We arrived into Punta Cana Airport and collected our bags, however First Choice had put one member of staff on to try and inform everyone what bus to take! We were queued right back to baggage collection, to which I became impatient on trying to find out what one was ours and made a dash outside. Normally if you ask the driver if he's going to Iberostar Punta Cana one of them will say yes (you hope anyway).

We get to the hotel which is about 40 mins away, to which you are greeted by the staff and some guests depending on how much they have drank. Remember if you are able to carry your own bags it's a lot quicker and you can go straight to your room. Remember to get a remote for tv at reception (which is free), and your key for the safe which(is about $14 for two weeks).

Rooms are average size clean and have bottled water and soft drinks (fanta, sprite, coke, diet coke). Aircon is good bathrooms are good. The tv has cable so you can get about 10 American channels 3 of which are movie channels, just remember to do a quick tune on the tv so that you receive every possible channel.

Food is extremely bland, I've have stayed at many all inclusives in the Dom Rep and this is by far the worst ever, for the food. The cold meats they have put out unless first thing was starting to discolour and some of the hot food was undercooked to the point of almost rare!!. I spoke to the head of the restaurant and the manager and they said this was fine and basically not to complain. My mother and father went out 4 weeks after we returned and unfortunately half the hotel went down with food poisoning, in mums case hospitalisation and with few others. Ensure if you get anything you need to contact your holiday insurance people immediately, otherwise you only receive half of the money back upon claiming.

Bars are ok all open though and some days it got so humid that the drinks got warm within minutes. They have a bar that is Rock Star bar and that is open in the evenings and is air cond, which is ok but its loud music and pool tables etc, ok for us two but if you want a quiet drink then it's not recommended.

The entertainment is seriously poor and about 3 people were there every night out of the whole hotel, the lobby bar does have a band on in the gazebo which is right in front of the bar but after seeing the same band the same songs every two to three days it did get annoying.

Beach is reasonable very clean but have been to better especially in Bayhahibe along south. Watersports are available but be aware if using the catamaran for the first time the beach guys charge which is ridiculous considering its supposed to be free!!!. Luckily I hold a Yacht Masters Certificate and laughed when they said you sure you know how to sail this catamaran.

Overall I didn't rate this hotel and would recommend anyone to consider elsewhere as it is no-where near the standard that it should be.

Wonderful hotel with beautiful gardens. Great beach and many restraunts within the hotel. Its worth the extra for the 4 star as opposed to the sister hotels next door. Rooms are all junior suites in two storey blocks of 8. Ask for a room near the pool/beach - much less walking. You can't but enjoy this hotel.

My wife and I stayed seven nights at this resort for our honeymoon. We were there from July 12 to July 19. We were told that we would get a non-smoking room on a second floor with an ocean view. When we arrived, we were told that none of the rooms were non-smoking and we were placed on the ground floor.

The first evening we noticed that our sliding patio glass door did not lock, so I called guest services to complain and they said they would send someone immediately. We waited an hour and then I called back. They again said someone would be there immediately. We ended up falling asleep holding our passports and valuables.

The next day we marched to the front desk and demanded another room. We got one then. This room was better, and the sliding door locked. We wanted to use the safe, but the bolts were out and we needed someone to reset the thing for us, so I called and it took two days to fix that problem.

The food was alright, but nothing to brag about. For an all-inclusive resort, it sure was limited. The room service was included, but only had about five items on the menu. The best meal for dinner was a hot dog or hamburger. We were told we could snack all day long and have all the drinks we could drink. This was true, but all the drinks had to be consumed at the place you got them at, and the snacks were not what we call snacks. They were hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, hamburgers, fruit. I was expecting Doritos, candy bars...junk food snacks. All of the food, including the "snack food," had to be eaten at the restaurant/bar where you got them at. Nothing could be brought back to the rooms.

The grounds were beautiful, with flamingos and peacocks walking around. There were man-made ponds with tons of fish and turtles. That was the best thing about the place. The beach was nice, but not as beautiful as one would have been at Aruba or the Bahamas. The worst thing about this resort is the customer service. The place had tons of activities, with maps in the rooms showing where they were, but if you needed any clarification or wanted to know what the schedules were, they wouldn't tell you. They'd just say, "there's a board way over there....just look for yourself." The staff never went out of their way to help at all. Very disappointing. For it being a 6-star resort, I thought the Days Inns here did better jobs.

