I'll start out by saying (typing) that I would have given this place 3.5 stars, but there are no halfsies on Trip Advisor and it's not quite a 4.

Because I have a lot of information here, I'm going to use bullet points to be as concise as possible.

At the end, click on HELPFUL if this was useful to you! Thanks.

Here goes.....in no particular order:
* The A/C in the room worked marvelously! Cool all week, if not cold.... just the way I like it.
* TONS of mosquitos. Be aware of that. It's no fault of the hotel. It's the Dominican Republic. The hotel does what it can: sprays the property daily (don't breath at 530p) and has cans of repellent everywhere for your use. However, it's sticky. Bring your own good stuff. And keep in mind, you have to slather it on EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY, including while in your room. I came home with about 25 mosquito bites even though I used bug spray at all times.
* Most of the staff is very friendly. A couple of duds, but hey, overall very good. Our favorite was FLOR. She's adorable and made us feel at home every single day. We loved her. Frankie, not to forget the men, was also a winner! (Bartenders could be a little more lively to get the party started.)
* NO wi-fi as advertised. I was really aggravated at this. Even though it was a vacation, I have to work a couple of hours every day. One of the reasons I chose this was because they advertised wi-fi everywhere. Only working wi-fi was in the lobby, so everyday both of us had to cart everything to the lobby and do our work on a lounger. Not so accommodating. Tons of excuses too. "No parts." "Waiting on equipment from the US." (Although I was told it had not been working for months.) No one really seemed too concerned about this. So if you need to stay connected, this place is not for you.
* I saw advertisements for 25 miles of sugar-white beaches. The beach sand is brown.
* You do get a "real escape" feeling here. Many times, although the hotel was full, we felt like we had the place to ourselves. Loved that.
* Rooms were nice. We had #9. Great shower and water pressure... and plenty of hot water, except around 5p. Plenty of good, attentive cleaning service, too.
* If you have transportation from the airport that makes other hotel stops, know that you will be the last drop off as this is the furthest most point. Two hours to get to hotel. One hour if direct and nonstop.
* The food was just ok. The main dishes (lobster, churrasco, filet) were good, but everything else very average: vegetables, chips, snacks. etc. Wine served at dinner was not good. They do serve a "special" wine bottle that changes daily and prices range from $19 to $69 (that we saw during our stay).
* There were bugs in our hotel room. Again, this is the Dominican! I only partly fault the hotel. The hotel could be more helpful however as there are big gaps under the patio door, under the main door, and all around the sliding glass door (it didn't fit tight against its frame). We caught (and released) 1 honey bee, 3 roaches, and had many mosquitoes. During our last breakfast, in the Amaya, I had a 2" cucarracha crawling across my stomach while eating my eggs. I yelled, danced around, and couldn't finish the meal.
* Although the hotel advertises a dressier attire for the restaurants, I took nicer clothes for no reason. As long as men have on long trousers for dinner, you can go in jeans, cargos, etc. Don't take fancy clothes. You won't need them.
* There are plenty of sun-loungers for you around the pools so don't feel the need to run out early and reserve one. Also, many palapas on the beach so you'll always have that option too.
* TV - yes, it's a vacation and I watched TV. Sue me! They have DISH network with LOADS of channels.... lots of English and Spanish and some Italian, French, German, Russian, etc.. Something for everyone.
* The bed and pillows were very comfortable!
* You get in/out of the Punta Cana airport very easily and quickly.
* Always lots of workers around the hotel. Mowing, cutting, spraying, etc.
* They provide as much bottled water as you can drink. Our room was always stocked.
* Complimentary daily bottle of rum in your room. :)
* Three restaurants on the premises: Olena, Amaya, and Indigo. For dinner and lunch they are all not opened at the same time. One night you may get an option of one. Another night you may have your choice of two. Breakfast is always in the Amaya.
* Ocean is beautiful, but must have been stirred up while we were there. Tons of stuff floating around and appeared brown like the Ohio river.
* We were a little bothered by the clip-clop of shoes in the room above us late at night. This did not in any way ruin our vacation.
* The place is in need of revamping and structural work. Many bungalows/units have blue tarps on top of them and I'm assuming that is to keep water out where it may be leaking through the thatched roofs. Also, several staircases to the second floor rooms are without stairs.
They had Belvedere vodka. :)

I hope this was helpful. Although we give this a 3.5, we really did come back relaxed (and bitten).

