Bavaro Princess All Suites Resort Spa & Casino Punta Cana

I stayed at the Princess for 6 nights7 days in Jan09. First off, I haven’t traveled much outside of the US but I have to say the beach was absolutely beautiful, I practically was in the water or laying on the beach chairs most of the time, you get two towels per room and beach chairs/umbrellas are free depending on how early you get the the beach. The hotel grounds are pretty and well kept, and the hotel has a wild life reserve so there were plenty of beautiful birds and other animals running about, that being said prior to travel I read reviews about sewage smells at the Princess, of which I did experience but not enough to ruin the trip, some reviews said its worse during certain times of the year so maybe we lucked out!
The Hotel rooms were okay, we had two double beds, nothing luxurious but not terrible, descent size room, the rooms had to be kept ice cold so as not to get humid- none of our clothes dried if left in the room, there was a fridge, TV, safe, blow dryer, phone, house keeping came everyday. The rooms are set up like a house with 8 rooms each with private entry, you either have a patio or balcony, we were close enough to see the beach from our room. The hotel grounds are large, it’s a five minute- ten minute walk from the beginning of the resort to the beach, but there is a trolley that runs throughout the day.
The food was the not the best, they used sugar and mustard gravy on everything- this is an All-inclusive most of Punta Cana is AI- that being said there was fresh fruit fresh, donuts and nutella for breakfast and lunch. Dinner was dismal, you have to sign up for the restaurants for dinner the first day you arrive and they fill up quickly. The restaurants are themed, like Chinese or Italian, and the chefs do there best to produce such food, but I was often left hungry. Drinks are included, but excessively sugarized, anything imported was extra money. You can sign up for excursion at the front desk and the tour guides pick you up and drop you off at the hotel. There is not much nightlife in Punta Cana as it was nothing there prior to the resort being built in fact most of the workers our bused there from Higuey, the casino was sad and empty, there were 2-3 clubs/disco no live music just djays and lots of reggaeton- there are free rides to the club but you have to catch a cab back, cabs, one of the clubs is with walking distance! However there is an activities team that puts on shows every night, they also did beach/pool activities and games. I did like the live band that performed after the theater show, but they only perform for an hour and they were done by 11pm. The hotel wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great, because of the food I probably will not return, Punta Cana is beautiful, a resort town, it doesn’t allows for much interaction with the locals, but I guess that’s how most of the clientele prefer it!