Hotel Riu Palace Bavaro — Hotel in Higüey

We have been here since Monday and leave Saturday morning. Here is my review, it will be long so I can hit all of the points:||To start off, this is my third time in Punta Cana and my first time at a family all inclusive. I have been to Secrets Cap Cana and Secrets Royal Beach. For our family trips we usually take carnival cruises, so I was expecting that kind of vibe. Honestly, didn’t even notice the kids. They were all wonderful and very respectful. My babies even made some friends in the pool.||I came here with no expectations because while I’ve stayed at all inclusives, I recognize that we were probably going to get what we paid for. My kids requested a water park and this was one of the only AIs that had a decent one that was within our price range. The kids did enjoy the water park but I think they would have given it up for better food, service, and quality of experience.||When you get here, nobody is there to welcome you. You aren’t handed a drink or a towel like at other resorts. The employee who checked us in was very nice, but there was a serious language barrier. The language barrier continued across the resort. I recognize we are in their country etc, but you can’t even get across basic requests here. This is not normal amongst the resorts I have been to. It felt very impersonal and not like you’re walking into your paradise resort. One of our rooms was ready but we had to wait for the other one. It was well after 4 and we still had not received an email it was ready. I checked in at the desk and got a ton of attitude because I requested a ground floor room and that seemed to be like too big of a request (that I made..when I booked lol). There are no elevators so if you’re disabled like I am, stairs can be tricky. The people who had my original room did late check out so she gave me a different room. They gave |us 2 keys, we had 4 people, and 1 didn’t work. We probably had to get a dozen more keys because they either stopped working or never worked. ||The food is bad. It’s edible at best. I haven’t been sick or anything, but I have never cleared a plate. The flies are insane. I never noticed a fly problem at other resorts but I worry about the cleanliness of some of the food areas here. It very much reminded me of cruise food. The food courts have the best food. I did like the steakhouse (bring seasoning) and Agave was good. Also, the salt and pepper shakers never work and the food needs it. I wish I had a travel bottle of tajin, Salt, and pepper.||The service is laughable. I genuinely laughed yesterday at lunch because the lady at the taco bar at the food court couldn’t have been more annoyed with having to heat up people’s tortillas. At other resorts I was handing out money like I was Oprah. I haven’t felt like anybody did their base job here, let alone went above and beyond. The only person we have given a substantial tip to was the employee bringing us drinks at the pool (I will have to get his name). He was fast, professional, and joked around with the kids. Most employees, though, you feel like you’re a burden just asking for the smallest things. Most don’t even acknowledge your presence. ||There is no entertainment. We tried to stay indoors today and we were all bored due to the lack of music and liveliness you may have at other resorts. I saw the riu party people come through yesterday and it was crickets as far as noise goes. The music out at the pools is really really bad. We spent a majority of the time in the pools. The pools are pretty clean and feel amazing. I will say there were people smoking cigarettes in the pool with a bunch of kids in there. Please don’t do that. It’s so disgusting.||Drinks are ok. Again with the service issues it was hard to get any of the bartenders to even acknowledge you exist. Once you were able to order your drink they moved as slow as humanely possible to get your drink going. The coffee place is really bad. I’ve had about a 5% success rate there. However, the cakes at the coffee place are delicious. ||Room service and housekeeping were both amazing. My kids loved ordering late night snacks from their phones. ||The rooms were great! They are a great size and felt really clean. The air conditioning is fantastic! Beds are very comfortable and I slept like a baby. I was worried most about this part because I’m recovering from spine surgery but the rooms exceeded my expectations greatly. I love the showers and the seperate toilet. ||The grounds are so gorgeous. Other resorts I’ve been to I was dreading walking outside because there was a horrible smell from the ocean but I haven’t noticed it here. The buffet, American country, and the sports bar all have a weird smell indoors but it’s not horrible. They do an amazing job of keeping it clean and maintaining. It’s cool to sit in the pool and look around at all of the rooms. It reminds me very much of some places in Greece and Spain I’ve been to. ||Overall I’ve had an amazing time. I think they have the skeleton to give their customers a better quality experience. Give entertainment, keep your customers in fun mode. Play good music and work on food quality and cleanliness. Get bartenders who know how to keep a crowd engaged and having fun. Hire employees who want to help people and don’t look like they hate their lives. ||I wouldn’t return but it was a good intro for my kids into the world of all...

