Princess Family Club Bávaro — Hotel in Higüey

First off, I have a consistent habit of tipping generously wherever I go, even in all-inclusive hotels, be it servers, room cleaners, check-in staff, cookers in buffet, bartenders, etc. However, my recent experience during a family stay at the Princess Family Club Bávaro from 3/28/24 to 4/4/24 compelled me to share a comprehensive review.

Initially, I had no intention of writing this review. However, an incident on our last day, involving my family of six, including two young children aged 10 and 5, prompted me to reflect on our overall experience. During our stay, my children visited the children’s club house, where they encountered a rule restricting PlayStation gaming to kids aged 6-12. My son, being 5, was denied access on a previous day.

On our last day, while waiting to leave at noon, we decided to visit this place again. The PlayStation area was completely empty. In an attempt to prevent sibling conflict, my wife stated that our son was 6. About two minutes in, the club house’s manager came in and told us that my son cannot play because he remembered that my son was 5. I requested the manager to let my son play because I didn’t want the siblings to fight over it and the place is empty. Despite my plea for flexibility, the manager was adamant about the rule and instructed his staff to take away my son’s remote control, leaving him deeply disappointed and me disheartened.

I decided to go to the front desk personnel to see if they could make an exception since we were leaving in less than 2 hours. The front desk personnel came and talk to the manager but nothing was accomplished. About 15 minutes later, my daughter was also kicked out because the club house has a 30-minute limit. Again, it was completely empty at the PlayStation area. There was no one waiting or next in line to play.

This inflexibility and lack of consideration for the situation left me thoroughly disappointed. The essence of our stay was for our children's enjoyment, yet the management's rigid enforcement of rules overshadowed this purpose.

Below is my complete review of our family stay at the Princess Family Club Bávaro.

Positive:

1. Many pools for the kids (2 kid pools, 2 club houses, relaxing pools, and another big one near the beach)
2. Shuttles between the main hotel and beach run continuously
3. Nature walk was nice. The hotel has ponds with fish and turtles, ducks, peacocks
4. Outside is well kept and clean

Negative:

1. Too many people. The hotel has more than 1,600 rooms so it felt like a public beach, public buffet, restaurants. Unless you are the early birds, it will be impossible to find a lounge chair on the beach. My family ended sitting on the sand while on the beach. Waiting for food, either in the buffet or food trucks or ice cream, will take at least 10-15 minutes.
2. Pool waters in all pools look muddy and not clean. One night they left the light of the kid’s pool on, we could see the thick residue accumulated at the bottom.
3. Food is very salty in the buffets (actual reserved dinners in restaurants were a bit better). I was not used to the food on the first day and couldn’t finish half of it. I did get acclimated afterwards.
4. My son got diarrhea the last two days staying at the hotel. I do not where he contracted it from but the entire family was fine.
5. Some staffs are nice such as the family club front desk. However, many other staffs are not as friendly and they look like miserable working there. When I asked them a question, they don’t look directly at me and just give me a hand sign. For example, when I asked the hostess when the buffet would be closing, she would look elsewhere and raise up 4 fingers.
6. Bar offers games but many games were not functional. 1 pool table, 3 foosball tables (1 not working completely, 1 not working properly), 4 games machine (2 not working, 1 asked to put in coins)
7. Kid’s clubhouse too strict following their own rules, even when the place is empty without...

We arrived at a reasonable 6pm on a monday afternoon. The lobby was quiet and abundant with employees trying to look busy.

We made our check-in at the familt club and we had to talk to the receptionist through a dozen used champagne glasses. It was nice to see some people were greeted nicely.

While we waited for the check-in, the bell boy pointed to us the blue cooler on the floor with sparkling wine bottles inside and that we could serve ourselves. There were no open bottles and we felt bad opening one for just a glass so we opted out. He eventually served us a glass before leading us to our room with our luggage.

Room was clean, some bed sheets were stained but looked cleaned. The bathroom, had some flies in the sink and minor mildew in some corners of the shower.

Even if we booked the earliest reservations every night, they were already out of chairs for kids because another family arrived first. Also, forget about kid cutlery, glasses, its all designed for adults.

I would like to highlight the rudeness and unfriendliness of Ezequiel at the buffet. His attitude really made us regret our booking every morning.

If you asked how come it was impossible to make change and how come the hotel carries so little considering the high volume of clientele… you would get the same broken record answer: “Its all I have, no tengo mas” followed by a shoulder shrug. Regardless of how difficult it was to make change, we went every morning because we wanted to tip staff. We wanted to arrive with american small bills but circumstances made it impossible and it was quite a hassle.

