Joia Bavaro by Iberostar — Hotel in Higüey

My husband and I stayed at Iberostar for eights days for our anniversary. We stayed in an ocean view room.||Joia Iberostar, I have so much to say but I will begin with the most important failure to us regarding this trip.||If you are gluten free, if you have a sensitivity, allergy, or are celiac DO NOT STAY HERE. We are both gluten free and my husband is additionally dairy free. This is not a lifestyle or health choice that we made. This is a health matter with serious consequences for us. ||We were assured by Joia Bavaro and our travel agent that this hotel could accommodate us and our dietary restrictions prior to booking. Our travel agent informed Iberostar of dietary restrictions and anniversary months priors to our arrival. The hotel confirmed. We have traveled to resorts in other countries that were able to cater to our dietary needs. A resort of this level we did not think otherwise however we were sadly mistaken.||My husband personally contacted the hotel via email one week prior to our arrival as a reminder. They responded that we will be accommodated. ||When we arrived into our room it was stocked with beers (wheat derived) and a welcome platter of cookies (wheat derived). Fair enough, it was day one. Perhaps we needed to directly tell our butler and this would be relayed down the chain as a gentle reminder. ||This never happened. Dining was a daily challenge for us. Some of their items in the buffet were not marked with allergens at all, some allergens were incorrect, some were missing allergens. Labeling errors were a daily occasion. ||One of the best persons that we met and we were the most appreciative of was RUBY! Ruby, if you are reading this, YOU were the most important person to us during our stay at Joia Iberostar Bavaro!!! You are EXCELLENTE!||Somehow we ran into her at the buffet. Her position may have been a kitchen supervisor or manager but Ruby walked us through some of the items we could eat, made us DF and GF macaroons, and even a DF/GF special dinner in the buffet. I did not have to eat DF just because my husband is DF. She made him a GF/DF meal and made me a GF 
meal. She made us feel heard and allowed us to feel safe when we sat down to eat. Unfortunately Ruby was not working the last five days of our stay so were left to ourselves to figure things out on our own. ||We are English speaking. Most of the staff does not speak great English. Even using google translator did not help at times. ||GF?? Spanish or English it’s the same deer in the headlights look you may get when you ask a 16 year old teenager at Subway if they have GF bread! ||I mentioned the butler. The butler service is HORRIBLE here. If you want true butler service go to Mexico or Jamaica. | |We generally saw our butler one time per day. If we saw him a second time we were amazed. We had a total of two different ones while on our vacation. EVERY SINGLE DAY we had to tell our butler we are GF and DF. The first night the butler asked us of our needs. All we asked for was the room to be stocked with ice and ginger beer (as a mixer) nightly. We had a very simple request. ||We received ice in our room two nights without asking. We received ginger beer in our room three nights without asking, but dang it, they were EXCELLENT at stocking our fridge with the same beers that we specifically told them we could not drink every night!!! The nights that we did not have ginger beer or ice, I called down to the front desk to have it delivered up to the room. One night they did not have any ginger beer to bring us. ||We kept waking up thinking today is going to be the day they will not ask us if we have food allergies and we receive cookies, cheesecake, and cakes delivered for turn down. We even received a random phone call at 0800 on day four asking if we had food allergies? WTH?|That same night we ate at the Italian restaurant that asked us again if we had food allergies, …..wait for it….my husband’s appetizer platter had breadsticks on it. He was about to eat it and I told him to ask our waiter to make sure it was safe. Our waiter literally snatched my husband’s plate from under his fork, and said, “yes gluten, no eat”. ||Back to the butlers….my apologies for beating a dead horse but this is an expensive resort that we choose to celebrate our very special occasion. Our wedding anniversary. We were under the impression that we had butler service. The service was very lacking, barely existent, and has exponential room for growth. ||There is no way to contact our butler if we need anything. The chat in the Iberostar app was not working. ||The day of our anniversary we did not receive a romantic bed display, a bottle of wine, not a “Happy Anniversary” from anyone including our butler. We did however have chocolate cake delivered for turn down service. If you’re on the edge of your seat wondering if this cake was GF, DF, or both??? I hate to disappoint but when asked, we found out that it was not. YES, we did tell them our special occasion for being at Joia was to celebrate our anniversary. The butler and the hotel FAILED at making us feel special on our day. ||We went on an excursion. The night prior our butler was not aware of this even though we booked directly through the hotel. We told him we were going on an excursion the next day. He asked if we grabbed beach towels from the pool. We had not. His words, “Go down to the pool before they close to get the towels you need”. My husband was showering and I was having a drink on the beautiful patio. I asked him, “Is there anyone available to grab us towels as they close in 30 minutes.” He looked at his watch (very rude in my eyes) and said yeah yeah. He brought us towels 15 minutes later. My husband and I ask for very minimal things like ice, ginger beer, and to have our fridge stocked with alcohol we can drink. Mind you, we consistently never received these things. I ask him for towels and I felt like I was a bother to this man. ||I think you kind of get the jest of how our stay was beyond frustrating at times. To turn the negatives into positives my hubby and I started making bets with one another about the butler, the food, and so forth so we could turn it into a joke, or many jokes for the day. ||I have so much more to say but I will just end the butler commentary with this. Day eight of our stay our butler, the same butler we had for five days called my husband Antonio. My husband’s name is not Antonio, Anthony, Arthur, not even close. His name is Eric. Day eight our stay our butler did not know my husband’s name. Day seven we were still having our fridge stocked with Coor’s Lights and Presidente beers. Day six of our stay we did not see our butler AT ALL. He was MIA all day long. ||When I ask the question, what did our butler do for us? The answer is not much. We are people that do not require much. But we like the little details that make us feel welcome and appreciated. Ice every night, stocked ginger beer, know our names, know our diets, know what time we are coming back from an excursion and call us or meet with us, know what time our airport transportation is picking us up, know our anniversary and do “something small for us”, offer to grab us towels without looking at your watch making is feel like you don’t have time for us, stop sending desserts with wheat and dairy to our room, stop stocking our fridge with beer that we can’t and don’t drink. Little things. ||Moving right along let’s talk about the seaweed. This hotel is making approximately 6K per week for two guests. I am a nature lover and I am very forgiving and respectful when our Creator calls for days that I may personally be agreeable to.