IFA Villas Bavaro Resort and Spa - All Inclusive

Everyone and IFA Bavaro was wonderful. The staff was VERY VERY attentive. Everyone was courteous, helpful and FUN!!!

Be prepared to bring lots of cash with you. Extra activities on the water or outside the resort will be at least $50 and up. Also, plan on waking up around 8 am everyday to make reservations at one of the "fine-dining" restaurants but I say just sleep in and stick with the buffet. The beach was nice, lots of palm trees....but there are boats everywhere!! And of course barely any rules so these boats are going every which way. Be sure to stay in the area that's sectioned off for swimming or you could easily get hit. We stayed at a "villa"...but I regret not taking the upgrade. If you're looking for a more modern feel pay the 8 bucks per person....

I felt very catered to. No worries type of place. Very, very clean. No need to leave hotel. Everything was there. Night club, entertainment, food, drinks.... Front desk staff/customer service were so lost and clueless. Not friendly and very unhelpful when it came to answering questions or orienting someone. Kinda rude. We had to figure out everything on our own. Very odd on several occassions. The waiters and bartenders were very nice and helpful Worth the price because the place is Beautiful! Good food, nice pools, great night club, great restaurants, wonderful nightly shows

some of waiters were good. bad service from the front desk . not costumer service skills at all. it took 2 days to fix the tv channals. i call the front desk many times to fixed. when i check out the front desk guy he say 11 doolars for my local calls not asking me about my stay. i work for hilton for 8 years and i know what is service. entertaiment night show were great

This was my 1st time in DR, the 2nd day there I got food poisoning, lost 10 lbs from the illness, the staff spoke no english, the cleaning crew do not change linen if they don't appear dirty to there eyes. Ate dinner @ Carib restaurant, waiter bought out a ceasar salad, and the plate the salad dressing sat on wasa covered with little bugs (no apologies from staff or management), @ the buffet birds pecked on the bread while you ate( didn't seem like a big issue to staff, they just took away the bread bird pecked on and kept moving). Not a variety of food for non-pork eaters. You have to constantly flag off flys while yout ate @ the buffet. Dining was timed & if not there during those hours, you just starved until next meal. During my illness buffet staff did not allow my friend to bring me fruit to the room. The beds were very hard &mattresses were old & stained badly. Taxi to the mall; which was about 5mins from resort was $16 round trip. The satff was not nice, the only staff that was front lobby area. Please do not got to this resort even if the price is right, 1st time out the US very bad experience (mainly due to the resort, be careful of the food you eat). And DO NOT DRINK OR BRUSH YOUR TEETH WITH THE FAUCET WATER. 1 good thing about this resort was the grounds & beach area was nice.

The hotel is 3-3.5 "stars." The service in bars, buffets, beach, and room cleaning crew are excellent. Positives: relaxed atmosphere, friendly staff, internet is the rooms (either WiFi or with a cable modem if WiFI signal is weak) Negatives: long walk from the villas sections to the reception area, and especially to the beach (there's a cart going from villas to the beach every 15min, so you can ride on it), the selection in the a la carte restaurants is poor, $10/day internet.

I vacationed here with my boyfriend in May. We really enjoyed our week long stay in Punta Cana. The hotel was a good deal for the price, but nothing exceptional. The grounds were well kept and the three pools were great! We never had trouble finding seating around one of them. When we first arrived, we had some issues with our room, but the staff was very accommodating and got us a new room quickly - we were pleased with this. Our room itself was fairly small - king bed, small dresser, tv, closet, 1 sink, and a small bathroom. It was a little difficult for both of us to move around between the closet, sink, and bathroom since they were all crammed together, but we managed. Also, we spent very little time in our room - only to sleep - so it was okay. The food was somewhat hit or miss - sometimes we had a fabulous dinner at the buffet or at the restaurant, but sometimes it wasn't so great. There was a decent selection of food though, so you could always find something. The bars were always good - great drink selection and friendly staff! One thing I really enjoyed was the entertainment throughout the day at the pool and beach. There seemed to always be something going on - beach volleyball, aerobics, music, horseshoes, soccer, contests, etc. It was great. Last but not least, the beach was absolutely incredible. It was huge. We never had an issue finding seats or finding seats with shade. It was easy to get paddle boats, kayaks, and snorkeling equipment through the hotel's staff. The water was beautiful and the sand was clean of trash. Our representative at the hotel showed us many excursions, and one day we went on a dune buggy tour which was so much fun. I highly suggest taking advantage of some of the excursions to see different parts of the island!

ON CHECK IN THEY HAD MY RESERVATION FOR THE NEXT MONTH RATHER THAN THE MONTH I BOOKED IT FOR AND I EVEN CALLED ONE MONTH AHEAD TO CONFIRM AND IT WAS OK @ THAT TIME, BUT WHEN WE ARRIVED IT WAS FOR THE WRONG DATE. WE HAD TO WAIT 3 HOURS FOR A ROOM AND ALL THEY COULD SAY WAS THAT THEY OVER BOOKED ROOMS. LIKE IT WAS MY FAULT. WHEN WE FINALLY GOT OUR ROOM IT WAS SOMETHING OUT OF A SLEEZY HOTEL. THE ROOM WAS FILTHY, TV, REFRIGERATOR AND OUTLETS DIDNT WORK. THE ROOM WAS NOT EVEN ONE PERCENT CLOSE TO WHAT THEY ADVERTIZED. [...]

Wonderful experience, excellent staff, food, location and entertaintement

3 of us, we spent a week in the resort, doing a bit of everything: sea and sun bath, safari and Saona island trips, pool, night live shows, shopping etc. In my opinion - the info about resort's activities is pretty poor... I mean - it is not provided that "easy american way" like you get a clear, good info about everything around. We only got a little picture-map describing all the places. That's all. So I suggest to take some time asking and writing down - what and when is opened. Because most places like buffets gets closed every few hours and some places - like pizza house - gets opened even after midnight. We ate once at 1 of 3 restaurants where you have to make a reservation on the same day, but before 8:00 AM. Believe me: I am not picky on food. But that was a total disaster! I can understand than a lamb's leg has 30% of pure fat, but the butter served with rolls was just horribly old, had almost orange color and did smell like a fish! Also a dessert was a joke! For example 2 ladies at other table ordered lobsters and they were looking happy, so maybe we were just unlucky ones. But anyways - what happened to us was below any standards I've ever seen. After that - we decided to stay at buffet, where you just go and pick everything you want to eat. And it's fresh! We really enjoyed every night shows. The pool was great. Beach very nice. Close to the beach - Snack bar good for drinks and not bad for food too.