The weather was great, and only rained one time during the day. When the walkways get wet, look out. It's dangerously slippery. My wife stubbed her toe while coming down the stairs. It started bleeding, so we went to the front desk. When we asked for some first aid, we were told that there was none. They told us to walk over to the supermarket and buy our own supplies! Nice service. When I walked over to the supermarket, I learned that they didn't even carry Peroxide, rubbing alcohol, or Band-Aids. The next resort over had a pharmacy. I walked the 5-minutes over there and found out that they were closed. My wife was bleeding and this place had nothing to stop it, or prevent it from getting infected. Thank God she didn't seriously cut herself...she would have bled to death!

The resort would send us free mini bottles of rum with a fruit plate almost every day because they messed up, but that didn't satisfy us. They even had the maids leave us tee-shirts with the resort logo on them. Yeah...like I'll be wearing those any time soon. They'll make good rags though.

The resort offered free transportation between the three Iberostars that were next to each other there in Punta Cana. The first time we did it, the staff was very quick and we got immediate service. That was the first night though. The other six nights we found that if anyone was busy, you ended up waiting a half hour (10 minutes to them) for someone to take you anywhere. We ended up just walking to the places. The only problem with walking was that it was so humid there, that if you walked any long distance, your clothing stuck to you with sweat. I lost five pounds being there seven days from sweating so much.

All of the building are open except your sleeping room. At night you would sit there eating dinner or waiting for a ride for a half hour and just start dripping with sweat. I constantly had to dab my forehead and face with a towel or napkin to soak up the sweat. My face broke out with acne because it was so oily all day long.

Their restaurants were buffets, and if you wanted the nice places, you had to make reservations with the guest services. Then they would only allow you to make THREE for the seven nights you were there. Not very unlimited all-inclusive as we expected.

You can't drink the tap water or you'll get sick. We used bottled water to brush our teeth.

We took an excursion outside of the resort and realized that this country was pretty bad off. The people live in little sheds with tin roofs and the thing that got to us the most was the amount of trash that was everywhere. There are literally no trash cans in the whole country. As you drive along the roads, there is trash lining the sides. The yards of the homes had trash all over the whole yard. People just lived with it there.

They have their own cattle which they butcher and serve hamburgers from. That may explain why I got diarrhea from eating a hamburger for lunch on our fifth day there. Their fancy steak house had like five steaks on their menu. No Filet Mignon or Prime Rib. Just chop steak, rib eye, and some other steak I had never heard of. There was also a chicken breast you could get.

If you didn't know Spanish while there, beware...The locals didn't hardly know any English. People we spoke with who didn't know any Spanish really had a hard time. The wait staff and store employees didn't know any English. My wife, thank God, knew Spanish. I felt as though she was my translator. I know a little Spanish and was speaking it mostly. There are mostly Germans, French, Italians, and Americans at the three Iberostar resorts there. It's a family resort with little kids running around, so if you want some place romantic, don't chose this place.

In the Caribbean there are these tiny ants that are almost transparent. They are literally everywhere. In your sleeping rooms, restaurants, everywhere. We were eating at one of the fancy restaurants one night and got to the dessert. My wife noticed these ants crawling all over it. We both lost our appetites and left.

Overall we were disappointed in the resort and will never return for any reason. And we plan on writing a letter of complaint to the corporate headquarters.

<font color=blue>Edited/paragraphed for ease of reading
HT Review Team</font>

I had the pleasure in staying at this hotel last year.

In fact we have just been back on holiday again to Punta Cana but unfortunately couldn't get a room at the Iberostar as it was full (not surprising) so we went to the Superclub Breezes Hotel in Punta Cana instead and were very disappointed.

It only confirmed what a high quality hotel the Iberostar is.

The buffet choice was really good, the food was a good quality and choice. Non of us were ill. Mind you, its all too easy to over indulge in the food and drink and then with the combination of the heat and humidity, then upsets stomachs would be expected but no, we were fine.

The restaurants weren't up to much though. In fact that was the only saving grace of the Superclub Breezes hotel where have just stayed in, most of their restaurants were excellent. Buffet rubbish though.

I will definetly go back to Iberostar group of hotels for future holidays.