||Yes, this is seaweed season. However they had 10-12 staff members literally shoveling mounds of seaweed. If I had to guess, approx 6-10 inches high. It was comparable to shoveling inches of snow during a major snowstorm. The area you just shoveled being covered completely back in snow 10 minutes later. I actually felt bad for them. I was not going to mention the seaweed because this is God’s course of nature. Had we not walked down to the other resort to the right of Iberostar…..all I can say is I was amazed. Yes, there was seaweed in the water at the other resort however the beach was clean and there was significantly less seaweed. You could swim the water at that resort if you were comfortable enough going past the first 2-3 feet the seaweed in the water. There is obviously something that can be done better at Iberostar for the seaweed than what they are doing. ||If you do not want to do a timeshare DON’T. If you have zero intention on returning do not be talked into spending your precious vacation time into sitting with a stranger pressuring you into purchasing a timeshare. ||Be clear and persistent. It’s shameful how the concierge tries to press you into doing so. ||They told my hubby and I that their jobs are on the line if they can’t get enough people to do a timeshare and would appreciate us going for just one hour. I don’t know if this is true but I have learned very quickly to say no. We don’t do them and will not do them. We personally do not want to spend our time in a timeshare presentation just for a freebie. They are persistent even after you say no. I had to be direct and respectful but I informed the concierge I had told him no and to please respect our choice. ||The Wi-Fi can be spotty in certain areas around the resort and specifically in parts of the pool area. If you’re at the pool all day and have no service it can be a bummer. I used FaceTime to call my 18 year old at home and had to walk around to get Wi-Fi. Also we couldn’t use our speaker that day because we weren’t able to access our music. Before you stake out a cabana or lounge chairs in the pool I highly suggest you look at your phone and make certain the Wi-Fi works of it is important to you. ||I can’t leave my review sounding like a negative Nancy because there were in fact great things about this resort!||Our room while not modern, it was beautiful and clean. The housekeeping kept our room grandeur. They came in twice a day to clean and nothing was missed. Our balcony had a beautiful view and we used it every morning for coffee, morning chats, and an evening drink. The housekeeping staff is muy excellente! ||Use the bathtub!! It was amazing!! My husband was initially resistant but once we got in we stayed in for about 45 minutes while we sipped drinks and chatted! He was happy he tried it out!||The grounds here are beautiful!! The gardeners keep this place spectacular. The flowers, bushes, trees, and gardens are beautiful and well kept! If you love plants you could spend hours walking around the resort looking at the beautiful gardens.||The entertainment crew. Jelly, Mr.Smiley, Will Smith, and Chocolate stand out however the entire entertainment crew was awesome! We enjoyed the daytime pool games/entertainment, the nightly music, dancing, the nightly shows. The club in the basement of the ship was awesome. It didn’t matter if 10 people or 50 people were down there the entertainment crew and the DJ were fun people to be around!||The pool was great! We enjoyed our pool days! We met and chatted with many new people. The pool games were fun! I’ve read reviews in which guests were upset about the cabana situation. It is first come first serve. The pool opens at 7am however you can go down earlier and save a spot. We went down as early as 0515-0600. It is best to wait in that spot until 0700-0730 because on busy days security WILL remove your belongings and send them to lost and found if you haven’t been around for an hour and yes, we did see them take photos and seems like they did wait just over an hour to remove belongings. If you are doing a pool day it is best if a member of your party is there on the busier days which seemed to be Thursday, Friday, Sunday. My only recommendation is there should be a DJ or speakers that play music that can be heard around the pool. Just as background noise would be appreciated. ERY is a great bartender. Signing in the morning while setting up the bar and just seems to really enjoy what he does. It shows! He makes great drinks and just has awesome energy! ||There is a gardener that can bring you fresh coconuts to drink the water. He cuts them open right in front of you! He is in the pool area in the morning. He is a hard worker and will bring you fresh coconuts if you ask him. ||Just an FYI Saturday is a dead day at the pool and on the resort itself. There are so many outgoing and incoming guests that the dinner buffet is not open. We did not know either of these things. I think this is important info for a butler to share. This day could be used to do an excursion if you’re at all interested or make a reservation at the Japanese restaurant. You will not miss anything at the pool or the resort if you do a Saturday excursion. ||The performances were great as well! The resort is sparkling clean.||The coffee shop makes great coffee. I cannot remember the young man’s name however he made me better coffees than I’ve had in my Keurig, or at Starbucks, and DD!! Kudos to him!!||The Japanese restaurant was the best restaurant at accommodating our dietary needs. They made our rice with GF soy sauce, and one of my husband’s favorite meals came from this restaurant. No mistakes were made with our GF/DF meals and they were delicious! ||The lady making the omelette at the station closer to the buffet entry was very sweet and kind. She spoke very little English but every time we walked in she made us feel welcomed and had a beautiful smile! She also worked the juice station some mornings. She always had a kind smile and made thee best omelettes!! ||One of our great finds was the sauna and whirlpool which are free to use. It had a gorgeous view and helped cleanse us for the next day!! ||The resort was peaceful, relaxing, and we met wonderful people during our stay.||Needless to say we will not be back but I do try to give a fair review. ||Thank you...