Please enjoy!

Ill start with my review of the resort as most of you are probally not planning on getting married here but if you are do not hesitate to contact me and be sure to read the review below...

Pros: Food.. meat is deliverd fresh 3 times a week
The resort itself is beautiful.
THE STAFF, truely what makes this resort shine. From the hardworking maids and groundsmen to the charismatic bartenders, servers, etc the staff feels like old friends by the time you leave. which is actually the reason it has taken me so long to post this negative review becase you almost feel like your talking about a friend behind their back but the truth is people, especially brides should really know what kind of death trap they are entering into

Cons:
mosquitos, yeah i know youve read it before but we REALLY prepared, we brought OFF deep woods showering in that stuff, we drank alcohol while there (which supposedly is a turn off for mosquitos) but my husband came home with over 140 bites, im talking deep purple bites all over his legs. One of my bridesmaids had to go to the ER a week after coming home because her bite had swollen up. The resort does spray nightly around 4 but it almost doesnt even help.
Spa:
the sauna didnt work, the whirlpool didnt work, the steam room didnt work, the 2 therapuetic shower thingies by the pool didnt work...catch my drift...
And as for the free massages, many of my 30 guests were told there was no open spots for them to get the massages, it seemed like you would only be accomodated if you had booked another service you had paid for (like my father) Me and my husband did get out free masssage, after waiting 45 minutes past our appointment time...
We had one of the suites with the private plunge pool but nobody cleaned that thing the entire week we were there so it didnt get much use.
The first 2 days there were full of us taking ice cold showers. i called about no hot water no one came so i brought it up to the manager, he informed me that the showers are labeled wrong (cold = red not blue and hot = blue not red) so once someone came to show me how to use the showers that was better however why not just relabel the showers??
room service: heres the deal it took FOREVER, over an hour to get food at all after 5pm or so... even just chips and dip 45 minutes...
Free horse back riding: The scoop here is that they only offer this 3 days a week at 1 certain time. I BELIEVE it was sat mon and wednesday, well since most of my guests for my wedding stayed wed pm- mon am and the wedding was sat, none of us got to do this. A little misleading if you ask me to advertise free horseback riding but not specify that its 3 days a week and they only have a certain numbe rof horses and you have to make reservations at least a day ahead. when i asked them to arrange something different for us they said they would be happy to...for 50 bucks a horse...
A/C: i dont even like ac that much but i mean it doesnt work there and i mean i had 30 guests there so a large portion of the rooms apparently did not have functionoing ac, they said it never got cooler then 80 in anyones room, the morning of my wedding we were sweating our makeup off we were so hot getting ready so we called the front desk 4 times, never recieved a fan. They should just put 1 fan in each persons room period.
Drink selection: i mean your in the carribean what do you want to drink well i want a corona bad news here is i feel like they get 5 coronas a day or somethin gbecause they were always out of corona...

ok now for my wedding from hell story:
i want to preface this by saying this was not my first destination wedding ive attended, I know things are different in other countries, which is fine but if your bringing this business 30 guests including purchasing 8000 dollars worth of wedding services from them, youde deserve better then this:

First off, we went through 3 wedding planners while planning my wedding over a 14 month time period, never once did any of the new planners contact me to introduce themselves i would just Find out when i would email them randomly about a question and they would reply basically saying they had no idea who i was and they needed me to resend all my paperwork...
I had sent the wedding planner an email asking who the videographer company would be and if they had a website I could go to or if they had any sample work i could see (because the resort uses their own vendors) I was told no she was not sure and no there was no demos to see...When I arrive at the resort I find that the videographer and photogrophy company IS LOCATED AT THE RESORT they have an office there so of course she knew who they were and even more they havea facebook page that i could have definetly browsed over before my trip.
Part of the 4000 wedding package (we ended up spending 4000 more on extras) were several things that we never even got for example, unpacking service for bride and groom, nope. toasting flutes, nope. wedding cake we did get this but it arrived 2.5 hours after my reception had already begun, there are some other things but we wont dwell on this rip off...

