Sports Illustrated Resorts Marina & Villas Cap Cana — Hotel in Higüey

The rep that help us to confirm was very informative and made the confirmation process very easy. We will see once we get to our destination if it's as easy as she says that it'll be. We're back from our destination...NEVER GO TO SPORTS ILLUSTRATED!!!!! Please look at my pictures attached to this review. I'm not sure who is to blame, but Sports Illustrated blames it on Monster Reservations, and Monster Reservations blames it on Sports Illustrated. Either way the conditions were deplorable! The resort shuts everything down by 11p.m. It's a retirement community, and that's fine if that's what you go on vacation to experience. I'm a registered nurse, and I felt that I caught C-Diff by just walking into the room. I work as a travel nurse so the 1st that I do at any stay is pull back the bedding to check for bed bugs or any indications of mites or anything, and to my surprise you'll see what my sheets looked like. It was close to impossible to get a supervisor to come and look at the conditions of the room. NOT CLEAN AT ALL NO WHERE!!! The bathroom floor was not mopped....we none of the suite was mopped. The counter was dusty as if it had not been dusted in weeks. The decor is something that I wouldn't even put in a resort that only caters to animals let alone a human being. The vase was cracked 360 degrees around, why not take the vase out? Why leave that in there for someone's child to be cut or hurt by the vase? The geico's are not shy of people. I've been to P.R...hell I live in Phoenix so I'm no stranger to reptiles. However, I do know that with proper extermination, they won't be a problem. Therefore, they aren't exterminating like they're supposed to. When I spoke with monster about the conditions, they said that I should speak with someone onsite and that my room could not be changed through them. Onsite personnel didn't get me out of the room until the following day when I indicated that I was going online to find some place else to stay. Why did I have to stay in the room for a day under those conditions? Needless to say that I didn't get any sleep because you can hear the geicos scurrying over the counter tops. We didn't have a view... our view was of the landfill. That's what monster doesn't tell you all. They have a section at the resort for monster clients. It's in the colored-people section (WAAAAYYYY in the back where you can only see the construction workers building on a private portion of the resort). The patio was full of lizard poop and had not been hosed down in God knows how long, so I could not even sit out there if I wanted to because of how unclean it was from geicos and lizards pooping all over everything. I really want my money back from Monster because of how deplorable the conditions were. I have 2 more years to take the remainder of my 2 trips because of something Monster was offering to 1st responders at my job. I can only hope my next 2 vacations will make up for the horrific experience that I had with Monster at the Sports Illustrated resort in Punta Cana D.R. The food was terrible, and I thought that I could give my gut a break from the resort dining by going to the Italian restaurant on the resort....don't waste your money. Save your gut, and your wallet...JUST DON'T GO!!! Watch where you're stepping in the grass because they say that you can't bring your dogs on the resort, but I guess people that are owners or vacation frequently brought their dogs, but didn't clean up the dog droppings. Imagine walking through the grass barefoot and stepping in dog poop. They need to make sure that people are picking up after their dogs, and if they are ensuring that then they need to have people that work on the resort to pick up after people's dogs. The only good thing that I have to say is that the drinks were good, and they used real liquor (not the watered down stuff that most resorts like to use). Hope this...

