Majestic Colonial Punta Cana — Hotel in Higüey

This was my first time in the DR and first experience at an all inclusive, and I enjoyed my vacation. I would rate this resort a solid 3. I’ll break my review into 5 categories: Food, Drinks, Service, Room, Around the Resort.

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ I personally thought the food resembled a glorified college dining hall, but met my expectations of the quality of what the lowest tier resort of a 3 resort all inclusive chain would offer. There were some delicious options, there were some pretty average options, and sadly some barely edible options. The best meal I think I had was either our romantic beach side surf&turf meal, or the Japanese hibachi meal. The worst meal was BY FAR the McJestic (do not risk it for the sake of your stomach)

Drinks: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I’m not the most refined drinker by any means, so by my limited palate standards I thought the drinks were great! I had some a little on the syrupy/sugary side and some that almost tasted like straight liquor, but overall they did the job, looked gorgeous, and tasted great in the process. I would rate it 5 stars but it’s clear that there is a 10-15 drink rotation that the bartenders are comfortable with making, and despite having rows of liqueurs, flavored liquors, and mixers, they claimed to “not have” many basic cocktails I asked for. If you’re looking for a classic blended beachy drink, you’ll love the bars. If you want something a little more refined, you must hope to be at the Mixology bar from 6:00-8:30 PM or else you’ve missed your chance.

Service: ⭐️ The service was the worst component in my opinion. I am not naive to know that I am an English speaker vacationing in a non English speaking country, but I do expect for some back and forth communication throughout our stay and some transparency as to what is going on. Our butler was fine, nothing too special but did help us out with booking reservations and would always say hi to my boyfriend and I around the resort. The guest services were wonderful and I wish I could copy them and paste them around the rest of the resort. The room service however tainted my opinion on the service so hard that I have to give it a 1 star. We called at about 10:45 PM one evening and placed a room service order for 4 people. They confirmed on the other line and then told us it would be about a 45 minute wait. At 11:55 (so over an hour later) we called back again to check on the room service and they gaslit us that we “never placed an order” and that there were “no orders with our room number”. We know this is entirely false because mid-order the first time our phone got disconnected and they called us back using the bathroom phone to finish and confirm the order. We’re just grateful we weren’t charged for food that never came. Additionally - it seemed as though all the wait staff was working about 6 jobs at once. We paid extra money to have a private romantic beach dinner as mentioned earlier, and while the food tasted great, we were probably there for almost 2 1/2 hours total and after being served our first course, waited 30 minutes before our wine and champagne even came because he “had to run over to the other side of the resort to get the bottle”

Room: ⭐️⭐️ (see details below)

Around the Resort: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ The overall atmosphere was peaceful, yet lively at the right moments. We stayed on the Colonial Club adults only side and really enjoyed the separation we had from young children. There were constantly activities, music, refreshments for 18+, and a pleasant vibe. The grounds really are gorgeous and the scenery is unbeatable. The overarching issue I would never want to experience again is the pushiness and persistence surrounding reviews. You will see so many selfies and reviews mentioning specific people or staff and this is because they literally approach you while you are trying to relax or enjoy yourself and pester you sometimes to the point of taking your phone for a Google review. It became disruptive to our vacation and is ultimately what led me to want to take the time once I got home to write a thorough,...

The stay was actually a 5/5! But is there any vacations without any disappointments? I have already written a recension, but it was kinda „forced“, because workers, especially black diamond (look for his name in the reviews) from the animation team (which is actually amazing!) were going through the beach and asking for 5 star reviews. Since it was our first day we just did it, but I couldn‘t really share any experiences, so there I go.

When we came, our cardS declined and we had to get money from the ATM. But in the end it was no problem and we could check in. Daniel, the guy on the reception, was awesome! When we wanted to change money, Abigail, who even knows some German, did a good job and was competent, same with Daniel. Since here are almost only Americans (and I mean people from the American continent), the payment can be done with Euro, but they don’t have any change, so it came, that we received Dollars, and in general we lost money because of that.

The animation is also nice, there is a program, that seems to repeat itself every week, the Michael Jackson day was really funny tho, props to the dancers!! You have the options to do Banana Boats, Snorkling, Diving, or book some travels to eg. Saona, Santo Domingo or Samana. Every morning there is stretching and Zumba and people play volleyball. Mostly the people are very young here and for us (19+20) it was perfect and fun. There is still some elderly people, but the most people are young. When we wanted to do banana, we paid 30€ (with a 50€ bill) and got change in dollars (20$, which is worth less than 20€). We waited more than one hour and then it was said: „We don’t have a boat to do banana right now, come back tomorrow“. The next days we were busy tho since we did some activities. In the end we wanted our money back, and had to pay a fee of „25%“ and got only 20$ instead of 30$ back, which is 18€! So we got back in total 36€ instead of 50€ which we paid. And instead of the fee of 25% (which would be 7,5$) we paid 10$… We didn’t care and went away.

