Our stay: 5 nights in late January 2023 Room: Junior swim up suite Pro summary: —less than 15min ride from airport in upscale secure gated area —Awesome spotless room with both a pool and an ocean view. —great hot water and AC, no dampness or mildew smell like other Bavaro resorts —A la carte restaurants were very good —No weird steaks or burgers. All were delicious like at home —Quiet beach with cabana beds, no need to reserve —Always an open spot in a pool —no keycards or towel cards to carry around —everything is new and top of the line —all restaurants are as casual as you wanna be. never took long pants out of my suitcase Con summary: —Vacation club membership sales pitch (ours lasted 75 minutes) —Swim up pool water turned extremely cloudy for 2 whole days —Breakfast and unch buffet was on par with lesser resorts —Need smartphone and app for menus at restaurants —beach isn’t quite as picturesque as other Cap Cana and Bavaro resorts (but still amazing to relax on) —more upsells than we’ve been offered at other resorts, sometimes blurred the line on what was part of all-inclusive RESORT: Resort is in Cap Cana which is only a 15 minute ride from the airport and has a security gate at the entrance to the zone where your driver will have to leave his license to enter. There is another security gate at the entrance to the resort where they check your reservation name to allow you to pull up to the lobby. Many other resorts in Bavaria are much further from the airport and require riding through some not so nice areas. Check in took 5 minutes and they gave you a margarita flavored popsicle during the process. You get a bracelet that serves as your room key and is scanned by the hostess at restaurant entrances. Other Bavaro resorts still have key cards that you have to carry around any time you leave the room. ROOM: We were in a junior swim up suite, room number in the 3100s which is northernmost building on the Hammock side on the 2nd level, and it was awesome. Squeaky clean. Comfy bed. Giant TV. Ample space in the room with the toilet. Glass and tile shower with a wand and rain shower head. Great water pressure and hot water was always available. Air conditioning was awesome and had a ceiling fan over bed. Room was NEVER too warm or humid or damp or had any hint of mildew. Multiple other Bavaro resorts have weird dark showers, AC that doesn’t keep the room cool, and smell like mildew and even require a request for a dehumidifier to get rid of the dampness. There is a sliding glass door to go out on your private balcony. There is a table with two padded dining chairs and a large two person chaise lounge. The swim up pool is more like a giant plunge pool, since the rooms are on the second floor, that extends for about 8 rooms from one end to the other. Every room has their own ladder entrance, and also a couple submerged concrete ledges so that you can either sit with just your feet in, or sit with your lower half in, or go all the way in to the 4ft deep water. Since you are on the second floor, you have the best of both worlds: a semi-private pool and a view that looks out over the resort with the ocean visible too, where you can sit on the patio or in the pool and see the unobstructed sunrise over the horizon of the ocean. Would definitely recommend this class of room over any other, including the higher priced options. It was awesome. There was direct sun on it until about 11am then partial sun through the pergola until about 4pm, then full shade until sunset on the opposite side of the direction rooms face. No mosquitoes or other bugs anywhere in the resort. The only room complaint was we stayed for 5 nights, and for two formal of those the water in the swim up pool was very very cloudy. Was crystal clear for the first two days but went cloudy on the third and stayed that way until we left, despite multiple attempts by us for someone to correct it. Either it took two days for someone to clear it, or no one did anything specific and it cleared on its own. There is a mini fridge in the room, but it’s empty unless you ask for water from housekeeping. No liquor is in the room at check in. You get an allotment of points to spend at the convenience market to get beer, soda, liquor, snacks, and other edible items. It’s kinda weird and a bit of a hassle because you have to scan your bracelet to find out how many points you have left and not everything in the market is labeled clearly with point prices, so we probably didn’t use it as intended to stock the room during the stay. We basically just spent most of them the day we left on coffee beans and some other edible items to take home with us. FOOD: You don’t get physical menus at any of the restaurants. I think this is a leftover COVID practice. You have to download the Margaritaville app on your phone and look at the menu in it and give the order to your waiter instead of from a physical menu. Kind of weird but not a big deal other than at least one person has to bring their smartphone with them. I was not impressed by the breakfast and lunch buffets at the Boathouse. It was all just fine, but