We visited in January 2023 Ancora Punta Cana (now called Sports Illustrated Resorts since the end of Dec 2022. BTW nobody notified us of the change, and we booked our trip in December 2022). This trip was our worse vacation in the last 10 years!!. We arrived at the airport, and our transportation wasn't there as promised. We took a taxi to get to the hotel. We arrived at 4pm and our room wasn't ready until 5pm. Then, the room they gave us was facing the back of the property. My view was an empty parking lot. I requested another room, and this time they gave us a room close to the restaurant. No view of the marina or any source of water. The hotel looks empty, but they didn't have any other rooms available because they are being renovated (huh??#!). Also, they gave us ONE key card for a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 teens). They said they didn't have more keys until next week. Can you imagine a weekend with teens that move up and down with ONE key card? Nightmare! The beds were not comfy. All the furniture looks outdated. Their website is misleading. They show pictures of the hotel at the beach, and the truth is that the beach is 10 min away by car. They provide a shuttle to and from the beach every hour from 10 am to 5 pm. If you like early morning walks on the beach, you will have none of that. Again, the hotel is not at the beach. Their beach club is at the beach, and if you forget your damn ticket from the front desk, the All inclusive package is not applicable and you need to pay. We bought an "ALL inclusive" package. Alcoholic drinks were included but the barman at the pool is awful, although the barman at the beach club is good. The only beer included is Presidente. Anything else has a cost. For a Heineken, Budweiser, and Corona they were charging us $13!!! In the US, their cost is between $6 and $10 (in a fancy bar). The food included at the beach club were nachos, hamburgers, and hotdogs. If you want something more substantial, well is NOT included. We ordered shrimp cocktails and fried fish, and they were tasty, but we wondered what's the point of having an "ALL inclusive package." At the hotel, the breakfast, lunch, and dinner were disappointing. Lots of food but it doesn't have the quality of a "Grand Resort" as they advertise. The service staff is very kind and tries to do their best. However, the lack of training is visible. Missing spoons to serve food from the buffet is a constant that could lead to food cross-contamination. The desserts look great but are tasteless. For the last day of our stay, I decided to have a massage. The front desk told me that the spa had no availability, but they could send me a masseuse to my room. They said the price for a 55 min massage was $50. When she arrived, she asked me if I had a membership with the hotel, I said no. Then, she said the price for non-members was $100. I said I cannot pay that amount, and I showed the front desk confirmation. She accepted the $50, but the moment killed the relaxation vibe. Also, she used a massage oil that smelled terrible, like the lotion that athletes or old people put on to relax the muscles. Awful experience! When I talked to the front desk, the person told me the Spa is being renovated too. So THERE IS NOT A SPA. It's a huge scam, and we felt cheated in every activity we did there. The complex has huge potential, and the restaurants inside the complex (not owned by the hotel) offer good service and food, but it's all American prices. You cannot find a bargain in that ghetto. We understand that at some point the Sports Illustrated resort will be ok, but right now, management is ripping people off. It's a lie after another lie. They are aiming at people without international all-inclusive experience that can accept whatever they offer because they don't have other parameters. For a seasoned traveler, it's a scam. I doubt...

Monster Reservation Group set up our 6 day 5 night all inclusive dream vacation at the Sports Illustrated Resort in the Marina & Villa Cap Cana. We paid approximately $350 and agreed to take tour of the property and model rooms for not more than 120 minutes. When we left the Atlanta Airport it was 12 degrees, but when we arrived in Puna Cana it was sunny and 80+. A shuttle picked us up and drove us to the resort. When we arrived the resort was completely deserted, like a ghost town. We thought this was suppose to be a busy tie of year. They gave us a junior sweet on the fifth floor with a balcony that overlooked the relaxing pool and marina. The hallway that led to the elevator and the hallway directly in front of our room had exposed torn up ceilings that had appearly been leaking from the now exposed overhead pipes. Our toilet had no water and would not work. I called the front desk and they sent a maintenance person that was able to fix it. Our TV was equipped with a fire stick, but the Wi-Fi didn’t work for two days. So the TV didn’t work. We had to watch the NFL playoff games in the bar/lounge that was all in Spanish and very loud and annoying. The all inclusive buffet was just so/so. The resort only offered one restaurant per day with a different cuisine each night unlike most all inclusive resorts that offer 4 to 5 restaurants each day with a different cuisine. The morning of the second day, our Latitude representative joined my wife and I for breakfast. After breakfast he took us over to their very impressive looking glass Latitude office where we huddled around our presenters computer and sat through an extremely boring presentation. There were about 12 other couples getting a similar presentation in front of their Latitude representative’s computer which made for a very noisy environment. After an 120 minutes the owner of Latitude, Cecil, came by and wanted to know why we hadn’t been signed up yet. I told him that it appeared that the Sports Illustrated Report appeared to be hemorrhaging cash, and was simply nothing more than a Ponzi scheme to get us to invest to pay off his earlier investors. I told him our first impression of the this resort was that it was worn out and tired and need some major tender, loving care. Cecil asked us if we were told by the Monster Reservation Representative that the Sports Illustrated Resort was currently under renovation. We said “no” we were not told that the resort was under renovation. In fact, the whole time we stayed at the Sports Illustrated Resort we never saw any renovation taking place. I told Cecil that I predict that if a major hotel chain doesn’t buy this resort and renovate it that it will go bankrupt within three years time. We felt sorry for our Latitude representative, but after nearly three hours we finally said show us the models and finish up. He took us back to the buffet restaurant where we ate lunch. After lunch, we changed into our swimming suits and took the 15 minute shuttle to the beach area. Most of the beach was taken up by to Hyatt resort properties, and we were relegated to the north end of the beach, where there was an open sewer that stunk". We strolled along the beach, were asked to leave the Hyatt beach area then boarded the shuttle back to our resort. We never returned to this beach again. After that, we hung out at the main swimming pool that was completely deserted. We had the run of the place. The afternoon before our last night, I got a call from the front desk with a last minute room upgrade. To little too late, as we were settled into our room. Our dream vacation was a total nightmare. We proceeded to rent a car and drive to Santa Domingo where we spent the next two nights at the brand...