Honestly, not super impressed.||The positives - The weather is incredible, super hot and perfect for being by the water all day. The architecture of the buildings at the resort, the colors, all very aesthetically pleasing and complimentary to the natural beauty of the location. The elite club is in a far corner of the resort which is a strength in that it's super quiet and away from the noise and riff-raff and it seemed the people who booked these rooms were also out of the 20-something get $###faced every night phase and wanted to just enjoy a nice vacation. If I could do it over, I 1000% would have got a swim out room! ||I had an ocean front suite and the room was pretty nice, and honestly probably the best part of the trip. Very spacious, looks nice, the aromatherapy smells divine that goes off every 10 minutes. ||Ok, now for the mixed feelings and negatives...||The ocean looked and many times smelled like beef stew. That is my fault for not doing more research but for anyone looking for a beach vacation vs. a pool one, the sargassum situation is out of control on Punta Cana beaches. Hotel only ran the tractor every 2-3 days to clean up the piled seaweed that stunk to high heaven halfway into the resort, meanwhile you could see down the coast that neighboring resorts were doing this daily to at least try to keep the situation manageable.||As an English only speaker, it was incredibly isolating. Over the course of 7 days, I think the only workers who spoke any English I ran into were 2. And this was among dozens of housekeeping, bar tenders, waiters, facilities, and other workers. Forget trying to ask for anything specific, just placing a drink order was tough most of the time and by the end I just used Google Translate and held up my phone. Even trying to get a glass of milk was a challenge.||Compared to say Cancun, the attitude of the workers is seriously lacking. One dear woman at the plaza bar was pleasant each evening, that was it. No one else was happy to be here or to give you service. Most were annoyed that you needed anything at all. When they saw you had come up to the bar or entered the establishment, it was almost always a look of annoyance. ||The food was good, I did enjoy just about everything I ate except for the cupcakes that smelled like barf. Didn't matter if they were from the buffet or sweets shop. Yea, when you see that there is a sweets shop don't get too excited. The ice cream is delicious but those delectable looking cupcakes all have barf scented icing on top. Literally tried them multiple days to make sure I wasn't losing it. ||The resort itself, is nice, but not meticulously manicured and tended to like the Rius in Cancun. You will definitely see unkempt plants here and there and occasional garbage laying around. ||One thing that you will want to keep in mind - this place is SPRAWLING. It's the only way I can put it. Anytime I wanted to go for food I literally had to prepare for a half day journey (somewhat exaggerating) and make sure I hit everything I wanted or needed on the way there and back because it was going to be an endeavor. I always try to respect staying on the sidewalks at these places but this trip by the end I just couldn't take it anymore so started cutting through the grass just to try and take some miles off the round trips. ||For the most part, I stayed mainly at the elite club pool which was always clear water and a calm vibe and far and away the best place to be. As you go down to the row of pools though it got increasingly appalling. Next one over is the adults only pool and would get a little cloudy but nothing totally off putting. After that was the adults only bar pool, which was christened the "party p#$$ pool" because by noon it was so cloudy you couldn't see the bottom, everyone in it was s###faced and you never saw anyone get out to go to the bathroom. I'm not a germaphobe in the slightest and you could not pay me to get in this pool. Seriously disgusting. Lastly, was the main/large general pool. This one usually had barf floating on the top in the corners, very cloudy, and that nasty sunscreen/body oil grease slick covering the top of the water. I would still get in this one over party p#$$ pool. ||The scuba caribe and coco bongo people are really annoying too, bothering you when your poolside inside the resort. It's one thing to get tormented on the public beach part, which everyone expects and just deals with, but to pay all this money to stay here and then still get solicited was incredibly annoying. I actually considered a Soala Island excursion and/or a Coco Bongo night but despite both the location and event themselves being highly praised online, it's just page after page after page on TripAdvisor of what a nightmare these trips were with 12 hour transportation for 2 hours on a beach, or the overcrowded coco bongo fire trap where you can't even move enough to get to the bar for a drink, much less escape to save your life if you had to. ||So overall, I would not recommend this resort. Location is great, the facilities are beautiful, but the staff attitude and hit or miss beef stew ocean make this one a hard pass for me...

