Hello, Travel Bugs; we’re Jhon and Ari, and last week we stayed in the Barceló Bavaro Palace all-inlcusive resort in Punta Cana. This is our honest review to help you decide if this is the right hotel for your vacation.
BOOK THIS RESORT:
👉 On Expedia
Arrival
We arrived at the complex around 11:30 AM and parked in the onsite parking lot. We then headed to the front desk in the lobby for check-in, which was fast and smooth.
Check-in time is 3 PM, so we knew our room wouldn’t be ready until then. Still, after you get your bracelets laced on your wrist, you can begin enjoying the hotel’s facilities.
A clever thing the Bavaro Palace does is give you a pager that notifies you when your room is ready; this was the first time we’ve seen this in any Punta Cana resort, and it was very convenient.
At check-in, we were advised to book the restaurant we wanted to have dinner at that night before they ran out of space, so we went to guest service to make our dinner reservations.
Only the Spanish and seafood restaurants were available that night; after checking their menus, we booked the seafood place for 7:45 PM. We also booked the Mexican restaurant for the next night at 6:45 PM.
Lobby Bar
We then went downstairs to the main buffet restaurant to eat lunch, but the opening time was 12:30, so we decided to have a drink at the Carey lobby bar upstairs while we waited.
This bar was beautifully decorated, with lovely piano music playing in the background, friendly staff, and, most importantly, the drinks were very good. After waiting about 30 minutes, we went back downstairs for lunch.
Lunch Buffet
The doors to the buffet were still closed about 10 minutes after 12:30, and we thought they were running late, but we later discovered we were waiting by the wrong door.
There are two different buffet restaurants, Bohío Dominicano and Miramar; the first opened at 12:30, while the latter opened half an hour later.
The two buffets communicate on the inside. From what we could tell, apart from opening time, the difference between the two was the decoration.
The buffet was busy, the busiest we’ve encountered in a resort. However, even though there were many people, it flowed smoothly.
