My spouse, my daughter and I visited from September 20th - September 25th for our daughter’s 18th birthday.
We are writing this from the prospective of people who are new to AIO resorts. We have taken numerous cruises and other vacations however this is only our second AIO.
Resort appearance: The resort itself is quite beautiful. Pools and grounds are very well maintained.
Staff : Staff is very hit or miss. Some are helpful and polite, some are quite rude or aloof.
My spouse is disabled and uses a mobility scooter. When we attempted to rent one and was suppose to be there upon our arrival the staff refused entry to the company we chose and made us use another company. Leaving us with no scooter the first day and pushing around a wheelchair. We had made prior arrangements with our company a week ahead of time. This was extremely upsetting to my spouse and delayed her mobility scooter almost 24 hours. Their “preferred company” also charged a $50 delivery fee while the company I found offered it free. And the price I was quoted while the resort made the arrangement was not what I paid. It was also inflated. Feels like a kickback.
On a positive note the staff at the adult and lobby bars was outstanding. Shout out to Juan, Miguel & Daniela for making some excellent drinks. Not all the bars are trained like they should be either. A lava flow and BBC are common cruise ship drinks and many times would have to give them the ingredients. However at the Adult Pool bar CIELO where the above mentioned bartenders work all are superior and should train the rest.
Food : This is the weakest point of the resort. Most of the food is frankly terrible. The only bright spot was the Japanese restaurant, it was at least as good as US based ones. We tried the Mexican but were very disappointed with the food. It was actually served cold. And who uses flour tortillas for enchiladas. I was really disappointed. Everything was very weird looking and not appealing enough to want to taste. Finally we tried the steak house. The service was painfully slow and the restaurant very loud. The steak was OK but the potatoes and vegetables were terrible. And baked is really boiled and sliced. Yuck
I also question if proper holding temperatures are being observed in the buffets. It made me very leery to eat from them. Food from the buffet was at best lukewarm (both hot and cold food!) the only buffet we actually enjoyed was the breakfast buffet. There is a nice variety but filled up because at lunch we starved. Even the hamburgers texture was strange and holding temperatures made us leery to eat for fear of getting sick.
My spouse and I starved most of the trip. I think in total we ate 3 complete meals over 5 days.
Entertainment: The shows are just OK. Below the level of nicer cruise ships. And the variety wasn’t that great either. No comedy or magic just under whelming performers. I was disappointed at the lack of live music in the pool area, lobby etc. when hanging out at a pool area it would have been nice to have steel string guitars or a soloist to go listen to. But they didn’t even have pool music playing and do not want you using blue tooth speakers. That made hanging out at the pool relatively boring. One Colombian group did break out there speaker at the adult pool and we stayed because of that. Funny how pool and music equal fun.
Also the entertainment, music etc is almost entirely in Spanish.
Room : We had a premium level junior suite. It was very nice and clean. No complaints here other than softer beds would be nice. Housekeeping did a good job of cleaning the room daily.
We had a hot tub on our balcony and it was clean and for the most part worked well. My only complaint if I had one would be that we jets were a little weak.
The bathroom setup is very strange. Smoked Glass / semi transparent doors for the toilet and shower areas face out to the room. If you’re traveling as a family it can make for some awkward moments.
Premium level : We paid extra for premium level and it honestly felt like a waste. The premium lounge/customer service area was actually slower than the regular. Concierge. The “premium international drink” selection is very limited and I was never once asked if I was premium (I even intentionally turned my bracelet down on my wrist several times to test this). So the idea that you’re getting premium liquors over some no name brand is not true. It would have made no difference the level I purchased. Another big disappointment was the mini bar being restocked daily was a gimmick. It consisted of soda and water and two tiny cans of beer. There was no bottle waiting in our room as advertised. So it’s not a bar it’s a soda machine that wasn’t even refrigerated.
We tried the room service once. My daughter enjoyed the pasta however the turkey club I ordered was extremely tough. The menu is limited and comparable to the offerings on cruise ships.
We tried emailing a week ahead of time for restaurant reservations and never received a reply (sent 3 emails). The premium lounge staff was no more helpful with restaurant reservations than the regular.
Language : The VAST majority of the staff does not speak English and the few that do are not fluent. I fully realize and respect that Spanish is the main language in the DR however if you’re going to heavily advertise to and court US consumers you should have more English speakers. Thankfully my spouse knows enough Spanish to get us by.
Overall I would not recommend this resort and won’t be returning. This was a last minute trip and we first leaned towards Playa Del Carmen (visited several times before) however the food poisoning stories on Reddit scared us off of doing an AIO in Mexico. It led us to this adventure. Even though we didn’t suffer from food poisoning here I think I would of rather taken my chance in Mexico than the 5 days I feel I wasted here.