Second time at a RIU resort. For the most part my stay was manageable. My room was clean and stocked however our ac was extremely loud so we couldn't use it at night. My main complaint would be on select staff and pool cleanliness. RIU Bavaro gives off the vibe of a college campus that provides mild entertainment, watered down drinks and undercooked or overcooked food. You will be asked for tips constantly. The front desk will tell you half truths. I asked the front desk where can I call a cab for a mall I was told there's a free shuttle provided. The shuttle will take you to World Mart Gift shop with overpriced tourist products. I don't appreciate my time being wasted. The travel agencies that approach you on the beach and at the private pools on the hotel are not vetted and will shuffle you into an unsafe tourist trap. Beware of Scuba Carbie. The boat ride was great. They will also shuffle you to unsafe attractions without a second thought. Do not go on the Family Boogie dune buggies. I'm aware that off site excursions are on the guest but this reflects terribly on the company to have solicitors that can endanger the guests on the property. They will hotwire a barely put together go kart and drive you through dirt roads with no view. The front desk will give you lip service when asked about it but that is to be expected. I am disappointed in the lack of safety. The food is hit or miss depending on the restaurant. The 24/7 is a misnomer at best. The sit in restaurants close at 9:30 but stop taking guests by 8:30. The best restaurant the steakhouse will serve you a tough steak but the carrots are great. It's a flip of a coin if the sports bar will serve you pink burgers. The room service is limited. I was served the limpest Caesar salad with unwashed brown lettuce and possibly spoiled chicken. The service at the Zen and the Italian restaurant was terrible. Undercooked pasta with overcooked and bland chicken. My family and I had a birthday dinner at Zen and we were given terrible energy. The host seemed annoyed we came in right at cut off. They were disorganized about our orders. The food was burnt, and the dessert we were given was literally melting as they handed it to us. I acknowledge all the hard work the staff has to go through but bad service is bad service. I should never feel unwelcomed in a place I'm shelling out thousands for. The pools are not monitored throughout the day. The bar pools are extremely cloudy from people sitting there all day and not leaving to use the bathroom. The most "cleaning" I saw was a dash of cleaner being put in at the end of service hours. Extra precautions should be taken at any pool bar. Then with the pools that allows kids some parents will not watch their kids and they will poop in it. I was taking a nap in one of the all ages pools only to have a literal turd float by my face. The pool was not drained or cleaned. If you can only go to the adult pool that's the only decent pool to swim/nap in. The surface level cleanliness can fool most people, but under the hood there's some work to be done. If those aspects are fixed it'd be perfect. I will not be coming back to this location I will actively tell people not to come here.

Update: The management has zero power or desire to help you with your satisfaction. I asked if transportation from the hotel to the airport could be provided for our inconveniences. I was lied to and told there was no transportation that could be provided. However if you look at other reviews the customer service has offered others rides and monetary reimbursement on certain services. The management here is for show. When I made my complaints I was told there was nothing he could do only corporate could offer me any solution. All corporate does in response to health violations is lip service and RIU points. I'm not interested in vacationing with a company where I have to send an email to have my concerns about being fed undercooked meat and unsafe pool conditions heard. To have the management look at me and say "what do you want me to do"....