Sunscape Puerto Plata Dominican Republic — Hotel in Puerto Plata

This is resort is clean and very beautiful. Everything is within a few minute walk so no need for waiting around for golfcarts/shuttles to drive you to dinner. The staff is extremely friendly and attentive but could use a little extra training. We had a few problems specifically with consiligere services. I came with a group of 12 and had 2 birthdays with us as well as a surprise engagement. We requested banners put on the doors for the birthdays as we had seen them on several other doors on the resort. We never received the banners, although they were pretty convincing when they arranged it to be done at the front desk. We had to ask 3 times to have anything done for the engaged couple. Thank God we didnt depend on the resort for the actual surprise because it would have been a disaster. Maybe we should have called ahead to avoid this problem but I had never had a problem at other resorts. The food is alright. On par with other resorts I've been to. Nothing too notable other than special dinners offered by travel agencies or resort functions. It seems they pull their top chefs and servers to these events. For example, we had castaways for a special apple vacation dinner and it was so amazing that we promptly made reservations to eat there the following day. Unfortunately everything tasted completely different. These special dinners are a double edged sword because one of the days they offered a special dinner and show in the theater, none of my party was interested. But to our surprise they closed every restaurant except on to force you into attendance of this show. What if that's not when we wanted to eat or what we wanted to eat? They advertise a snackbar above the pool to be open all night. I was there 7 nights and it wasnt open even one of those nights. The only place you can eat after the disco was the coffee lounge. Even at that it was a bare bone menu. Black coffee with powdered cream or assorted pastries I assume were left over from else where in the resort. My favorite was the cheese and mayonnaise or ham sandwiches that they would serve you one corner at a time. Theres also a few more things you may like to know about the restaurants here. All of them require reservations for dinner. Except the buffet which is pretty lackluster. Also just go ahead and ignore those dresscodes they advertise. It became pretty apparent that we all had wasted luggage space packing pants and dress shoes as we showed up in shorts and flipflops everywhere and were never questioned. Liquor is inconsistent, brand names change from bar to bar, and they often run out of things. The bartenders should all sit down for a training session with Jose at the lobby bar. Hes the only notable bartender on the whole resort. He consistently mixes good drinks and has a great energy. Everyone one the resort can learn something from Jose at the lobby bar. Even your restaurant servers. I suggest if any management is reading this that you immediately go give him a raise after finishing this.

My biggest warning to you is actually during check in. You will arrive early and be dragged into two different meetings. One is group check in, which sort of confused me since we should have had a special check in since we were sunclub. The second meeting is for the sole purpose to sell you excursions. Then you'll have 2-3 hours to wait before they feel like giving you a room. They treat this like they had no idea you were coming and that the resort is jam packed full. Like I said we were a group of 12 in sunclub, as soon as we stepped off the bus the amstar representative said our travel agents name and asked us if we were here. Yet still it was 4 hours before we received our rooms. We were the last ones out of the whole bus load. Our luggage just sat at the door as we waited in the lobby during a storm. It didnt seem like staff really cared that much. They just became more and more creative with their excuses. So my suggestion is pack some swimwear in your backpack. Maybe something to do incase it rains. Because you're going to need to keep...

I have a lot to say about this resort. My experiences ranged from incredible to poor. My husband and I were there on our honeymoon and upgraded to the sun club. Upon arrival at 12:30 after a long 8 hours of travel, we were told our room wouldn’t be ready until 2:30. They were able to get us in our room by 1:30. We found that what was supposed to be a room with one king size bed was actually two full beds pushed together. One mattress sat higher than the other so after one night sleeping like that, we requested our room be changed. They changed it that same day to a much more comfortable room with a king bed. The first room was very humid as well, and the refrigerator wasn’t working so we were happy to be accommodated with a room that allowed us to breathe and have cold beverages. The swim-up bar was awesome and all of the staff and servers were incredibly friendly. My husband and I were drinking lots of champagne so eventually, room service brought us bottles instead of glasses which made both of us happy. (Keep in mind each server was tipped at least $20 daily. I highly doubt that accommodation would have been met if we weren’t good tippers) The food was mediocre. Anything with fish tasted fishy, anything American was bland and anything Dominican just wasn’t my preference. Out of probably 20 meals, I enjoyed maybe 4 of them. Even the Hors d’oeuvres were stale, bland and almost sour. Now let’s talk about the beach. After about 2 days of going to the beach, we didn’t want to go back because the WORKERS of Sunscape begged/pleaded and manipulated you to buy various products because they sell them “cheapy cheapy”. It didn’t matter how many times we said no, how many times we ignored them or how many times we bought from them, they never left us alone. We couldn’t nap, eat, drink or listen to music without literally 10 people begging us to give a pedicure, a massage, sell jewelry, towels, sunglasses etc. we understood it was a business, but it was aggressive and made almost the entire experience completely unenjoyable. It was like being on your death bed with vultures just swarming you and waiting for you to die. Fast forward a few days and one of the concierge ladies came IN OUR ROOM without knocking while my husband and I were intimate. I confronted her later and she stated that it was an accident and that she meant to go in a different room. Even if that’s true, why wouldn’t you knock? I felt like we were completely violated and it almost ruined the entire trip. Then the next day, we kept finding bugs crawling on our pillows. We finally pulled back the sheets and found live bugs crawling in the creaces of the mattress at the headboard and foot of the bed. We were able to confirm that they weren’t bed bugs, but it was still disgusting and terrifying and I wanted to burn all my clothing and bathe in bleach. We called management upon this happening and they immediately removed our bedding and thoroughly cleaned everything. The chief of concierge tried to calm me and massage my arm in the midst of my panic. She was very sweet and offered us a complimentary couples massage, which we took full advantage of and it was INCREDIBLE. The entire spa was beautiful, and again the staff made us feel so welcome and so at home. They also had a great gym for those that want to stay fit while vacationing. The WiFi was horrible. We barely got service anywhere and our Apple TV didn’t work even though it was fully connected. The photographer that works for the resort did a photo shoot for us. It was about 2 hours of beautiful photos being taken in various settings and multiple outfits. The photographer was so fun and made us feel like we were the best looking couple on the planet. That experience alone was incredible and something I’d love to do with him again. The photo packages were reasonably priced and we got our USB of photos the next day. We just have to wait 4-6 weeks for the album and canvas to be mailed to us. Truthfully, I won’t ever return to a Sunscape resort. The friendly staff wasn’t worth all the trouble...