I hope that if you vacation here that you are like the 99% of reviewers that have posted their reviews on here. I would highly suggest that you filter reviews to lowest and read the reviews. I will begin by saying that there are two major failures of Joia. #1 Safe food for guests with allergens/sensitivities, and #2 their butler service. IF YOU ARE CELIAC, GLUTEN FREE, DAIRY FREE, HAVE FOOD ALLERGIES, OR FOOD SENSITIVITIES DO NOT STAY HERE! My husband and I stayed in an ocean view room with butler service for 8 days. We were celebrating our third wedding anniversary. We are both gluten-free. My husband is also dairy free. These are not personal health choices but health matters that can create serious consequences for us. Prior to us booking our travel agent was assured by Joia that our allergens were not a problem. My husband emailed JOIA one week before we travel to confirm that we have food restrictions. We ate approximately 24 meals at Joia during our vacation. We were scared to eat about 18 of these meals. There was incorrect food labeling on the buffet choices, some with no labeling at all, and some obvious with missing allergens. In addition to the buffet my husband and I dined at both the Italian and Japanese restaurants. We checked in at the host stand at both restaurants with the host asking did we have allergies. We informed them once again of our restrictions each time. We also informed our waiter. My husband‘s food at the Italian restaurant had a breadsticks on his appetizer plate with butter. My husband was about to eat them because we did inform them of our allergens. We thought perhaps they made something special for us as we have experienced in other resorts in other countries. However because of our experience here, I told him we need to check to make sure it is safe. I asked the waiter if the breadsticks were gluten-free. He literally snatched my husband‘s plate out from underneath his fork and said yes gluten, no eat! Not only did we inform this very waiter but his plate had both dietary restrictions delivered to him to consume for dinner. We had two separate butlers during our eight day stay. We informed each butler every day that we are GF and DF. Almost every night our refrigerator was stocked with beers that we informed him on our first day and on more than one occasion that we could not drink. Not only that, but it turned down desserts were brought and left in our room. We had everything left from cookies to chocolate cake and cheesecake. None of which was GF or DF. Speaking of butler service…. Joia should be ashamed that they even advertise butler service. If you want to experience true butler service, I could recommend a Secrets in Mexico and Sandals in Jamaica. When we met our butler, he inquired about our needs. At this time we confirmed that we are DF and GF. We also informed him that the beer stocked in the refrigerator were beers that we cannot drink due to the gluten. When he asked us our needs, we asked him to stock gingerbeer/ale in the fridge for mixers and ice nightly. We received gingerbeer 2 nights w/o asking. We received ice 3 nights w/o asking. We do not require much but we like the little things to make us feel appreciated. On the day and night of our anniversary we did not receive any special attention at all. Not a bottle of champagne, nor flowers/room decor, not even a happy anniversary from our butler. It was shocking to say the least. There were days that we saw our butler once, others when we saw him twice, and then there was one day in which we did not see him at all. On our last day our butler called my husband Antonio! My husband’s name is Eric. This is the same butler we had for 5 days during our stay. I don’t have much room left for my full review so I will now list a few pros. RUBY in dining was the person that mattered most to during our vacation. She was present our first 3 days and she helped us through the GF/DF meals even preparing us special items to eat. Pristine rooms, beautiful gardens, and awesome shows and entertainers. The pool was...

