Bahia Principe Luxury Esmeralda - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

9441 reviews

• 

  Beautiful resort!

  We are back from a week at this hotel, traveling with our two preteens, one with a food allergy. Due to the heavy seaweed presence, we were not able to use the beach much. While we were really disappointed, I don’t factor that in my review as this in beyond the hotel’s control. The beach setup was great however. Plenty of palapas and chairs. The resort is beautiful. The buildings are bright, beautifully designed and looking new. You have a small hotel feel (with everything close-by) while enjoying the perks of a big complex. The resort is technologically up to date with efficient WiFi throughout, an app to manage restaurant reservations, room keys integrated in the bracelets etc. The rooms are beautiful. They are clean, the beds are comfortable and the furniture/decor tasteful. The lack of a beach for the week prompted us to upgrade to a swim-up room. It was great! Thank you to Miguel at Customer Experience and Greily at the front desk for making this happen! The food was very good. We mostly ate at the buffet. They were plenty of choices for our son who is allergic to eggs. We did two a la carte restaurant. The staff was very accommodating to our specific needs. We usually like to try different resorts for our vacations. But we promised ourselves that our next visit to the DR will be at the Luxury Esmeralda - maybe at a different time of the year to avoid the seaweed.

  Jun 29, 2025
• 

  Don’t book Esmerelda

  DO NOT under any circumstances come here, the service and accommodation is horrible. We all work really hard and look forward to our vacation, however often we’re able to take it in our lives, and to spend this much money to come here is an atrocity. The people are NOT happy to help you and are extremely unaccommodating. They seem to be annoyed if you ask them for anything such as a water refill, a spoon or a plate at the buffet. Yes, you read that right ….we had to fight for a plate at the buffet!!! This wasn’t just in one instance it was daily over the 10 day period that we were here. We are privileged club members who for over 10 years have gone to Mexico with nothing but the best service and have never had an all inclusive experience this subpar. The hotel is overcrowded and you can feel it everywhere that you go. The pool is too small for the hotel and is cloudy/smells due to too many people in it. When we went to a à la cart restaurant they would have two waitresses servicing the entire restaurant and took us over two hours to eat because of how long it took for our food to get to our table. This is at every a la carte for every night we were there! They mistakenly checked my son into the wrong room and then told us 4 days after checkin that we would be kicked off of the property if we not did not pay an extra $1000 for his accommodation due to a policy change in between us making the reservation in November of 2024 and arriving at the hotel. 4 days after checkin!!!!Save yourself the grief and aggravation and book somewhere else.

  Jun 28, 2025
• 

  Beautiful resort, disappointing stay

  The property is large and family-friendly, and the Yuro (Hibachi) restaurant was the highlight — the staff made us feel truly welcome, especially Chef Castro and Chef Anyelo. Unfortunately, the rest of our stay at Bahia Principe Luxury Esmeralda was disappointing. Our original reservation was incorrect — we requested double beds but were given a king. The first room had no working AC and a strong odor. We had to request a room change, and the second room had bug issues, a faulty remote, and no access to Netflix or Apple TV like before. Mosquitoes got into the room, and both rooms had stained sheets and dirty tubs. There were no towels — not even small ones — and we were told to cut a pool towel with scissors. Service at restaurants and bars was extremely slow, and most staff didn’t speak English. We were often ignored or not served at all, especially at à la carte restaurants. We asked to be near family due to a medical emergency, and while that was eventually honored, when my niece felt faint, we were told to go to another resort or pay out of pocket for medical attention

  Jun 26, 2025
• 

  Family Vacation

  Property itself was very nice and large. I traveled with my family and two children. There was plenty to do for the younger crowds, and entertainment was okay. Personally me and my family didn't feel welcomed when at this resort, we stayed for 6 days and did 4 nights a la carte restaurants, the service was horrible, we were ignored at all restaurants except for the buffet and at the restaurant Yuro. The Yuro(Hibachi) restaurant was beautiful and the food was the best we had since arriving, the chefs came out and introduced themselves, they made us feel more welcomed than ever which made the rest of the stay exceptional, so shout out to the whole Yuro staff and Chef Castro and Chef Anyelo! Throughout the whole time at the resort, we were ignored, and because we didn't speak or understand spanish, they did not pay attention to our group. We were overlooked at restaurants and sometimes never served once we were seated. When arriving to the resort there were no wash cloths, only big towels, we were told someone would deliver towels at 12am and even told there were none to give out, I never received towels throughout my stay. I was given a large pool towel and scissors and was told to cut the towel! The tub was dirty with black marks inside, and the white sheets had red stains, never even complaining about that. My child felt faint at one point and I asked for a medical personnel to just take a look and was told i had to bring my sick child to another resort or if the medical personnel was to come to me the fee would be $400.00. I asked if I could bring food to my sick child in the room and was told no, I was told I would have to wait 45 minutes for the food to be brought to the room. This was the worst stay ever.

  Jun 25, 2025
• 

  Amazing Time at the Esmarelda!

  The Bahia Principe Esmarelda is an upscale resort with many amenities. The hotel offers the option to upgrade to a swim-up room, which I chose and well worth the expense. The “compound” of Bahia Principe in Bavaro strategically stratifies their offering with 7 different resorts. The top of the line is Ambar. I’ve stayed there and yes it is the best. The Esmarelda, recently refurbished is #2. Word of note… The Pinero Hotel group who owns Bahia Principe is currently refurbishing the resort of Bavaro, so the compound is down to 6 resorts. Used the BP app in phone to book restaurant reservation in advance which is quite helpful, however very cumbersome when we were a party of 4 in 3 different rooms. Each room had to be added to the reservation… which even the concierge found difficult to amend. At one point we were told just go the restaurant and give the maître d’ a $20 and we could get any time and table we wanted… and it worked!!! Word of caution: if you cancel a reservation you lose the ability to book another restaurant for that day! The food was impressive at all the specialty restaurants. Service is excellent. The Esmarelda is a complex of 10, 3 story buildings, and each building has it’s own dedicated “customer service” agent… which you can request anything, make reservations, lodge complaints or request something for your room… I was really impressed! The employees go above and beyond to interact, engage and satisfy each quest, it is truly impressive. Each individual resort does not post what is happening at any other resort, which is a shame because had I known I would have gone to another resort for their feature entertainment. The resort of Punta Cana has a massive theatre which does events, very impressive, it’s worth the walk. Unfortunately, the lobby of Esmarelda is very underwhelming… take a walk to the Ambar or Punta Cana lobby and you will be really impressed! Grounds and vegetation are immaculate. It is absolutely beautiful. And this is also reflected in the tiered stratification of which resort is given priority. So at the Esmarelda, the coffee is better, the meals are better, the service is better, and the booze is better. The sargassum (May 20, 2025) was EXTREMELY bad. I would never fault a resort for an ecological nightmare beyond their control. However when in the ocean I looked back at the beach and saw that other resorts had cleaned the sargassum from their beach. Bahia Principe did not. In fact a very large beach machine that I thought “collected” the sargassum… was in fact a seaweed turbo bullet. The seaweed was collected, ground up into micro pieces and re-deposited on the beach to dry. The stench was disgusting as it begins to rot even as ground up micro-pieces. To avoid the sargassum nightmare, do major research online as to the ocean currents bringing the seaweed to the shores of Punta Cana, and if needed amend your vacation.

  Jun 23, 2025