My husband and I just came back from the Gran Bahia Principe. This was our 6th time in the caribbean. Been to Cuba 3 times, Punta Cana twice and the Mayan Riviera once.

In a nutshell, good resort. Beautiful!! Beach is far from resort, however, the tram is always available to take you. For a 5 star hotel, I was suprised that some of the things like safety deposit box, and the banana boat were not included. We had to pay $35 for the box. Not a big deal deal but at 3 and 4 star hotels we have been to had the box included.

Don't leave your belongings on the beach or by the pool. My husband had his sandals taken, his prescription sunglasses taken and I had a beach towel from home taken, on 3 separate occasions.

The food is excellent, the service was good too. Good variety.

The beach is....heavenly!!!! Miles of white sand and turquoise water. You can't ask for better.

Pools are nice too. Kept very clean.

There are vendors on the beach, about 45 min walk on the beach or you can take a boat taxi for about $5 per person. You must barter with them cause they will try and get more form you. The vendors are very aggresive so be prepared. They also want a lot of money for their goods so you really have to be firm and bring them down to what you are willing to pay. A neat experience though!!

There are plenty of vendors right on the hotel property also in the courtyard so you really don't have to leave the resort if you prefer not to.

The rooms were kept very clean. The maids really like little gifts from us. Things like cosmetics, toothbrushes and paste, and candy. They like anything really.

Overall, a great time!! Beautiful place!! Aside from having our things taken, we had a good time, ate well, had great beach time. We would go back.

I traveled with a group of approximatley 35 people from Toronto through

Sunwing Vacations from April 26-May 3 2008 for a wedding.

We arrived at the airport and found our bus. Check in was done on the

bus to speed things up. First order of business once we got there,

purchase the safe! It's very easy to use, and unlike many resorts

doesn't require a physical key but rather a combination you pick.

The resort itself is beautiful. The grounds are in immaculate

condition. The lobby is spotless, as are the restaurants. The rooms are

great. We had one queen size plus one full size couch, that didn't pull

out but still by all accounts, was very comfortable. Maid service was excellent. One day I requested mucho cerveza por favor, which I didn't get- a quick call to room service rectified that.

The pools were spectacular. 3 swim up bars in total. One for regular

guests, one for diamond and club hacienda principe guests, plus one "

party pool" located right at the beach. All three seemed to be very

clean and fun places to be.

This is VERY important. If you are getting a slushie drink ( daiquiri,

margarita or the like) not all bar tenders automatically put rum in

them at the pool and beach bars. Some do, some don't. Just ask for a

daiquiri with rum and you're golden. John, my favourite bar tender for

the week would actually just give the bottle for you to mix your own

and then reply " I love you my friend".

The beach was very good, but not great. It's very weedy. I'd rather

take weeds than rocks and what not, but it's still very weedy. The sand

is gorgeous,clean, and white.

The restaurants were very good as well. I ate at a mix of the A'La

Cartes and the buffet. I ate at the Mexico restaurant and while I

didn't find it as good as the Bahia Prinicpe San Jaun's Mexican

restraint, it was still quite good.

The french restaurant was very good as well. I had the steak. It was a

good cut of meat and cooked to my liking.

The buffet was also good. Good selection, 2 cooking stations, a full

pasta bar with a variety of sauce. The omelette's although I only saw

breakfast twice as I'm not really a morning fan were incredible.

My only issue was the bacon seemed to be a bit of a rarity. There is

definitely something for everyone, even the pickiest eaters.

The beach snackbar was where I ate many meals. Good food, good

selection, great location. The pizza is great and can only be found at the snack bar and lunch, although is available on the buffet at dinner.

At 11pm, Puelbo Principe ( Principe Town) is where all the of the festivities relocate too. The karaokee bar was a ton of fun and the disco is good, but the music is the same night in, night out. At the karaokee bar the musical seleciton isn't the best and one night we were there they gave us a book that many, many songs that weren't in the computer.

The burger point is where the 24 hour all inclusive comes into play. I had a cheese burger, ham sandwhich, and hot dog at various points throughout the week, they were all quite good.

To those people who complain about being on the Bavaro side as opposed to the Punta Cana side- grow up. They are the same. A mirror image of one and other.

I was there for a wedding which seemed to go off without a hitch from my vantage point. The wedding planners there seem to take care of most things.

Also, to the people who complain about the distance from the lobby to the beach- it's an 8 minute lesiurly stroll. Exercise would do a lot of people good down there. I was in the furtherest vila from the beach, #39 and found it an enjoyable walk. For those who are not well enough to walk, there is regular tram service right up until 3am.


All in all, I highly recomend this resort to others. It's good for a wedding, get away with friends, a week away for a couple and it seemed like a great place for families.