Ok, so first off this is going to sound like a shill review but I assure you it isn't. I am a real person who just went on a real honeymoon with my real wife. I will try to keep this as short as possible but honestly...there's a lot to talk about.

First off, we had an absolutely incredible experience. We were blown away. We weren't expecting anything close to what we got considering what we paid. The entire week was just seamless. Now for the important details:

-The drinks are very good. Keep in mind that this is all inclusive, and the drinks are "free." That said, they use decent spirits that, while they may not be top shelf, certainly aren't "Aristocrat tequila" bad. They offer a great variety and contrary to some of the reviews I've seen, they are certainly anything but "weak." I was actually pretty surprised to find that they even had Jonny Walker red label scotch, and you can have as much of it as you like.

A word of caution: it's very easy to get smashed here. Self-control is a necessity.

-The grounds are meticulously kept and the facilities are very clean, functional, and modern. My only complaint was that the DVD player audio was hosed but we didn't really care; we weren't there to watch TV.

-The staff is extremely friendly and helpful. Not much more to say.

-The food is great. We were surprised on so many different occasions; the eggs in the breakfast buffet aren't the reconstituted eggs you find at Golden Corral, and the teriyaki steak at their Asian restaurant was tender and cooked to perfection. There were a few things we didn't like (e.g. the donuts at the cafe were pretty "meh") but our dining experience was overwhelmingly positive. Again, SO much more than we were expecting for the price.

-The activities might be cool (?) I dunno, we didn't really participate much as we typically like to just do our own thing. I will say though that at one point we were chilling at the pool and they started just passing out fresh coconuts with the tops hacked off to everyone. There was an employee with rum who would spike your coconut water if you so desired (and I so desired).

-It seemed like there was plenty of stuff for kids to do, so I imagine it would be a great destination for families.

Ok, now this next one is a big one for me. See, I like outdoor stuff, water sports in particular. I absolutely LOVE snorkeling, and I was a bit apprehensive about the water clarity based on some of the pictures I saw. That said...

IMPORTANT: the snorkeling around the resort is actually pretty dang good, and the water is CRYSTAL clear, but there is one caveat: you have to walk about 100 yards to the left to get into the clearer water. There's a small stream that muddies the water directly in front of the resort. It's still kinda green/blue but not clear enough for good snorkeling.

I included a picture of what the water looks like just a short, 2 minute walk from the resort (the beach is all public access so no worries about walking where you're not supposed to). It is BEAUTIFUL, and there's a FANTASTIC little cove where you can just walk in, stick your face in the water, and start seeing all kinds of fish. The reef around the cove forms a half moon around it and you can just snorkel the perimeter and see some beautiful marine life.

So again, the water is crystal clear in the area, but not directly in front of the resort. The best place for snorkeling is in front of the second resort over. Again, the beach is public access so it's not illegal, dangerous, or weird. Lots of people from other resorts were on "our" section of beach as well.

-There is one "off-resort" excursion that I would recommend. The Cayo Arena (Paradise Island) excursion offered through Amstar is a once in a life-time kind of trip. The bus ride is long, but so. freaking. worth it. If you want the BEST snorkeling experience (and like rum, beautiful caribbean islands, and being on a boat), do the trip. It's 95$ per person and worth every penny.

Special thanks to the staff at Sunscape PP. It was a...