Our first morning we woke up to a water deluge coming from the ceiling. It started small and within 20 minutes flooded our entire room with 1/2" water. We had to call the reception twice, to get some sense of urgency out of them once water started leaking through the electrical lights (we were standing barefeet on 1/2" of water, imagine the safety hazard we got ourselves into).

Someone came after 30 minutes (to lead us to our new room) and we went back in and we packed our things ourselves (back into danger zone). The gentlemen led us to our room and that was it. Nobody offered a compensation or even an apology. We ended up complaining to our travel agent but to no avail. Someone from reception called 2 days later (Micky) eventually and asked us what was wrong if we were in a new room without the flood issue. I was dumbfounded.

We eventually asked for a late checkout (2 extra hours) as compensation since we thought our flight got delayed. Rosalba at the guest service was very cold, unreceptive but eventually caved and took out a form for me to fill. Once I filled the form, she left and came back 10 minutes later with legal papers for me to sign in exchange of a late checkout. I politely refused and said they were too intense. I also mentionned how a smile goes a long way for someone in her position. She blankly stared at me waiting for me to leave. This is shocking for us, but that quickly became a trend in every service area of the hotel. Be it at the outside bars, buffets, we really felt unwelcomed.

The food was ok, very repetitive in the buffets but at least everyone found something they liked and stuck to it throughout the week.

The a la carte restaurants had better service and food but again, service was a hit and miss. The proposed wine unfortunately tasted vinegary. Prepare the credit card if you desire good wine.

The pools were filthy. Green algae made the pool at the beat green while the tiles are not green. The water was so warm, it felt wrong to swim in it.

For the kids pool, we were told the

3-stars. Possibility of a low 4-star if service could get sorted out.

Be safe out there and happy vacation wherever you...

First, this place is massive. We were there for 7 nights and didn't get to all pools/restaurants. We mostly took the "train" everywhere around the property as it would take at least 20 minutes for our kids to walk from one end to the other. The "train" was a series of golf carts that taxi guests around the property which we found really convenient.

The room was perfect for us. Clean, enough space for 2 adults and 2 kids. Kids loved the bunk beds. We did wish the TV could face the bunk beds, but oh well.

Beach was nice and clean. Clear blue water and white sand. No seaweed. No rocks. No shells. No fish. Nothing. Just water and sand.

The food ranged from bad to great. Every meal offered something good to eat, but you often had to try some not great things until you found it. Usually, whatever station they were making things fresh (paella, rotisserie chicken, ham, etc.) was the way to go. The food sitting under the hot lamps was never great and the restaurants were mostly disappointing (we liked Foccacia, but we would still go to the Buffet after). The reservation system was annoying to make or change reservations.

Now the Bad... THE WIFI DOESN'T WORK FOR MORE THAN A MINUTE AT A TIME. THEN YOU HAVE TO FORGET, RECONNECT AND USE ANOTHER MINUTE. I felt like I ran out of AOL hours.

Every time you go to or from your room, someone is trying to con you into a time share. They will offer you "Free massages" or "complimentary breakfast" which is laughable at an all inclusive...all to get you to spend an hour with them as they try to CON you into buying a time share. No one should buy a time share. They are all scams. And this was every day, multiple times, even after I asked them to stop. It was disgusting and would've made this a 1 star review if we didn't enjoy the rest of the time.

Don't ask for help. There were a couple of nice staff members (NES at the front desk and Kelvin at the pool), but for the most part, no one wants to help you. The ones that want to help, don't know the answers or will just tell you the wrong thing. Simple things like what time does something close or how can I get somewhere. Most responses are you have to use the APP, which would be great if the wifi worked. No wifi, no app, no help. We were told that the "train" runs 24 hours by multiple people as we wanted to see sunrise. I was willing to pay someone to take us to the beach at 5:30 am. We got up since it runs 24 hours, asked the guy at reception who simply said no, impossible, can't help you, sorry. Didn't even want to help. Then I found someone else, gave him $5 and he drove us with no issue. Why does it have to be like that? Any staff member who helped did it as if they were doing me a favor. Tried to get towels by the pool and I"m told I can't get pink towels here, i have to go back (1 mile or so) to the family pool to get towels. I argued...and then was told "Ok, i'll make an exception this time" and was given towels. Everything was like that. You had to get staff to do favors and often for tips.

I called for extra towels at 4 pm. Then again at 430 and went down to reception to see if I could expedite the request. Towels arrived after 8 pm.

Overall, we enjoyed our time, loved the pool and beach, and managed to find good food to eat. As long as you can avoid the constant time share sales AND constant pushing of underwhelming excursions, this place can be good.

I recommend this for families with smaller children as the water park was geared towards younger kids. Over 6 years old or so, and the water park...