Iberostar Dominicana Hotel Rating: 3.0 Pearls

Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

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Staff dancing in lobby

In a span of five minutes, I watched the crowded, but mellow, pool scene go from zero to 60 thanks to the Euro remix of "What is Love" that came blasting through the speakers. With high kicks and dance moves, a gaggle of women started another intense, daily session of water aerobics.

Ten minutes later, a group of men in their 50s and 60s flexed their muscles and posed for their wives' cameras before hitting the water for a mean game of water polo. In another corner, a diving instructor helped a couple strap on air tanks while a game of Bingo (or rather, "Bingo, Bango, Bongo") was just getting underway on the beach. There's so much to do that it verges on overwhelming -- but in a good way, with salsa bands suddenly breaking into song just outside the Higuey buffet. Lots of fun, but peace and quiet is hard to find.

Dominicana's lobby, grounds and rooms exude a 1970s Miami feel -- there's little to be found that's not of some shade of pink, orange, or green. And though nearly everything about the Dominicana could use a face-lift, especially the rooms, the grounds are immaculately manicured and impeccably clean, a testament to the army of landscapers and cleaning crews perpetually trimming, wiping, or picking things up.

With 590 rooms, the Dominicana is one of three resorts within the larger Iberostar complex. It shares its facilities with its next-door neighbor, the Iberostar Punta Cana, which is more or less the same price. On its other side is the considerably more expensive Iberostar Grand Hotel Bavaro, and the staff there is strict about people not crossing over into the more expensive price bracket.

Ranked 5th on Budget Travel's 2008 list of Best Values in the Caribbean, the Dominicana draws bargain-hunting couples and families with young children from all over the world, but primarily from the United States, Spain, France, and Germany. A friendly group, everyone seemed eager to mingle with one another in the airy, spacious lobby once the sun went down.

Fast-paced, attentive staff

On arrival, I was greeted with “welcome home” and a fruity frozen drink in a wine glass. The resort map was explained in detail, as were the instructions on how to use the safe. But the most important tip I didn't listen to? Since the room keys are magnetic, don't store them next to a television or cell phone -- it'll spare you a trip to the front desk to get them reprogrammed.

Iberostar's staff may wear the national colors of IKEA (blinding yellow and royal blue), but don't hold this against them: For such a big resort (590 rooms), the staff has a lot of people to look after (1,290 guests when I was there during February, plus 53 children). Still, they are attentive, even with small things. An example: My server brought oil and vinegar to the table without my asking (all it took was the sight of my big, dry salad piled high on my plate).

Service requests are handled promptly. When I arrived in my room and found the safe locked shut, I called, and a repairman showed up within 15 minutes.

Housekeeping is equally attentive: My towels arrived within 10 minutes, and my express-service laundry arrived by 5 p.m. the next day, as I'd been told it would.

Reservations for the à la carte restaurants should be made immediately upon arrival. Tables fill up quickly, and the resort only allows three restaurants per person, per week. I had to beg my way into a 9:30 p.m. reservation at Maria Bonita, the Mexican restaurant.

The drinks service in the lobby was bearable, considering the volume of people to be served. It took about 15 minutes per drink. Unfortunately, there's no drinks service on the beach, but plenty of bars and restaurants just off the sand.

View on a Larger Map

Located on a picturesque, but crowded, stretch of beach in Punta Cana, the Iberostar Dominicana is wedged between the Iberostar Punta Cana and Iberostar Grand Hotel Bavaro, and connected via a boardwalk. Guests at Dominicana equally share the facilities at Punta Cana, but not with Bavaro (though Bavaro guests can use the facilities on the Dominicana and Punta Cana properties).

There’s not much worth seeing in Punta Cana itself though -- everything to see, do, and eat is on the property itself.

Volleyball on the beach

I found a chair after a five-minute lap. However, beach-goers who want two chairs next to each another, let alone a shaded hut, must plant their flag early.

There's a boardwalk stretching from the Iberostar Grand Bavaro to the Punta Cana. Though there are security guards posted at either end of Iberostar's properties, guests could even walk over to the Riu if they wanted.

There is no drinks service on the beach, but there are several bars, restaurants, and a great ice cream stand just steps from the sand.

The Standard Room

Rooms are clean, but a bit outdated. The specks of dirt around the corners come not from lack of scrubbing, but from the sheer age of this place, built in 1995 (and scarcely renovated since).

The couch, chair cushion, and both comforters on the full-size beds share the same dull floral fabric. They match the walls painted orange, green and blue. Pink-and-yellow accent pillows match the pink-and-green curtains. Translation: It's in dire need of an update, but clean.

