My husband and I visited and the Barceló Bávaro Beach complex a week ago and stayed at the Golf hotel. While there is plenty of room (miles!) for improvement, we managed to enjoy ourselves and relax for a couple of days, which was the point of the trip.

Room (2 out of 5)

We checked into the hotel close to the 3pm time assigned without any major issues. We kept our luggage in a storage room by the reception desk, had lunch, and returned to get our keys and retrieve our bags. The reception/lobby for this hotel is very small and very hot in the afternoon, as it didn’t have ceiling fans. It’s a place to go, check-in or out, grab a quick drink, and move on.

The room we were given (8232) was perfectly located between the reception desk, the golf clubhouse, and the Caribe resort (where we hung out most of the time). The room is divided into two areas, each with a full and a twin size bed. Bedspreads were thin - think thicker than a regular sheet. All four beds had pillow-tops. The furniture is old and scratched, as if it had been used as a bottle opener by previous guests (shameful, especially when the drawer handles did the trick - bottle openers provided by the hotel didn’t work). There were plenty of drawers and closet space. The electronic safe was in the closet and it was easy to use. We did have mosquitoes and ants in the room and did our best to ignore them. The in-room refrigerator was refilled each day with a 2 liter bottle of water and beer and soda to replace what was consumed. The room felt clean enough, the bathroom smelled strongly of chlorine bleach.

We requested service in the room as soon as we stepped in and in a matter of an hour we got our safe opened and a lightbulb replaced. We had a clogged toilet incident early on the last morning, and it didn’t get resolved until about three hours later (even after a visit to the reception desk). The resort didn’t have adequate maintenance staff at 7 am to attend this issue.

Food (3 out of 5)

The food was acceptable at the resort. We steered clear of the fruit and salads for the four days we were there, and successfully avoided getting sick. Breakfast at the buffet had plenty of options - we stuck mainly to the freshly made omelets and scrambles. Everything prior reviewers have said about flies and birds hanging tables and food around is true. We had all of our lunches on the beachfront a la carte restaurants (La Uva at the Golf, the Steakhouse at the Beach, and the Italian at the Caribe), which were okay - nothing to write home about, but certainly more than “just edible”. The wait staff wasn’t overly friendly, but we though we received efficient service. Beer and water were refilled without us even asking. We were a little disappointed because we thought there was a Japanese grill onsite based on other reviews on the Barceló Bávaro resort, but there wasn’t. For dinner, we went to the Steakhouse the first night, and the following two evenings visited the restaurants at the Palace (Chez Palace and La Brisa). Both had good food worth the supplement and excellent service. Pizzas by the poolside were pretty good too, despite the crowd. Bar service was fairly quick, I’m guessing because the resort wasn’t too crowded. Bartenders didn’t have a problem working with our travel mugs, however, beverage selection was very limited if you don’t like rum. We stuck to Presidentes with a bit of lime and bottled water.

Golf (2 out of 5)

I tagged along as driver to my husband in two rounds of golf during our stay, Before you set off to play, you get to have a little cooler prepared with water, soda, and beer. The course was not well maintained. Most of the fairway looked more like roughs than actual fairways, which was disappointing for my husband. Holes 5 through 7 were infested with swarms of bees (quite scary, I don’t think I’ve seen so many bees on the loose). There were always workers around, but the conditions of the course did not reflect it. They were eager to give out balls other players lost for a tip (one even tried to sell us a full baggie for $10). Green fees were free one day and $30 USD on the second day, golf cart rental was $45 USD, and equipment rental (had my husband forgotten his clubs) was $30 USD. The course quality was not at par with the amount it cost to play.


Other Resort Facilities

We spent most of our time in the beach facilities in front of the Caribe hotel (the Beach hotel was undergoing renovations). It goes without saying that the beach is very gorgeous - white sand, clear water, plenty of fun people watching. Only one day we couldn’t get towels, but in a matter of half an hour they had fresh ones in the stand. Lounge chairs were readily available in the beach and there was plenty of shade. The continuous offers for beachfront massages got tiresome after a while. The beach didn’t feel overly crowded in the afternoons, which we liked. We are not pool people, but we saw it was more difficult to get chairs in the pool in the afternoon than in the beach.

We used the trolley to get to the Bávaro Palace, as walking there would have taken at least twenty minutes. The rest of the sister hotels were within more reasonable walking distances.

Overall, we would not return to the Barceló Bavaro resort if we were to come back to Punta Cana. This is a fair review for a property that should be rated at 3 stars instead of 4, that needs to renovate the older rooms, and needs to get the golf course back in shape. If you decide to come here, be ready to sweat the small stuff and you’ll have a good time.