The beach is very beautiful, but sometimes one can find cigarettes in the sand. The water is very good and special props to the staff who is cleaning the beach and the water of the algae, WHICH IS A LOT. The water is not too warm, not too cold, it’s perfect.

Now we come to the food: The food is very good at the buffet. You basically have a lot of options and the food is always good. Just one time, my duck filet was bloody and the lamb in „le gourmet“ was really not tasty. It wasn’t lamb but sheep 😂 I recommend to eat their fruits because it’s regional. Never ate such a juicy pineapple! They also always ask whether someone has an allergy and do their best, so the allergens are avoided! Super cool!

The hygiene is very good too. When coming into the restaurant one has to clean his hands with soap and the service is excellent too! The workers really change everything, even if it’s not touched and they use gloves, touching products! So no hairs come into the food, the restaurant at the beach can be only used with a t-shirt. Still I found a hair in the cheese of the daily burger-buffet, that is obviously from a client, but still disgusting.

The hotel in general is very nice, old style but very clean, awesome room, you can sometimes see wild animals, like brown pelicans and even Hummingbirds!! Also the hotel owns some animals: Cats, which go through the hotel and parrots. Poor things, 4 parrots in ONE single small cage… My heart was crying, that’s just inhumane and I hope it will be changed!!! The vendors who try to sell you something (they are licensed) are annoying: Photos with lizards for 20$ or with a parrot who can’t fly because his wings were broken, are just inhumane too. The country is poor, so one has to understand: they try to get as much money as possible.

The country is so poor, that the personal of the hotel is transported by special „personal transport“ busses or on bikes. They are poor and that’s why we tipped a lot, it can help these people, so guys,...

English family here, we stayed early August for 10 days and absolutely loved our experience at the Majestic Colonial and I was not asked by a single member of staff to write any of the below. We booked a regular stay and had nothing to do with the club/member's side.||Everything from check in right through to departure was fantastic and we felt lucky to have this holiday and stayed here, despite my hours spent on TripAdvisor before we booked! ||Staff were fantastic and nearly everyone went above and beyond, smiled and said Hola, the entertainment staff in particular are out in the heat from 8/9am right up to midnight and there is always something going on for all ages, the manager 'I Love My Job' was especially brilliant as was Cristina in the children's entertainment part of the hotel. The staff are constantly cleaning the grounds, the beach and the restaurants.||Food exceeded my expectations, anyone who complains about the food must only ever eat at mitchelin starred restaurants, there is something for everyone here and I have a vegetarian wife and fussy children and none of us struggled, they even have hummus (to the poster below who said they didn't, you must have missed it) We ate at every restaurant other than the French which is adult only; the beach restaurants are both amazing but the best for us was the Japanese experience.||Drinks also brilliant, never had to wait long and you often get table and poolside service, even without a tip but it really does go a long way.||Rooms were large, not particularly modern but our air conditioning was great, beds were comfortable but small and it was quiet other than the late night passers by. Jacuzzi tub was a nice addition, large shower, separate toilet, balcony and all the amenities you could ask for. Our maid cleaned the room daily to a good standard.||No hotel is perfect, if I had to pick faults they would be..||Seaweed - Really is bad on most days, didn't stop us going in the sea but not great to have to look at and walk through, they do try to clean but it's a losing battle.||Kid's Slides - Most of the slides don't have enough water coming down them to allow kids to actually slide down, ours and other kids had to shuffle down pretty much all of them after getting stuck on the dryness of the slide, there are also lots of trees around these pools which covered them in leaves and debris and it just always felt messy here, probably good for kids around 3 - 7 but older kids would quickly get bored. ||Market Sellers - One night they had a street market full of stalls which looked really nice but as we got near they all start shouting after you and trying to pull you in to look at their items, reminded me of markets in Morocco, Turkey and Thailand I have been to, where I expect that but this caught me off guard as we were meant to be in a relaxing hotel environment. Their tactics worked anyway and they put a necklace on my daughter which she loved and then wouldn't take it off, they didn't accept any haggling and I ended up paying 25 dollars (yes mainly my fault) however it broke apart the next day and of course they are long gone. I just feel like hotel management need to take responsibility for these vendors, I'd have quite happily looked at each stall if I hadn't been aggressively approached. Just made me want to get through it!||Other than the above this was a fantastic holiday, I'd go back tomorrow and would also be keen to try the Elegance which we were told by a few families is even better than the Colonial.||Last thing is that you can visit the neighbouring Royalton Splash Hotel's waterpark for a daily charge (managed to get them down to $95 per person for the day but they originally wanted $125. This is a much larger waterpark and you can use their restaurants and bars included in that price which makes it alot cheaper than the main Punta Cana El Dorado waterpark we looked at visiting which would have been over $500 just for entry alone.||Message if you have any questions about your upcoming stays,...