In every bathroom, there’s a bidet, a feature mostly reserved for upgraded suites in most all-inclusives in the D.R. It serves as a reminder of the Spanish chain’s European sensibility and sanitation (something notoriously absent from most Dominican resorts). However, I did notice that water seemed to gather underneath the bathtub. I could hear it sloshing around every time I stepped in.

Many of the standard rooms are located on the ground level, just steps from the pool and a main walkway. Unfortunately, these rooms don’t offer much privacy. My room was one of such rooms. It was very public, loud, and dark (thanks to the trees and two massive columns in front of my balcony). Anyone could've seen me changing into my swimsuit (or insert any other verb, like eating, sleeping, or watching TV). The only alternative was to close the thick, black-out curtains, but this made the room feel like a cave. I frequently heard chatter both in the hallway outside the door as well as on the walkway adjacent to my balcony. That said, the room's proximity to the pool and beach is also one of its plusses -- I encountered a family who had specifically requested a room on the ground floor for the easy access to the pool and beach.

Unfortunately, Wi-Fi hasn't arrived yet in the Dominicana's rooms, but management assures me it's on the way. For now, guests can access Wi-Fi in the main lobby building and in the common areas up until the pool. It's $13 for a 24-hour pass.

Outlets come covered in thick, bulky plastic, so Blackberry chargers or most cell phone chargers won't work. Guest services let me plug in my charger by their desk, which had the plug I needed, but it would be more convenient to bring a converter.

Another problem I encountered was with the safe. It was old (I had to press and hold a button on the inside of the door in order to lock it from the outside), and didn't fit our laptop, as many of the newer ones do.

Behold: the photo I took of the bottle opener in the bathroom. You need it to open the four Brahma beers (plus soda and water), all free, and stocked in the mini-bar.

Outdoor massages by the pool

The Iberostar's best gems are its beach and the pools (no swim-up bar though). However, they're both crowded, so don't expect this to be your haven of peace and quiet. "It can feel a little overloaded here, especially at night -- ‘’so’’ many people," a risk manager from Switzerland visiting with his family told me. "We realize this isn't the Maldives, where there are very few guests and five people to attend to one person, but we do wish it were a little quieter here."

Wi-Fi is coming to the resort slowly. During my stay, however, it was only available in the main lobby and out toward the middle of the large central courtyard. There’s no Internet in any of the rooms. It's $13 for a 24-hour pass. Or, for $10, guests can use one of the 20 PCs in one of the D.R.’s biggest business centers.

There's a medium-size casino in the lobby with tables and slot machines. It was packed when I walked by at night.

There's a small, crowded fitness center located on the second floor of the Jacuzzi-spa building. It comes with a handful of modern cardio machines (treadmills and bikes), and well-used weights. There's always a trainer on duty, but there is a perpetual wait to get on a treadmill. Views from the treadmill are of the turquoise water, though, so the 30-minute wait is worth it.

The spa, in a private building adjacent to the fitness center, has massage therapists on staff and plenty of appointments for manis and pedis. It was empty when I walked in, but the day was too nice to be stuck inside.

Live music at the Theater

Guests almost unanimously complain that the evening entertainment is pretty weak. Consisting mostly of bad karaoke and some live music, it's worse than most Dominican resorts.

That said, the entertainment staff works hard. There are activities scheduled from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day ranging from Spanish lessons to rifle shooting to water aerobics and water polo to merengue and salsa lessons. During my stay, the classes were packed and everyone looked like they were having fun.

Kids enjoying the evening entertainment

The small mini-club for kids ages 5 to 12 was tucked away behind the glut of shops on Caribbean Street. It was always closed when I dropped by, but for good reason: The kids were always out playing. The staff made sure to leave a sign taped to the door with the wee ones' whereabouts ( "at the pool" or "on the playground"). Hours for the mini-club are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., not including the mini-disco at the main theater from 8 to 8:30 p.m., before the adult show gets underway.

As one TripAdvisor reviewer from Cincinatti puts it, "If you have children and you have come to this resort with a family-centric purpose, then this is the place for you. There are children everywhere."

I unsuccessfully tried to find parents who enrolled their children in the kids' program, but found several who kept their children in tow instead -- not because they didn't trust the people watching the children, but because they'd come for a family vacation.

There's a shallow, kidney-shaped kids' pool where it's sometimes easier to find lounge chairs during the day. For aquatic kids who can swim on their own, we spotted kid-friendly basketball hoops scattered around the main pool.

