Jhon and I stayed in the Meliá Caribe Beach resort in Punta Cana two weeks ago. This trip was special to us since it was the first time Jhon’s mother stayed in an all-inclusive but did the size of this hotel work for it or against it?
BOOK THIS RESORT:
👉 On Expedia
👉 On Booking.com
Overview
Right next door to the Caribe Beach, you’ll find the Meliá Punta Cana Beach, an adults-only resort geared towards wellness. Both resorts used to be one, called Melia Caribe Tropical, before transforming into two distinct properties.
Guests of both Caribe Beach and Punta Cana Beach, ages 18 and older, can come and go between the two properties, but we couldn’t go to the adults-only side since we were traveling with kids. All the pictures in this article are only of the Meliá Caribe Beach.
Arrival
We arrived at the hotel at 11 AM, and after having some trouble finding parking, we headed to the front desk for check-in. While the person assisting us was very helpful and diligent, the check-in process took longer than usual, even though we had pre-checked in through the Meliá app.
They gave us a pretty tasty welcome drink which took our minds off the fact that check-in took so long.
We went to the Olivos lobby bar for more cocktails to keep the ball rolling. Here I did my Piña Colada taste test, which got an A+. The rest of the drinks were also tasty, which was a good start for our stay.
Based on our experience of staying in more than 16 Punta Cana resorts, we knew it best to make our restaurant reservation as soon as possible, so we headed down to guest service near the beach.
All restaurants at Meliá Caribe Beach require reservations. We had decided on the Mexican restaurant based on its menu, but there was no availability.
The woman in guest service was very proactive and placed us on standby; she told us to return at 2 PM to see if she could get us in.
While we waited for the rest of our family to join us for lunch, Jhon ordered a mimosa at Tartufo Bar, which was delicious. So far, the drinks game of the Caribe Beach was on point.
Lunch Buffet
We had lunch at Tartufo, the smaller of two buffet restaurants open for lunch. Tartufo is by the beach, and the view from here is stunning. At night, Tartufo becomes Tartufo Trattoria, the Italian restaurant.
There was good food variety even though it was a small buffet, and the taste was also good. We all noticed that the seat-to-table height ratio was off in the booths. Either the table was too tall, or the seat was too low; we felt like little kids eating at the grownup’s table, which wasn’t comfortable.
The Beach
To rest after lunch, we headed to the beach. The beach was gorgeous; perfect weather, beautiful water, and plenty of lounge chairs and huts for shade. Even though there was no seaweed, the hotel has seaweed barriers all along their beach segment in preparation for seaweed season.
In the early morning, you could see tractor tracks in the sand, indicating they are keeping on top of seaweed cleanup.
An inflatable obstacle course on the beach looked like a lot of fun, but an extra fee applies to enjoy this attraction. The cost is $12 for 30 minutes and $20 for 1 hour.
Exploring the Resort
When we arrive at a new resort, we like to explore early on to get a sense of where everything is, and that is just what we did next.
This was when we realized that the Meliá Caribe Beach is big. It is big perpendicular to the beach, which can be the wrong kind of big.
Going from the lobby building to the pool and beach requires a lot of walking, and there being nothing other than room buildings between these places makes this walk very uninteresting.
A couple of trains can take you around the resort, but they need more carts to carry more people. During our stay, we only rode the train once because they took so long to pass by the stations, and when they did, they were always full.