The grounds are beautiful and very well maintained, and we truly appreciated the outstanding service from Eri and Tobias at the poolside bar — they made our trip enjoyable despite the many letdowns.

Check-in was slow and overly scripted. We waited over an hour just to get to our room. While the staff was polite, they insisted on walking us through maps and resort information we had already reviewed in the app, despite multiple requests to skip it. They were more focused on completing their checklist than caring about the guest experience in that moment.

A staff member then introduced herself as our butler — which we were initially excited about — but she immediately launched into a sales pitch for time shares and “membership upgrades.” When I told her we weren’t interested and just wanted to relax, she insisted we set up a meeting the next day. A meeting on vacation? Completely inappropriate. It was misleading and pushy.

We did have a butler during our stay, but again, the experience did not match what was advertised. Letting travelers know — upgrading your room for butler service is unnecessary at this resort. Although ours was friendly, the service didn’t enhance the experience in any meaningful way. He wasn’t even able to secure reservations for us most nights, and when he could, the times were inconvenient or we were told we’d have to sit outside, even during poor weather. One night, we were especially looking forward to trying the Asian restaurant, which had been closed most of our stay. When we were finally offered a table, it was outdoors during a terrible storm. Trying to make the best of it, we asked if we could walk over in the rain, pick up our food, and bring it back to our room so we could still enjoy the cuisine. The answer? No. Not even allowed to pick it up. So, yet another night of disappointing room service instead. Absolutely unaccommodating and unacceptable.

The beach was unusable due to heavy seaweed — something that should be communicated clearly when booking. Luckily, the pool was lovely, with great loungers and service. If your goal is to lay poolside all day, this might work for you.

However, the food was underwhelming, and the dining experience was frustrating: • Several restaurants were closed multiple nights during our stay. • The ones that were open were tiny, and unless you made reservations before arrival, you weren’t getting in.

They also promote nightly entertainment, but it was nearly non-existent. One night there was nothing, and the next night we saw two stilt walkers pass by — and that was it. For an adults-only resort, the entertainment was a joke.

Despite the disappointments, we want to acknowledge the few bright spots: • Eri and Tobias were phenomenal and brought life to our days by the pool. • Jhovanny C. was incredibly accommodating — he helped resolve several situations for our son who was staying at a nearby resort, all while making us feel safe and cared for, which was a top concern of ours. We truly appreciate you. • And to the housekeeping team (Yulissa and Betty) — thank you! The beautiful towel art (like the folded swans) and the thoughtful rose petal decorations made our room feel special and celebrated. Your attention to detail did not go unnoticed, and we appreciate you!

We know this review will likely receive the generic response from Iberostar saying they’re “disappointed to hear about our experience.” But based on what we saw and felt during our stay, it’s clear: they don’t actually care. Their response will likely be just as insincere and misleading as everything else we encountered. Travelers deserve honesty — not empty words and broken promises.

If Iberostar truly wants to improve, they need to stop with the scripted apologies and start listening to what guests are actually saying. Our experience — along with many others — clearly shows a pattern of overpromising and underdelivering. Until they make real changes, we won’t be back, and we hope others book with...