Foods that kids love are ample, including vats of French fries, plates of burgers and enough pizzas to give Dominos' yearly quota a run for its money. There are also a few discreet ways in which to sneak fruit into their diet, say, delicious fruit smoothies.

It seems like there's an army of staff members perpetually sweeping, raking, and manicuring the immaculate grounds of this hotel.

In addition to keeping the grounds clean, the housekeeping is blazingly quick to grab the mop when it begins to rain. The hallways in the residential buildings are lined in very orange tiles that turn into virtual skating rinks when wet. (I almost fell on my face twice, and saw other guests almost did too.)

The rooms themselves were almost as clean as the grounds and landscaping, but showed more natural signs of age like a few frays in the upholstery or scratches on the furniture. I didn't find anything egregious, and there were certainly no gross sheets -- unlike those on my bed at the NH Real Arena.

Cheese tray at Higuey Main Buffet

They have the salads, starches, and sweets covered in the buffets: 16 different kinds of bread (say, dark, light, rolls, loaf, braided, seeded), eight different kinds of pizza, four pastas, three different kinds of very fresh lettuce (green leaf, watercress, and spinach), an assortment of equally fresh veggies, and a seemingly endless selection of desserts, including four flavors of ice cream.

The meat, however, was overcooked, which is the case at virtually every Dominican all-inclusive. The fish in the buffet tasted like rubber, but I gave it a second chance at Maria Bonita, the Mexican restaurant. Again, I found my "Puerto Vallarta style" (spicy, apparently) filet to be the most emaciated, dried-up filet of fish that I've seen to date -- and I’ve been to a lot of buffets. Several TripAdvisor reviewers also complain.

There are six specialty restaurants, but guests need to make reservations early. (Guests at Iberostar Dominicana can also eat on Iberostar Punta Cana's property). I wouldn't return to the Mexican restaurant, but I would definitely try La Cana, the steakhouse, and La Marimba, the seafood grill, both of which get good reviews among guests and are near the beach.

Breakfasts are great, however, with buckwheat pancakes and fresh orange juice. At dinner, the resort also has a pretty good cheese tray with an assortment of crackers, nuts, and dried fruits. At every meal, there’s a wide array of fruits ( guanabana anyone?).

There's a salad bar available even at breakfast, although it's an abbreviated version of the one that appears at lunch and dinner. There's also a selection of cold cuts that I'm not so sure are actually cold.

Unlike at previous resorts, I did notice that the water tasted fairly ripe with chemicals. I asked management, who told me the water is treated and perfectly safe to drink. I haven't heard reports of anyone getting sick, but it tasted a little funky. For better water, check out the Grand Palladium Punta Cana, where each and every glass of water is served directly from a bottle.

A popular ceremony spot

• Wedding Size: Up to 150 people

• Extra Fees: $50 day pass for non-hotel guests

• Wedding Packages: The standard wedding package ($1,600) includes a wedding coordinator, a bouquet and a boutonniere, two bottles of champagne, a wedding cake for 15 people, a guitar trio or pianist during the ceremony, 14 5-by-7 photos, and dinner for the bride and groom.

• Ceremony Locations: The garden (80 people max), the beach (150 people max), or the outdoor courtyard near the shops (150 people max)

• Reception Options: Unlike at other all-inclusive resorts, there's no extra fee for food and drinks. Small parties (less than 45 people) will have to dine along with all of the other resort guests at one of the a la carte restaurants; larger groups (from 45 to 200 people) can reserve an entire restaurant for three hours ($750 to $1,000, depending on the restaurant).

• Photographers and Videographers: Photo packages range from $400 (for 45 6-by-8 pictures) to $2,000 (for a digital booklet, 100 6-by-8s and five 12-by-18s); videography packages range from $450 for a 25-minute edited video to $700 for an hourlong edited video.

• Music: Options range from $180 for a musical trio (for one hour) to $800 for an orchestra (for three hours).

• Cocktail Parties: For an extra $19 to $26 per person, you can host a cocktail party with hot and cold hors d'oeuvres and an open bar.

• Cakes: A cake for 15 people is included in the basic wedding package, but upgrades start at $3 per extra person, and can cost more depending on the flavor of the cake and the level of decoration.

• Spa Treatments: The spa offers a $190 bridal treatment, which includes a facial, a massage, a mani/pedi, and hair dressing.

• Honeymoon Suite: No special suites; many newlyweds opt for a larger Junior Suite

• Airport Transportation: The hotel does not provide airport shuttles; a round-trip taxi costs about $50.