Rating: 
"I went to the Riu Mambo. Hotel and entertainment staff were amazing. The hotel is very clean and everything is very close. I went with 14 family members half were kids. Lots for everyone to see and do. Weather was great. The shows at night were awesome. I would go back!!!! :)"
Reviewer: Alyjack
Date: Feb. 14, 2011
Rating: 
"I went to the Barcelo Hotel in Puerto Plata Dominican. I was very pleased by the staff, food and room. It was very clean, the weather was great and it was excellent. However upon being at the resort we traveled to the "disco" in the surrounding area (where the staff from the neighboring hotels and the neighboring hotel vacationers attended) and there was some violence. I suggest if you are single ladies go in big groups as its very uncomfortable when your harassed every 3 seconds"
Reviewer: MJ
Date: Mar. 18, 2010
Rating: 
"I guess I should firstly mention that I am typically a low maintenance travel person. I usually don't care too much about the rooms and the food at all inclusive is something that I usually do not have high expectations for but I usually can find something at every meal that I like. In DM, I have always found the food to be quite good.
The trip started off with a disappointment in the hotel. It was rated 4.5 stars and was listed as a 2001 hotel that was taken over by a new chain and was reno'ed in 2001 and additions in 2007. The hotel part we stayed on was definitely not the new part and there were no reno's to our suite. The suite was very tired (which i could live with) and the bath tub did not drain properly (in fact, the bath tub was all rusted). The room started to leak because it was raining a lot and when the relocated us to another room, it was even more disgusting.
There were unlimited a la cart-es at this resorts which we thought would mean one of two things: 1) the buffet was really good and there was little need for the restaurants or 2) the buffet was average and the restaurants were great. It was neither. The buffet was horrible. It was a small food area and too many seats which made no sense. The selection was poor - if you are a meat eater and do not like sea food, this was not the buffet for you. On one night, the only meat option was chicken stuff with fish!!!! That's right, you hear me!!!!
The a la cart-es were brutal. food was under cooked and the meat suspect. The steakhouse served an unusual amount of seafood. I don't eat it but my brother does and even he was not impressed (he is not a picky eater at all and he thought the food was brutal).
The booze was totally rotted. I usually stick with beer to be safe but even that was gross. I stuck with vodka which was pretty safe. usually resorts have a good enclosed area for people to hang out and mingle - there was no real good area for that. It was far too get to and the areas were small. No hotel lobby.
the overall service was surprising poor. Usually DM has great people eager to serve and are happy - this was resort had staff that were not paying attention to what they were doing (from hotel room staff to the cooks).
All in all, it was brutal. We were there for two weeks and it rained 4 straight days. We did get a fair bit of sun as well so I cant say that we were sour because of the weather (I have been on 1 week trips where it rained 5/7 days and had a better time). I would not recommend. By the way, we were there for the Haiti earthquake - we felt it
"
Reviewer: EvenSteven
Date: Feb. 09, 2010
Rating: 
"Our hotel, was a 3 star, but the food was rated 4 star. It was beyond our expectations. the beach was beautiful, the staff were always accomodating. the area we travelled, we felt safe to venture alone. We also took in a couple of tours."
Reviewer: SherylWattie67
Date: Nov. 19, 2009
Rating: 
"This was our first visit to the Dominican. Our room was lovely, but the noise was terrible. We were close to the stage and they practiced in the afternoon and the show was in the evening. We used earplugs every night but the noise was so loud they just muffled it a bit. The food was terrible, never hot just luke warm. I was very sick for one day. It rained most of the week we were there. We were happy to come home."
Reviewer: coles
Date: Feb. 13, 2009
Rating: "We had an amazing vacation at their Barceló resort. We were on our honeymoon and we couldn't have been treated better. I had been to Puerto Plata before for 3 weeks but it was my husband's first time. The resort was beautiful, very clean, staff very friendly, maid service perfect, food and drink very good. We loved the fact that it had 3 pool areas and yet you were only a 3-5 min walk to the beach which was absolutely beautiful. The shopping mall was a 5 min walk from the resort which had anything you wanted and there was a bank right in the main lobby. There were only a couple down falls at our resort which happens just about anywhere now from what I have heard is the vendors on the beach. I knew from my previous trip as long as you don't have eye contact with they will leave you alone but as soon as they think you may be interested they are all over you!! I kept saying to my husband whatever you do, don't make eye contact ;-) Another down fall was we went on the jeep safari excursion which ended up being an amazing day trip but at the start it didn't start out well. Our reps booked us with an all French speaking group and we are English. We told our guide and he immediately had us changed to an English group, not sure who the couple were with the French group who tried to speak English to us to help us out as they were the only ones who were friendly, but I just wanted to say thank you to you!! We ended up having a blast!!! I highly recommend the Jeep Safari. Our guide was so funny, loved the rum and sure could make us laugh! We told our reps at Air Transat about it and they did nothing nor did they even apologize about it. We were just lucky that our rep got one of the other groups to meet him and move us to their jeep. The third thing that happened was the day we were leaving they forgot some of the guest at the hotel when we were going to the airport. One note about the airport, we thought you were supposed to carry any alcohol you purchased on you....we were wrong...it has to in your luggage and if your luggage is gone, you can't take it with you!!We had to pull over in a really rough area and wait for over an 1/2 hour on a severely cramped bus. No one was happy as the air conditioner was not working either. They wouldn't let anyone off the bus while we waited. In the end after several guests getting upset our guide took fate in his own hands and said we are going to the airport. All in all it was an amazing vacation. We have no complaints at all about the resort. In the 8 days we were there we had rain once at night for about an hour. We had a perfect room on the corner of a building behind the stage area and right by the main pool. We were overlooking the resort in front of us and to the left of us were the beautiful mountains!! Nothing more perfect to wake up to at a resort. I spent a lot of time researching the internet, reading reviews and working with 3 travel agents. In the end we chose Barceló and booked with Selloffvacations.com through Rebecca who was absolutely amazing!! I wanted to make sure that my husband had a trip to the DR that he would never forget! Let's just say since we returned home he wishes every day as do I that we could go back and hoping to go again next year!!"
Reviewer: Smirks
Date: Feb. 05, 2009
Rating: "Beautiful tropical island with swaying palms and perfect temps. (january. 30C)"
Reviewer: Anonymous [via Escapes.ca]
Date: Jan. 25, 2009
Rating: 
"The beach is nice, no weeds washing up on shore like Punta Cana. One note of caution, those large dark spots in the water are rocks/coral. I was tossed into one by a wave and my leg was cut and swollen for days. There should be warnings in these areas as a lot of people wade and dive into the water. "
Reviewer: Anonymous [via Escapes.ca]
Date: Jan. 20, 2009
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