Iberostar Waves Costa Dorada - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

9979 reviews

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  Amazing resort

  The staff are the greatest. Yajara and Yamibel in Star prestige are amazing and the best. Yoselito, Henry and Miguel are wonderful down at the star prestige beach bar. All the staff are wonderful. They take great care of you. The resort was clean and beautiful.

  Jun 11, 2025
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  Great resort for the cost. Great resort for family of all ages

  Great size resort for family members of all ages. Decent activities and connections to puerto plata. My husband and I loved our room but our parents did not enjoy theirs as it backed onto the neighbouring resort with a terrible view of their fence & other maintenance buildings. The food was as expected for the cost and none of our party experienced any ill effects from the purified water they provided. The make your own sandwiches were a nice snack whenever we did not feel like the other food. Loved two out of 5 performances that we got to experience while there. The others were also interesting to see just not my cup of tea.

  Jun 10, 2025
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  Stay somewhere else!

  Please do not stay here. We booked our trip via Costco (all of that went well including the airport transfers). I have visited Puerto Plata before and stayed at other hotels in the area, but this one markets itself as upper scale, which it definitely was not. We stayed midweek so the resort was maybe at 60% capacity. This resort did not really have many tourists, most of the other guests were locals. Pros - Beautiful beach: plenty of chairs, very little seaweed compared to Punta Cana beaches, clean no trash and rarely any vendors. Note that there aren't beach drink waiter service, but not an issue for us. - Service: Everyone we interacted with was very kind, the issues that we did had were resolved, the requests we made were completed timely after some calls. We did speak Spanish, so this may have affected our service. - Oceanfront suite room location: We stayed in the largest suite rooms they offered in building 5. It was a 2 minute walk to the beach and beautiful beach views. Comfy beds and pillows. Minifridge actually cold. Quiet, no noise day or night. However, it was a 10 minute walk to any dining options since it was the furthest building - Route66 disco is large, air conditioned, and a fun place if you are interested in dancing. Plenty of seating inside and one of the very few places at this resort with AC. - Filtered water stations everywhere. However, most have very warm filtered water so use the Vero water machines at the buffets or pool buffet for ice cold water. - Use the Iberostar app to request things, make dinner reservations, and use the guest services chat Cons - The food is very bad and honestly scary to see their poor food safety regulations. Believe the reviews saying how people get sick. We got sick from the Japanese restaurant's poor quality sushi. The two buffets are both open air, with no air conditioning, allowing flies and birds to land on the food. Every single day we saw birds land and eat the food on display, the workers did nothing about it. The food is not kept at a food safe temperature - the butter is rancid, milk is warm, none of the salads or fruit are safe to eat as the are kept warm with flies all around. The cooked to order food options are bland and tough to eat, we did not have any enjoyable meals. The only indoor restaurants with air conditioning are the Japanese and Mexican which require advance reservations. Besides those, you will be sweating as you eat. We also ate at the Italian outdoor restaurant, which is just in the same location as the pool lunch buffet, and the food was not good at all. - The rooms are very small and outdated. We stayed in the largest room offered and it was still smaller than any standard room we have stayed in at other resorts in DR. The air conditioner does not cool as it should, we had to supplement with the ceiling fan the entire time. There is no way to adjust the AC - just on or off, and it never got below maybe 74 degrees in the room. Some light switches did not work as the bulbs were burnt out. There is no ventilation in the bathroom so it gets very warm. The shower is half open so you will make a big water mess on the floor every time someone showers. - Some rooms are worse than others. We were first given a floor on the 3rd floor which had a broken AC, dirty bed sheets with lint and random hairs, light switches that did not work, and a light fixture in the bathroom that was half falling off. We called the front desk who sent a technician - who could not fix the AC, and we were switched to a different room on the 1st floor. This all happened within an hour and they were very kind about moving us. The new room on the 1st floor was clean and had a working AC. However, we had amenities in the original room - a bottle of champagne and beach towels, that were not moved with us because we were in a different room, which was weird. - Poor entertainment: The evening shows were not great and mostly vulgar designed for locals, not really tourists. - The Jackie Chan jokes at the Japanese restaurant were unfortunate - Pool was never really cleaned the entire time we were there - Lots of mosquitoes - bring plenty of bug spray and check your room as housekeeping leaves the room doors open letting in bugs as they go through the room. - Lots of stray cats and peacocks on the property. The cats will get near you and beg for food at your table. The peacocks are aggressive and will eat food off your plate. We were told to just get up and move leaving them the food to eat to not agitate them more. I will stick to visiting Punta Cana since they have more resort variety, even though the beaches in Puerto Plata are nicer. Select a different hotel if visiting !

