Cofresi Palm Beach & Spa Resort

My wife and I have been here 3 times now. We absolutely love the place and the service that is provided while we are there. Our only gripe from this last trip was our room didnt get too cool and the beach near the VIP beach area is a tad rocky in spots, but honestly everything else about the resort, food, drinks, and service was top notch! We couldn't have been happier and we are already looking to plan our next trip back. Another thing we would recommend is see Jose at the Bar Cheers when you walk in! He made our time so enjoyable and went above and beyond to help us with any issue we had even though he was working the bar. Thank you again to the Cofresi Palm for an incredible vacation and a Thank you to Cheap Caribbean for making this process so easy and pain free for my wife and I!

This is a review of the Cofresi Palm Beach & Spa Resort. Booked through CheapCarbbean.com (No promotion or compensation was received for writing this review). Dates of Visit: Sunday, April 7 – Thursday, April 11, 2019 (5 days/4 nights) My wife and I needed to get away STAT and found Cofresi Palm Beach & Spa Resort on Cheap Caribbean.com as we were on a tight budget for a vacation. We saw the reviews of this location and knew about certain issues prior to booking but nonetheless decided to go with this place. Note: Cofresi Palm Beach & Spa Resort is just one of the many (Tropical, Villa Resorts, Chairman’s Circle, etc) Lifestyles Holiday Resorts on this location on site. PROS: • One of the benefits of booking through CheapCarribean.com gave us access to the “VIP Beach” which had the best views of the water and no seaweed issues. The adjacent beaches (Harmony Beach and Cofresi Beach) had seaweed issues and didn’t look maintained. VIP Beach had Cabanas and Bunk-Bed style Cabanas in addition to frozen drinks (i.e. LaMumba, Blue Hawaii, Tiki-Tiki, Coco-Loco, etc. ). This was the only place that served food and drinks TO YOU. That was a great addition and perk. The VIP beach also had a “Sushi bar” but that was not that good as they filled the rolls with too much rice. • Sunday Welcome Party around 7 pm is worth attending and arranging your visit to include that. (They have a Thursday night welcome party, but we left before we could see that). They set up tables on a beach and have buffet style food, singing, fireworks. The variety for the buffet was more than the usual at this party. There are live singers and they open up the stage for the dance floor and have a cool FOAM party and live music with DJ. Don't be afraid to get on the stage and dance it up! • Night Club - There is a Night club at Cofresi Palm Beach & Spa Resort that says it opens up at 11:30 pm but it takes a while to warm up. There is a bar in the lounge as well. • Night Shows - There are nightly entertainment shows (African Zulu - Taino and Dominican Heritage) at the adjacent ‘Coliseum’ which are worth attending. We caught these after dinner. • No Mosquito issues during our visit in April 2019. Not sure if it’s because we brought Picardin mosquito repellant. CONS: • We had to pay for the entire trip upfront on the day of booking since it was part of a promotion sale at CheapCaribbean.com. There was NO option to put down just a deposit. They seemed to rush you and didn’t really go over when you could cancel the trip by (24 hrs. after booking?). • You expect the front desk and/or guest services to know all of the amenities and activities that go on in their resort, however, guest services and front desk are NOT in sync. For example, if you want to know about non-motorized water sports, which they say is included in the all-inclusive package, they say you have to go there and talk to the respective person in charge. It is a separate company. If you want to know about the spa, front desk / guest services they say “oh, we don't know anything about the spa and you have to go there”. Menu of the restaurants: they don't know that either. It was a waste of time walking back and forth to get information. And this place has a lot of walking. • You have to go between 9 am to 11am and 3 pm - 5 pm to Guest Services and book the restaurant EACH DAY. You're not able to book in advance (i.e. Upon Check-in). All in all, you have to allocate an hour a day to coordinate things. This takes time out of your vacation to plan for these things. SO ANNOYING!!! • We thought we would get access to the “VIP Restaurants” through Cheap Caribbean’s promotion but that was NOT the case when we arrived. Major disappointment. Cheap Carribbean.com should inform customers about that and/or discuss with Cofresi Palm Beach & Resort Spa that this is NOT included. We had our minds set on picking certain restaurants but were rudely told “NOPE” by Guest Services. • We booked Hotel Transfer through Cheap Caribbean (It is through a company called Amstar over there). There is Free Wi-Fi on bus - seems shady but it worked. We had to go to Tropical to talk to Jorge the next day at 10 AM to set up our transfer in 3 days. This was not at Cofresi but the adjacent hotel. When we got to that desk, they tried to set up Excursions for us. ANOTHER SCAM. Going back, you have to be at the POP airport 3 hours in advance, so keep that in mind. • Timeshare guys are VULTURES AT THIS PLACE. They stand in front of the Casablanca Buffet (Tropical Resort) and swarm over you. Just keep saying NO. SO ANNOYING. • You need to bring the resort map and information (timings) in order to plan your day. • The resort is on a mountain/hill so there are a lot of steps and walking and many items (restaurants, pools, etc.) are at other resorts complexes. There is a shuttle bus that runs pretty much every 10 minutes. But, be warned of the walking ROOM: We booked the Superior Garden View Room since that was the promo package on Cheap Carribean.com. The sales agent noted that we were celebrating our birthday and anniversary but couldn’t confirm any extra upgrades until we got to the resort. When we got the resort, we asked what the perk was and Cofresi upgraded us to a larger room. We ended up staying at Room 42312. Room was spacious but outdated, but were we disappointed since we asked for a pool or beach view and what we got was a view of undeveloped property (grass) and a busy traffic road. The telephone in the room did not work properly and I had to call room service and try to explain the situation. Not to mention that a baby roach came out of the phone when I banged it on the nightstand. The A/C had a limit to how cool you could make the room. The Shower did have hot water all the time we used it. Maid service was good, but they would knock on the door at 8 AM every day to clean/arrange the room. A bit of disturbance when vacationing. The bed was comfortable but anything negative of the room didn't really matter, because we were only in the room to sleep and the bed was comfortable. SPA: We decided to do a couples massage instead of an Excursion on this trip. The Ying Yang Spa at Tropical Resort offered a couples massage for 55 minutes for $250.00 USD. They first gave us a tour of the facilities and told us that we would have access each day to the spa Jacuzzi, Steam Room and Sauna at the resort. We didn’t end up going back a second time. Not worth it and didn’t have time since we had to plan our days around the restaurants and other timings. The spa was not as good as other resort spas we’ve experience (i.e. Miile Spa at Excellence Playa Mujeres, Cancun. We the person ringing us up and wrote it down on their waiver form to give us deep tissue massages but it wasn’t deep enough. We told the two attendees as well, but they didn’t go hard enough. It was basically a full body rub. FOOD: There are two (2) buffets in the entire resort complex. One at the Cofresi (The Pearl) and one at the Tropical Resort (Casablanca). Both were bland, but Casablanca was bigger and had more variety. They both have nightly themes (American, Gala, Dominican, etc.) • The Mexican restaurant (Trapechi Paradisio) was well worth it. Food was fresh and flavorful and large portions. Dessert (Flan) and Mexican hot chocolate was good. • Brazilian (Rodizio) was not that great. The meats (Chicken, Turkey, Pork, Beef, Sausage) were too dry and fatty. You start out with taking food a ala a buffet station and they bring the meats out after that. Service was slow at this place. WE WERE DISAPPOINTED THAT WE COULDN’T GET ANOTHER A LA CARTE RESTAURANT VIA GUEST SERVICES. They were not helpful in entertaining another a la carte restaurant option for us and said to go eat at the buffet. TIPS: 1) The Caribbean Sun is INTENSE from 12 pm – 2 pm. Be warned. Our skin were still peeling after 2 weeks. 2) Make sure you go at 9 am sharp and 3 pm sharp to book your restaurant choices at GUEST SERVICES. 3) Pack comfy sandals and shoes, no need for high heels and dressy outfits. It was far and few for dressing up at this location for restaurants and other programs. 4) Servers and Bar Tenders appreciated the tips. Bring small bills. 5) Check out the Activity board near the front desk to schedule your activities (Bachata lessons, Zumba, water aerobics, etc. ) 6) Drinks were really watered down. Bring your own mug/Yeti-cup as they serve the drinks in small plastic cups. 7) Travel/Trip Insurance – Cheap Caribbean has an option to add Travel/trip insurance directly when booking with them. Seems steep. Not sure if you can add travel insurance after booking the trip through them.