on a similar level to other Bavaro resorts we’ve been to. However, all of the restaurants that take individual orders were really good, on par with restaurants at home, and far better quality than what we’ve had at other Bavaro resorts. Frank and Lola’s Italian was awesome (osso buco, lasagna, arincini, tiramisu). JWB steakhouse had a great NY Strip steak. Brewery had awesome burgers (just like at home, not weird ground beef at all). Out near the beach is the Cheeseburger in Paradise stand that has awesome burgers and fries, fried pickle chips, and chicken strips. There is an Asian restaurant, but we didn’t make it there since it wasn’t open everyday. I do not think it is Hibachi though, as seems to be standard at other Bavaro resorts. Since it is a smaller resort, there aren’t quite as many different options and you may have to repeat a few places if you stay longer than we did, but the quality and selection of dishes should not make that an issue. Room service was very good and that was our breakfast choice for everyday except the first. You order through the app, which is convenient and sometimes easier than overcoming the language barrier with phone orders. Breakfast was better than dinner, but dinner was fine too. Pizza was OK and club sandwich and fries was good. It would arrive in about 30 minutes after ordering. Only one day did breakfast take about an hour. They do try to upsell you wine at dinner, as opposed to the included house wine. There are also several premium meals that are not part of the all-inclusive, such as certain steak cuts and lobster and others. They didn’t actively try to sell as those, but it’s a little tacky to me to upsell at an upscale all-inclusive. I often questioned what was included and what was extra. DRINKS: Waiters were plentiful at the beach and pools to bring drinks without having to go to any of the bars. No complaints. BEACH: The beach is both amazing and slightly disappointing. I recommend finding some of the fly-by videos of the resort on YouTube before you book so that beach expectations are clear. The sand is fine to walk on, but it is a mixture of the fine white sand and some pebbles, unlike most of Bavaro beach and the other Cap Cana resorts that are almost entirely powdery soft sand. The resort is at the far south end of the beach, so there are no vendors to bother you and people walking are almost exclusively other people staying at Margaritaville. Technically you can access the water, but I would not recommend it at the resort directly. There is a lot of permanent seaweed, large rocks, and waves. There was no seaweed odor though, just clean ocean breezes. You can take a short walk along the beach to areas a little further down that have better sand and a more picturesque swimming experience. However, there are lounge chairs in the sun and shaded cabana beds that attendants cover with fresh towels and position umbrellas as the sun moves to keep you in the shade. Waiters bring drink orders. If you want to just lay in the peace and quiet and watch the fish jump and listen to the waves, then the beach is amazing. If you want powdery sand and swimming, it’s only a short walk along the beach. POOLS: There are ample clean towels all over around the pool that you can take as you wish. Other Bavaro resorts require you to give a towel card to get a towel and you have to return the towel to a person to a get card back so that you can get a new towel the next time. The water in all the pools, including the swim up, was a little chilly. However, it’s very refreshing in the hot sun. The main pool is pretty loud most of the day with bass thumping (surprisingly very little Jimmy Buffet, mostly EDM), or waterobics or other pool activities over the speakers. We were always able to find a quiet spot away from that and away from other people in one of the adjacent pools. There was plenty of open space and chairs and cabanas at all the pools, so you never have to show up early and claim a spot or anything. SALES PITCH: Our “butler” was primarily a means to ensure that we attended the vacation club membership sales pitch. After we attended the pitch on the second day, we never got a text from him again. So when the butler asks you early in your stay if you want to see the villas or suites, be aware that they will show you as part of the formal sales presentation and not as like a casual favor as it was made (intentionally) to sound. They say it takes 30-60 minutes. Ours was at least 75 minutes and I had zero interest in signing up. You will talk to multiple layers of sales people each time you decline interest in an effort to convince you. They were not aggressive but were persistent, so beware. Definitely the biggest downside of the entire stay. We did get a spa BOGO and a “Dominican box” that had little souvenirs like honey, mamajauna, magnet, etc for our time. Overall, it was an amazing stay and I will come back. At previous Bavaro resorts, I was ready to go home at the end of the trip. However, I did not want to leave Margaritaville when we checked out.…
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.