Iberostar Waves Punta Cana — Hotel in Higüey

If you want an awful experience to help you appreciate home and work a lot better, look no further. This was such a nightmare, my wife and I will no longer go to another Iberostar ever. I'll start from the get go. We were greeted by Batista, our concierge, and it seemed all he was concerned about was selling us a membership to Iberostar. He invited us to a breakfast and after we told him we couldn't make it that day, we have a fishing charter to attend. He got upset with us and told us to only go through him for any excursions. We were sent off to our room and it felt like our dreams were shattered. Rather a beautiful room, we were met with a quality inn room lacking the quality. Tile floor was broken, TV didn't work, toilet paper in the shower, ceiling had water damage and was cut out, closet door was broken, etc. Once we got settled in, we decided to go get dinner. Food presentation was amazing, the taste was vile. It was either rotten or fishy and I saw a roach crawling around the desert table. There is only one buffet open at a time and you can only make a two reservations during your the whole duration of your trip. The food at the restaurants was mediocre at best and the service was worse. The day of the "big breakfast" our concierge told us about was just the same slop we were served at the buffet. They told us at the end of the breakfast, we would receive $70 in cash. After the two hours of being handed off by six different people, going to four different resorts, we turned them down. The last sales persons whole demeanor changed, told us to follow him, made us sign a piece of paper, then handed us $70 in Iberocash that we could, supposedly, spend anywhere. He then sent us on our way to walk close to a mile back to our room in the rain. That night we wanted to try and make the most of the trip. We went to the restaurant, Maria Bonita, for dinner. I got the lobster and I can save your anticipation, you can get better from Red Lobster for probably half the price. The waiter came by with the check and demanded payment right then and there. I tried to hand him the Iberocash from the sales pitch and he looked like i just handed him monopoly money. He denied my card and demanded cash. He made my wife stay in the restaurant and made me go back to the room to get cash. Of course we through a major fit in the lobby (apologies if you saw us) just to get someone's attention. The manager was morbidly rude to my wife, who was crying, as I was explaining what an awful time we have had so far. After an hour, we were finally refunded the money and lost the Iberocash. That was the last time we saw our concierge, but housekeeping would sit outside our room for hours on end doing absolutely nothing, as if they were keeping an eye on us. It was very creepy. The resort itself claims to be very active in conservation but everything there shows the opposite. The place is littered with trash. The Apiary was empty and looked like no one has been in it for years. If you look past the tree line, you can see where they dump their waste. The beach was overcrowded and also littered with trash. The best part is probably the great egrets and the moore hens in the resort itself. Even the coral lab that they rave so highly about was a giant disappointment. Their vendors are rude and will chase you down to buy their overpriced crap. One stand was even selling lost sunglasses they found on the beach. Not exaggerating. They would set their tables up in the path to the food and would trap you, trying to sell you a bunch of junk. Our whole experience was such a nightmare. We ended up leaving a day early, not soon enough. The best food we had that entire trip, not kidding, was a baconator at the airport. 0/10 it was insulting and appalling to say the least. If you read my whole experience through than congrats, heres a tip. A lady we sat next to on our way back home informed us her resort was everything we expected and dreamed about. Its called the Bahia Principe Luxury Esmeralda, you'll pay...