I'll be back to the Gran Bahia Principe eventually, but I plan on trying the Riu ( located next door, first)

Just got back from an excellent week with friends at the Gran Bahia Principe Bavaro. The purpose of the trip was a wedding and some fun in the sun and the Gran Bahia delivered on both counts. We travelled with SunWing out of Toronto and I was impressed with both SunWing flights (if not the flight times). The Gran Bahia itself is a large resort (as mentioned in previous reviews) but the transit system is very efficient and moving around from place to place was never a problem. Our villa was quite nice although it overlooked a construction site. The beach area and pools were very good as well and kept clean which was nice. The all inclusive drinks were pretty good and some familiar brands ARE included, you just have to ask (Tanqueray Gin, Smirnoff Vodka etc.). The beer supplied in the villa mini bar was Brahma and it was pretty good, the beer on tap (Presidente??) wasn't the best and perhaps some beer variety would be nice, especially for Canadians beer connoisseurs! The Heineken I had at the airport was my favorite of the trip. The food was simply OK but really can't be classified as 5 star on any scale. The French restaurant came the closest to a fine dining experience and even then there were inefficiencies... very small shrimp in the shrimp cocktail and an OK but not great steak. The house wine included, contrary to previous reviews, is actually not too bad and is certainly drinkable. If you want, bring a bottle of your favourite wine with you and they will cork it and serve it to you!! I also visited the Mexican and Beach BBQ a la carte's and they were both fine. The buffet was pretty good as well but the beach snack bar was a bit sketchy, ditto the overnight snack bar. The wedding itself went off with out a hitch, and by all accounts the bride and groom were pleased with the service. I also took in an optional snorkeling expedition which was well worth the money spent. The service from the maids, wait staff and bartenders was superb throughout the trip. The karaoke bar and the disco were both enjoyed by our group. I enjoyed the karaoke bar in particular but was annoyed when several songs I chose out of their book were not available. If you say you have a song, then you should have it! Instead I heard several repeat songs throughout the week that I strongly believe were dictated by the hosts personal taste (Billy Jean for instance!... yuck). The casino was small but those in our group that visited seemed to enjoy it. I was also impressed with the internet cafe and was happy to check in on the hockey scores etc. back home. One more little rant, with the number of Canadians visiting the resort the Gran Bahia should have at least ONE Canadian Television channel available on the dial. It was nearly impossible to get hockey scores without going online (ESPN's Spanish feed gives every score in the world except NHL). Obviously, no one comes to the DR to watch TV but including CBC or CTV would allow Canadian guests to get a quick update and then get out to the beach!! All in all, I had a wonderful week at The Gran Bahia Bavaro with an awesome group of friends and would recommend it as a very good all-inclusive option in Punta Cana.

I will start by saying i was born, raised and live in NYC and i travel at least once a year. The reason i am saying this is because living here i know food that is good...

People kept telling me i would drive myself crazy reading other people's reviews, and i should of listened, i went to this place with a knot in my stomach waiting for the aweful to start, and guess what? It never did!!!

This place is truly amazing, any picture i found of this place on the internet does not do it justice in comparison to seeing it in person. The grounds are immaculate and BIG, very big. There are 3 pools, the 1 by the beach seemed to be most crowded and have the most kids as it was by the beach , the one in the middle seemed the most quite and the one furthest from the beach seemed to house the drinkers and partiers. one day during the trip their was about 8 drunken Canadian messes screaming and pouring drinks in the pool, but they were at the other pool the next day so it was no big deal. All in all the grounds are spectacular.

The room was great, the bathroom all marble and the balcony had a view of the quiet pool and the garden. The maids do get annoying with the fresh flowers, every day when they clean the room you get flowers on your bed and in the bathroom, obviously it's not that big of a deal. Also, none of the bathrooms throughout the resort had exhaust fans, strange. Obviously when taking a shower it got rather steamy. The mini bar was great, beer, soda and water everyday, even if we didn't drink it we'd hide it so the fridge would get restocked, we wound up leaving 6 beers and a bunch of sodas, but they were there if we wanted them.

The food at the buffets was better than the sit down dinners. Although the sit down dinners offer a nice ambiance, the food is better at the buffets. We chose French, the garden grill and japanese. At the grill i had the mixed grill, it was good, no fireworks went off but it was good. At the french i had some shrimp rice dish also good and the japanese place although had the best view it was the saltiest food i've ever eating, but the experience was cool as it is a very nice place...

There were so many complaints i was concerned about that i read on reviews that i would like to address some of them. "The food stinks", it's a buffet, the food is as good as it is going to get which i think was very good. Each morning they had an omelette, pancake and crepe station making them fresh, plus a variety of fresh fruits, breads, cakes, cereals etc etc... what more can you ask for? For lunch you had so many choices of different buffets to eat at, italian, grill, fish, whatever you wanted was available.

"The free wine stinks"...i thought the red was good, it was dry and nice tasting, i didn't try the white though.

"workers are nasty" , in the 7 days there, i did not meet one rude person and i talk to everyone, even the groundskeepers offered a friendly "HOLA!"

"no one speaks english" - YOU ARE IN A SPANISH SPEAKING COUNTRY, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? actually surprisingly with my limited spanish and their limited english we got along quite well.

With that being said, i highly recommend this resort, i really don't have anything bad to say about it...

ONE MORE PIECE OF ADVICE...................TIP!!! These people work their butts off and to see people walking away from the table without leaving so much as a red cent is a shame regardless of tips being "included"... a couple of bucks goes a long way..i left $3 for breakfast , $5 for lunch and buffets and $10 for sit down dinners....go out with some singles...