We went for our 20th wedding anniversary, the place is very big and beautiful. Pools (10) everywhere and the place is very clean. Food was descent, but the menu was basically the same every day. Servers and Bartenders are very courteous and friendly. There were 2 situations that made our stay somewhat annoying: 1. Sales people will call every morning or knock on the door every day at 8:00 AM selling timeshares. We could not sleep in which defeats the purpose for 5 days away in paradise. 2. We had a Jr. Suite at ground level and our sandals disappeared from the balcony. Guest Services were very rude and not accommodating at all about the situation. We ended up buying new “tourist” sandals at a tourist prices. Guest Services needs to be educated to handle upset customers. The Hotel Entertainment Group is the life of the Hotel. They were always having fun with activities at the pool, main lobby or the Coliseum. Without them our stay would have been different. Overall the hotel is very good for the price, we had a lot of fun, but I am not sure if we would be back. If they change the 2 things that made our stay annoying I can guarantee we would be back but this time with the kids. Special thanks to: Julio Nice and 5 Stars (Entertainment Group). Juana, Faustino and many others (Bartenders).

I would recommend this to my friends who don’t mine waking up and downhills and cobblestones. The first room was yuck (flying ants everywhere) reported it to front desk, NOBODY CAME UNTIL I SPOKE WITH A SUPERVISOR who brought a cleaner with her who only had A BROOM “to solve the issue”. Called a representative at cheap Caribbean to see if they could make something happen, and they did. Thank you for that! The second room was A LITTLE better, biggest con about that room was the shower would drain very VERY slowly. After day two the problem was fixed. The rooms are outdated. It sucked that in order to make reservations for dinner you HAVE to make it between the hours of 9am-11am. Other than that, I would visit Puerto Plata again, it was a great experience.