  Jun 08, 2025
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  An okay trip

  The trip was okay. Me and my partner made the most of our time together there but overall the resort was whatever. The food over there was great (probably the best part of the resort) and the drinks were good too so no complaints there. They had live omelet stations, pasta station, steak and chicken stations. There was a nice variety of desserts, even a sugar-free area. The Italian and Japanese a la cartes were good Japanese was hibachi style and entertaining and Italian was good too, they turned the snack bar next to the pool into the Italian a la carte. Snack bar is good (make sure you're wearing shoes and a swim cover up to enter) A few of the days we had in the pool, there were quite a few dead bugs and leaves just floating around, only a few days they were really efficient with cleaning it up though. The bottom of the pool scratched up our feet as there are no pool tiles at the bottom, it got pretty uncomfortable at points throughout the trip. The pool was nice and deep besides that and had a little jacuzzi style area in the middle where you can sit and enjoy the jets. There's also a volley ball net beside the swim up bar but one side of the net is deeper than the other which makes gameplay a little harder for one side. The beach had two thin lines of seaweed running across the shore, which we didn't mind, but once you got into the water, it was pretty dirty. We didn't spend much time there because of that so not much to comment on. The rooms were good. The shower didn't have a door, which we found quite odd, but it worked over all if you put a towel down as a bath matt. The bed was nice and big, probably the biggest bed we've seen. We didn't use the TV at all, so no comment there. The safe worked well, no issues with it. The toilet had a good flushing pressure, so no worries with that. House keeping was consistent, nothing special though (even with tips). Entertainment was fine, if you have a good group of people with you you'll have fun. Mister iberostar and the karaoke night were our favorite shows. Other than those we found it to be just okay. The disco wasn't that lively its layout is a ring of higher ground and a few stairs leading down to the middle where the dance floor is. Not many people went to dance as in my opinion it's pretty intimidating to go down and have the whole ring of people on the outside watching. Me and my partner only went to dance one night when the resort was more lively and there were more people. There's bingo closer to evening time, a ping pong table, and large chess. We noticed that on the weekends a lot of locals spend the day at the resort so brush up on some spanish if you want to meet people. Another thing is that iberostar is a stop for a cruise so some people are only there for a day. So if you're a social person and trying to look for people to spend the week with good luck. Cats and peacocks roaming around the resort which we enjoyed. Reception for the most part was good, some really nice people but some snappy people. On our last day our flight was late in the day so we got majority of the day at the resort still, we had to check out at 12 and then put our luggage in a room at the side of reception, the room had an unpleasant smell and outside of it there were two washrooms, both with two smaller showers and a stall. As late check out was an option we thought it'd be okay to ask to pay for a room for an hour to shower privately and to be able to nap somewhere with AC (the bus we were on was at 6pm) but the first guy we asked gave attitude and asked my partner why we even wanted the room, told us someone else has it, and didn't try to check for us at all. We then came back to ask someone else and she went to check with her manager who said they can't do anything, but then she kindly suggested that we use the showers in the spa which is a nicer space. We didn't understand why it couldn't have been an option as we were willing to pay and it was a Tuesday so the resort wasn't full but we dropped it. Also, if you're paying for any of the additional room decor or birthday cakes before checkout, keep your receipt on you. They ask you to pay at reception during checkout but I asked to pay for everything before hand as I didn't want my partner to know how much everything costed, they allowed me to but when we went to checkout they asked me to pay again. Luckily, I did ask for a receipt the original time I paid, and it was dealt with quickly, but the price was still said out loud while my partner was there, and it wasn't preferred.

  Jun 04, 2025
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  Star Camp is the best if you have kids

  Overall a pleasant 7-night stay. Lots of peacocks in the property All blocks are smartly interconnected. If it rains, you can walk from the beach to the lobby (long walk) without getting wet Kids Club (Star camp): - For 4 - 12 years - Infant/Toddlers can stay and play in parent supervision in some hours - The best compared to all other AI resorts we have been to. - Every Star Camp staff is beyond amazing. - Tons of indoor/outdoor activities. - Enclosed mini pool and playground in the camp - They take the kids out to main pool, beach, and also to buffet lunch. - DJ for kids at Route 66 once a week. - They choreograph the kids to perform a show on stage in the theater. Room: We were in Family room which is 2 connecting rooms (one with 2 twin beds and other with King bed). We highly recommend it if you have multiple kids. We were in Bldg 7, facing the middle of the pool. Only Family rooms get a Playstation upon request. Use the app to request multiple baby items (check the pic I posted) Pool: - There is ONE gigantic pool and is the main hangout area for all guests - One corner is shallow for kids. - Yes it gets dirty quickly, collects sand from guests' feet and dried leaves from the surrounding trees. I noticed pool cleaning every morning but that was it. They should clean it frequently during the day. Food: There are 3 ala-carte - Sakura (Japanese) is a great Hibachi experience. - La Hacienda (Mexican) serves delicious food. - The Italian ala-carte dinner was below par, we didn't go back there - Buffet is above average, menu is mostly the same everyday. They serve special cuisine on certain days. - Download the app to make reservations (some guests were not aware of this) - Live cooking on the beach almost everyday Adult activities: - Multiple tournaments everyday: archery, darts, dance class, volleyball, etc. Winner gets a bottle of Dominican rum. - Beach party - Beach is great, never struggled to find a spot Fitness: - A mix Zumba, HILT, yoga sessions everyday ( all sessions were great ) - The trainers are awesome and eager to help Theater: - This is the weakest area. - It's 50/50 depending on your taste. - If you are into Karaoke, you will enjoy the karaoke night. - Dance shows are OK. - Route 66: In-house dance club

  Jun 01, 2025