The day before my wedding (after an intense hour meeting the day before planning all the details with the coordinator) my future mother in law of all people comes to track me down, saying the wedding coordinator told HER that my wedding would be moved from 430 to 7pm. I would like to reemphasize here that the wedding coordinator did not find it important to tell me the bride herself. When I went to find her I was informed that she was eating lunch and would be out when she was done. After I was forced to wait 30 minutes for her to finish eating she informed me that the judge had called and said he couldnt be there until 7 (its pitch black at 630) because he had other weddings. Now, I booked my wedding there 14 months in advance and was told I could pick what time i wanted the ceremony and never once was it explained to me by my wedding coordinator that in fact the judge gets to decide when your wedding is, not you...seems like something that could be communicated.
Her solution was to have one of the staff members marry us in a fake ceremony in the sunlight (for pictures) and then the judge could marry us legally when he got around to arriving... Obviously this was not ok with me, 2 hours later she comes up with the idea of having this american pastor marry us... i agree, she calls him and then tells me hes booked. at this point im bawling, picturing my wedding going on in pitch black, very angry that the judge situation was never discussed with me.... so i decide im going to call this pastor and basically offer im 1000 dollars to ditch his other wedding and come marry me and nick instead (i know, its evil, dont judge me) I insisted that I talk to him myself so she calls him and hands me the phone.... he immedietly tells me that he himself is booked but apparently he is part of a group of pastors that do weddings and one of them is free.... now why did it take hours of me crying, ruining the day before my wedding for this to get straightened out?? This should be the standard. It should be explained, the judges decide times, why dont you consider getting a pastor to have a weddin gin front of god and then (as we do in america) sign the marriage certificate after the ceremony!! It took me callin him on my own rather then this being planned or even explained as another option and that is HER JOB. I brought 30 people down there paid over 8000 dollars JUST IN WEDDING COSTS (dj, videography, wedding package, flowers) to them and a 3rd grader would have done a better job arranging this thing.
so now its the morning of the wedding and i was also told by the wedding coordinator someone would decorate the gazebo, nope. my family ended up doing it all by themself but was given a ladder that was broken to assist them....
the wedding coordinator, pastor and the guitarist were all late to the wedding and when they showed up it had started to rain, I made it very clear that if it was raining i wanted the ceremony moved to the lobby not outside in a gazebo with slated wood for a roof, i sent my mother in law to tell the wedding coordinator lets move the chair and she told her "no, hurry lets go" so, my wedding was held in teh rain against my will. Not very over the top if you ask me....
My family and friends are all huge Notre Dame fans and we had made plans to have a tv in the reception in a corner to see updates of the nd game that was that night, that didnt happen either...
not to mention when we walked (in the rain) to the restaurant where the reception was set to be held, nothing was decorated, ( i had brought hundreds of dollars worth of decorations, back home we had set up each table taken pictures printed out on paper how each table was supposed to be set up,) when we walked in, all my decorations were sitting in the suitcases i had brought them in and tables werent even pushed together yet and thebest part, other hotel guests were sitting eating in swim wear.... it was the worst feeling of my life... my family decorated for my reception during hte reception... i should add here that we had asked to have the restauarant close at 3 instead of 4 (weddings at 430) so that my family could decorate before arriving at the wedding and we were assured that the staff would have it decorated... guess not.
also, we lost power 3 different times during the reception so that was pretty awful as well.
after the reception, about 5 or 6 items never made it back to me including very expensive vases i had brought down.... i brought this up to management and the wedding planner and they said that they had the stuff and would drop it off at my room, well the majority of the stuff came back but as i already stated not all of it.

all in all, it hurts my heart when i look back at the disaster that was my wedding day. Save yourself or loved ones the heartache i experienced.

Place is really nice. Food is really good. The staff is very friendly. I got to know them by name. They were always on it. I would be sitting down by the internet cafe and someone would always come over to me and ask me if I needed anything. Could not have been happier with all of them. As far as the little things, the internet in the room stopped working, and there was not hot water in the spa area the last day. So what. Things happen. Things break. Big deal. That is not there fault. Here is the except part. The fuc*** Mosquitos. They were relentless. My daughter has 32 bites on her arms and legs. They sprayed everyday. What more could they have done? If you go to Zoetry make sure you bath in OFF.

Since my husband and I decided to go on vacation to escape the 'spring breakers', we decided on a quiet adults only resort. And what a choice it was for our first visit to the Caribbean! Far surpassed our expectations and we look forward to be back and even visit their other properties.

The staff was friendly and checked up on us every now and then. The restaurants were simply amazing! Fresh ingredients used in every meal. The beach was immaculate. We strolled down the shore and the beach in front of other hotels were not as nice - with washed up weeds and logs everywhere.

It was a great experience to escape from the humdrum of everyday life!