it), if we tipped them restocking the fridge we got extra beverages, which was nice. The bar staff were very friendly for the most part, if you tipped(which wasn't required but we always have/will, we know they work hard for very little), we would be ignored or they would take our drink orders after they helped others, even if we were there first waiting patiently. It was obvious they were ignoring you when they looked right at you with an empty glass in your hand and then they would help the person that came up behind you who happened to be a person of certain nationality.

The restaurants are sub par as well as the buffet, just like the other reviews, I tried telling the cook at one of the grill stations in the buffet that the tomotoes had bugs crawling on them, they just waved me away, did nothing about the bugs, or the birds that were flying around sitting on tables and eating unattended food from people getting drinks(as they wait staff would rather talk to each other than fill the glasses or bring water to the tables).

At the Italian restaurant the first time (we ended up with 2 reservations for this restaurant), the food was pretty good, however half way through our salads, one of our friends found under his lettuce a hair that wasn't all that long and wasn't all that straight. It was rather gross to see, and even worse when we told the waiter, who didn't do anything, just took the plate away and never came back to the table to offer any type of apology or acknowledgement of the incident. The 2nd time was even worse at this restaurant, we waited over 2 hours for our meal, while other groups came in, ordered, were served, and left. We tried asking for a "Manager" but were ignored, we finaly went back to the kitchen doors and asked for our food which came out cold, and only half our group got what they ordered. When we asked for the remainder of our groups food, we were again ignored, to the point we just up and left, we complained to the front desk guest services, but they only give you a piece of paper to fill out to give to the restaurant.(totally pointless)

The Japanese restaurant was absolutely the best if you do end up staying there, get all your reservations for this restaurant, or the Tex-Mex, that was good as well.

The pools were nice, until they stopped filtering them specifically the swim up bar(they need to advertise where the bathrooms are close to this pool, just saying). After the weekend crowd left, the pool was a nice yellow color, so murky and gross you couldn't see the bottom of the pool. We weren't sure if the filtration service broke or if it had something to do with the power outages, nobody would say.

The excursions were a lot of fun, the booze cruise, Safari, and snorkel trips we went on, were everything we expected, and the people chartering them were very nice and made you feel welcome. Billy and Sammie from BavaroRunners were a blast, if you have the chance, take a trip with them, you won't be disappointed, just don't choose this hotel. Otherwise, DR was beautiful, warm and even though we didn't get what we paid for the poor reviews we read prior to our stay were pretty much spot on(unfortunately), so if you don't mind what I just stated(or repeated), then have at it.

I can't say it loud enough...DON'T BOOK HERE. I am not a picky traveler and I have traveled to many resorts. We should have left within minutes of arriving and I actually called my travel agent within the hour. This resort is gross, unsafe and you are better off without a vacation then coming here.
We were premium with ocean-view room...The rooms were dirty, the air-conditioning did not work in any of the 3 rooms we were moved around in. The elevators worked when they wanted to which was about half the time and the urine and vomit that was in the elevators, stairwells and walkways was left for hours and days as there were so many drunk people at the resort.

The staff is rude. The staff is sneaky, steals (as we saw them at the bars) and they are nasty and pretend not to speak any english, all the bartenders, front staff and managers. The food is not properly prepared and the milk and cheese was bad by 9 am every morning. The glasses were always dirty and this is due to them rinsing them in dirty water and placing them for use ( I witnessed this)

The shows are loud and boring.....the nightlife won't shut up prior to 11 PM and when you feel awful from the gross conditions and poor quality of a resort this is most frustrating.

I witnessed at least 10 people complaining about being deathly sick to staff and medical who ignored them and told them to go to the ER by cab...

UNSAFE! We got moved to another resort by Thursday and this was after requesting it for 4 days....
Gorgeous gorgeous beach...100% the best I have ever seen....

Such a waste...

Booked before reading the reviews or wouldn't have. Upgraded to Prestige.

Check in went well as there was only one other couple on our airport transfer. Saw many huge lines at the check in desk almost always. Staff at the desk are as rude and unfriendly as everyone says. Room was good, with ocean view. Had to call down to desk to get housecoats & slippers, mini bar fill. It took 2 days to get the bottle of Rum that was supposed to be in the room. One lamp had a broken lightbulb, I called the desk 5 times about it. Even left the bulb on a $5 bill on the bed. Finally on the 4th day I brought a housekeeping supervisor into the room and showed her the missing bulb and it got fixed.
We left $5 each day for housekeeping.

Beach is spectacular, sand like flour. Waves were strong, we never did go in the Ocean. Pools were good. Could usually always find a pair of chairs so there was no need to get up early to rush down and reserve a couple with your towels.
We were unimpressed to see one couple take the Diaper off their Baby and take her in the pool. Another couple were seen changing a Diaper and dipped the kid in the pool to wash her off before putting on a clean one. We stopped swimming.
Food was OK. Only one Buffet always busy. The Al La Carts were better. At Conouco we noticed it didn't matter what appy you ordered everybody got the same 3 dough balls, at every table. If asked about it the Waiters laughed and pretended they didn't understand.
One day in the Buffet the Omlet Chef was chatting in Spanish to a guest and he made some rude comments to my Wife, laughing at her because she didn't speak Spanish.
After check out we were allowed to use a courtesy room before our flight. This was one of the rooms everyone is complaining about. Lumpy beds, broken curtain rods etc. we wanted to shower but their were no towels.

Took a van to Chey Nicole to shop and see more than the resort. This was a total waste of time. Don't go. Cost $30 Taxi to return.

Pay for the room upgrade. Better rooms, better check in, our Al La Carts were pre booked for us so we didn't have to line up for reservations.

Didn't see much of the true Dominican and felt we were isolated to the resort. In the Myan Riv we made several trips to Playa Del Carmen and Cozumel but here we felt there weren't those options. We found the people less friendly than in Mexico.

Several reviews say 'for the cheap cost it was OK'. We spent over $5000 for a week at peak season. It was very expensive. It was just OK. We will not return.