Occidental Punta Cana - All-Inclusive

I came thinking I was going to have a great time on my first mommies trip, this resort gives the Dominican Republic a bad name the food was disgusting.I have traveled all over the Dominican Republic and never had such bad experience, I had two roaches in my room...the hotel has cheap liquor names that I never heard in my life .wish I could get a refund . Never will I recommend this place to anyone. And let me finish by saving I NEVER GIVE REVIEWS BUT FOR THIS ONE I HAD TO.

We had a blast . Great vacation at a great price. All services and facilities are outstanding. Occidental offered a fantastic daily entertainment program making our 7-day vacation very enjoyable.

Good stuff: The beach is nice, well maintained, clean. Plenty of pool options from baby to adult ages. Due to my disability I got a room upgrade in a better location with patio, directly by the beach with jacuzzi tub- thank you occidental punta cana for your understanding and consideration! Food was good, plenty of choices, no limits on restaurant reservations as long you book them soon enough in advance (2 reservations per room per day so you can practically book 4 dinners/4 days in 2 separate trips to costumer service desk in 2 days). My family loved their "snack area" with fresh made stone oven pizza. Housekeepers ware very nice and accommodated my every request (extra clinex, extra water bottles, no fumigation due to my alergies, extra towels- I needed all those due to my disability condition and they accommodate it all)... Entertainment was not too bad (circus, dancers, some funny comedy program, kids program, foam party at beach, etc). I think for my teen there was not much stuff that got her attention but for adult entertainment it was not too bad. Grounds and garden ware upkeept meticulously, no waste, no unsightly stuff, just beautiful and clean. Bad stuff: Beach is not very shallow so it is not excellent for small kids to go alone in the water, especially after rain storms when waves are bigger and stronger (I was there end of July when the rainy season starts. I did get in 8 days about 3 rain storms on 2 separate days, where one of the storms produced huge waves where majority of adults did not bother going into water at all post the storm). There are sales people at the beach. If you like to relax you have to go back, away from the first few rows of chairs from the water. If you are in the first rows they walk entire day up and down, randomly yelling as they pass by. They do not walk up to people to make you purchase anything, they just walk up and down the beach and make noise, making people aware they are there. I wish those guys ware limited to half hour in the morning, half hour after lunch, half hour in the evening before dinner, but not walking all the time up and down making noise. I was questioning cleanliness of pools since there was a lot of stuff swimming in particular areas of the pool (sunscreen oils, cups, palm debris, etc). I reported it to the costumer service and next day it was still there, so they did not do much about it or it gets accumulated every day where the staff does not care much to clean it out frequently. The only swim up bar at the main pool is ridiculous. There is no line at it, and there ware only 2 bartenders for all the people. The bartenders seemed to be biased towards the Spanish speaking people, laughing with them, joking around, serving up to them, while we others could stand indefinitely by the bar waiting for our turn. In 2 days I went there only one time and had to yell at the bar tenders after I was standing there for 6-7 minutes, they served about 8-9 people ahead of me, once the bartender started talking to a woman next to me that just walked up to the bar but still kept ignoring me after I stood there for 6-7 minutes and 2 other guys that waited there even longer than I am, I started yelling at the bartender. In my opinion they either need more bartenders at that swim up bar so they can pay more attention to order of people walking up to the bar, or they need to have a line formed and dont serve random people at the bar, but rather serve only people in the line. I reported that issue to costumer service too but after that incident I never bothered to use that walk up bar again, since in my perception it seemed that they rather give preferential treatment to the people speaking Spanish that "camp" out at the bar whole day long not leaving it, being drunk, having fun with bartenders. My upgraded room had leaking toilet, was reported to housekeeping and they cleaned it immediately. Not sure if maintenance was there after that in the room but I went to beach so did not bother to follow up on it. The toilet kept leaking throughout the stay, but it was not too bad, so I did not bother wasting my time on reporting it every single day. After hausekeeping in my room, it was cleaned every day so again it was not a huge deal. Overall: It is a beautiful resort. Food is not bad with plenty of choices. There are several bars so the swimup pool bar is not the only option due to my bad experience at that particular bar. Beach is beautiful but rather suited for adults and good swimmers not excellent for small kids especially during rainy season. Pools are awesome due to variety of them, except again one area in the main pool seems to be "garbage" collection area and staff is not doing much about it. Still there are other smaller pools which are clean and not overcrowded. Sales people should knock it little off and give people some peaceful, quiet time, not randomly yelling around the beach. I am very objective, realistic, and detail oriented :) maybe some people would not pay attention to all of it, but I do. Still even me being picky, I think the resort and service is definitely good. Considering the amount of people going through such resorts, I think they still do a good job and my issues maybe would not bother other people at all.

Occidental Punta Cana was Absolutley amazing! The beach was beautiful! And the pools were nice. Room was clean and comfortable. Saw a couple bugs tho. Also check out time was 12-00pm and at 1045am they cut our power to the room.. which i wasn’t to happy about but overall it was amazing. Some staff were a little rude and didn’t help. Others were amazing and sweet and friendly. Food was eh. Best place was probably the taco place or the snack place above the pool. Overall my stay was amazing. Everything went smoothly i had no problems whatsoever minus the power going off at 1045.. i researched for months on a resort to stay at and this place was def an amazing pick! I would most def return to Occidental Punta Cana !