So, it will be hard to dilute the fake reviews which they clearly curate, but I’ll try. We all had a busy year, and this was the first flight since last January, so we went Christmas to late on New Year’s Day for the week. Where to start… the door to our room did not open or close properly. It opened about half way, which was annoying, and none of the doors closed without a hard push, and I’ve seen others leave their doors unlocked accidentally as we did. Somehow nothing was stolen. Not the worst hotel room, but the pillows were very cheap, we got a leak in the bathroom right over our toilet, and it dripped on all 3 of us, which was gross. It happens, but that’s what you get with an extremely dated hotel. The pools and the beach are nice, but as others mentioned, beach chairs are basically on top of each other, so we mostly stayed by the pool when not trying to escape the hotel altogether. The food: mostly gross. All buffets basically had the same below average food, and although there were bright spots, and we are NYkers spoiled by world class food almost every day, this was very underwhelming. The one bright spot was NYE celebration which spared us from having to go downtown to get lobster. They served a lot of seafood which was mostly cold, just on December 31st. I had to bribe a waitress to go to a different restaurant to get butter for our seafood. Salt shakers were mostly non-functional, a simple fix with rice could solve this. The pitch. WOW! A very nice, but green young man talked me into a free massage for my wife, but to get that we had to suffer through a time share pitch which they claim is not a time share. It is. Amazingly, after almost 2 1/2 hours we did not even get the price, the wife looked it up online out of curiously. By that morning we knew most of the above, so there was no way we were spending another dollar there, but we promised to go so we went. There are 3 hotels in this area: Iberostar PC, Dominica and Bavaro. PC and Dom look exactly the same, old and dated, although they clean and repair regularly. They golf carted us around, and took us to vip caf behind Dominicana, specifically designed for pitching; the food there was just gross. All the juices and drinks were watered down everywhere. Low shelf tequila they offered was not good, I left at least 5 glasses of it around after taking one sip. Not unexpectedly about 50% of the staff spoke no English at all, so we got to brush up on our Spanish. If I didn’t pay for international service every day we’d be stuck even more, since I had to rely on Siri regularly just to get anything out of the staff. For those thinking of doing things outside the hotel. I’m a small linebacker size, and the one time I ended up by myself near downtown Punta Cana, while waiting for my Uber back for about 5 minutes, a few shady gents on dirt bikes were circling to clearly rob me. I wasn’t too worried, but it is definitely not safe outside of the resort so proceed with caution. We’ve been to many islands in the Caribbean, and it’s only the second time that we avoided leaving the grounds without security present. The country is very poor, and garbage is everywhere. I’ve been avoiding DR for years, but we decided to give it a go. We’ll never come back to this island. For the most expensive vacation (this cost more than my honeymoon) of our lives we felt very disappointed. To finish off (I could keep going, but I don’t want to), I’ll go back to the pitch. The female salesperson with Rogue-esque hair, actually told us that Iberostar PC is the worst hotel they have in the area, out of 5 and it’s basically for poor people!!! This was in response to me becoming blunt and telling her about our impression of the hotel to that point, just so she’d let us out of that awful pitch. It worked. To sum up - I read the reviews beforehand and i could tell that we’ll have the sun, pools and ocean, but not good food or service, so we were kind of prepared for this, or so we thought....

Check-in was slow. There were only two employees at the front desk, and they were spending a long time with each guest. When it was finally our turn, we understood why—they were pushing room upgrades, acting like we were getting a special deal, even though we overheard another guest being given the same offer.

Check-out is at noon, no exceptions. I asked if we could keep our room for just one more hour since our van wasn’t picking us up until 1:30, but the front desk said no. I understand that’s their policy, but it was a bit of a bummer having to sit in the lobby for 90 minutes with nothing to do.

The staff were generally pleasant, though English fluency varied. Some employees spoke English well, while others knew very little or none.

Housekeeping was excellent. Our room was cleaned every day, and my kids loved returning to see the creative towel designs.

The number of times we were approached by staff trying to sell something was excessive. I don't know whether they're employed by Iberostar or not, but regardless, Iberostar allows them on the property so they're responsible for them. Whether we were at the beach, pool, or walking around, we were constantly solicited for excursions, hair braiding, jewelry, rugs, wooden carvings, and more. It was much worse because we had kids with us. If I wanted to shop, I would go to the store. This was one of my least favorite aspects of the stay.

The Wi-Fi was excellent, even reaching the beach. The resort app was useful—I especially liked the notifications when our room was cleaned and the ability to message the front desk. It also helped us find amenities we might have otherwise missed.

The pool was our preferred spot. The area was clean, and we didn’t feel like it was overcrowded. The ocean had a lot of seaweed and debris, which made my kids prefer the pool. Had we been able to pack beach toys, they might have spent more time there, but we had to prioritize clothes due to the lack of laundry facilities.

Chair reservation rules are completely ignored. Signs say you can’t reserve chairs, but everyone does, and staff do nothing to stop it. If you don’t claim a chair by 9–10 AM, good luck finding one. We even saw many seats "saved" that no one used all day.

The pool didn’t seem to be filtered well—there was always a lot of debris and dead bugs floating in the water. Staff cleaned it early in the morning, but it still didn’t seem very well-maintained.

The entertainment was almost exclusively in Spanish. I don’t expect them to cater to English speakers, but it’s something to note if you don’t speak Spanish.

We did not use the Star Friends kids’ club, so I can't speak to any experience there. Leaving my children with strangers in a foreign country didn’t feel right when we were on vacation together as a family. I did notice a group of about 5 kids from the camp at the pool each day. The employee who oversaw the group was in the water with them, but didn't pay much attention to them. At one point, one little girl was being very mean to another boy and was constantly pushing him under water. It got to a point where I almost called out to the employee, but the girl saw me watching her and then stopped.

No laundry facilities was a big downside. Packing for a family of four for a week takes up a lot of space. Normally, I’d pack for half the trip and do laundry halfway through. And does not one wash their bathing suit after multiple days at the beach or pool??

The resort did not feel overcrowded except at the beach, where most guests seemed to congregate. Otherwise, the large property, numerous restaurants, and spread-out amenities kept things from feeling too busy.

We felt very safe during our stay and had no security concerns.

Smoking rules were unclear—it seemed like people were smoking everywhere, including on balconies, walkways, the beach, the pool, and even restaurants. There were ashtrays lining the sidewalks. We're non smokers, so I didn't enjoy smelling...