Ocean El Faro

This hotel it amazing, the food, service, the place and of course the river pool it’s on another level!

So we had 27 of us come to this establishment to celebrate my daughter getting engaged here unexpectedly when asking for three bottles of champagne gave me the runaround after Vegas arguments. They finally did it however, they did it an hour too late. I did not have the bottles for the celebration on top of that. My air conditioner broke in my room and they didn’t wanna give me an upgrade so I had argue about that as well finally did get an upgrade but ruined the whole experience because I had to deal with arguments the entire time.

We were booked into the El Beso section and on arrival only 1 person was doing check in which took ages, there was no welcome or smiling faces. Once checked in we had to walk to our room which was the other and of the complex and when we got to the room there was already guests using it so we had to return back to reception. The original member of staff who checked us in was dealing with a couple so we waited and when they left he got up and walked out leaving us standing. By this point another member of staff was doing check ins and we went to him and I asked why his colleague walked out he said that it should not have happened. No apology and we were checked into another room and agin walked down to it. As soon as we opened the door there was a bad smell of mould, we checked the room and found damage everywhere, stains on the sheets, bathrobe and table. The electric boxes inside the wardrobe had not been cleaned in years and were a fire hazard, I have attached photos of everything. We then had to walk back to reception and by this point were exhausted after all the travel and it being late. I showed the photos to the receptionist who took copies and said he would speak to his supervisor as this was not acceptable. We had to then wait for another room and went to the main buffet for sometime to eat and were not impressed, poor standard of food, everything mostly cold and extremely poor service with rude staff. We then returned to reception and were met by our Concierge Carlos who took us to our new room to inspect to make sure it was ok. It was by then 4 hours since we arrived and the rook was ok although did not have a pool or garden view which it should have and we had requested an upper floor and this was on the ground floor. We reported this to our travel rep next day who said he would speak to the hotel and get back to us but nothing happened. The food in the main buffet is always the same at lunch and dinner and is cold most of the time, service is poor, tables not cleaned down properly between sittings, service is atrocious most of the time you have to ask for napkins, water etc and we stopped tipping for the first time ever as it made no difference so save your money. Some of the staff are downright rude and have no customer skills! A la Carte restaurants are hit and miss, Route 66 is very poor, tough dry tasteless meat and cold french fries, food is not good. Italian served microwaved lasagna and spaghetti meatballs, plates roasting hot food is barely warm. Japanese, Mexican and El Beso are all very good, the Japanese is the best and is very good, the only 5* in the whole complex. The coffee shop is nice but the staff are very slow and you have to wait a long time, poor customer service as well. Cocktails in all the bars are just alcohol with lemonade and fruit juice poured in with a few lumps of ice, not 1 cocktail shaker or crushed ice was used once in 2 weeks and most times it is served in plastic cups. The lemonade was mostly flat as well. We never used the pools as prefer the beach which is nice but a lot of seaweed at the moment, not the hotels fault and they do make an effort to clear it. Nice staff are few and far between, food is mostly poor, service is mostly poor, rude staff, check in horrendous and we heard many complaints about staff attitude and other rooms with mold being a big problem and smelly. Hygene is not good either so be very careful. We loved Puerto Plata and the 2 hotels we stayed in there were fantastic with lovely friendly, pleasant staff. This hotel has put us off and doubt we will ever return to Punta Cana.

This was our first time in Dominican Republic. When we arrived at the hotel we were staying at the El Beso adults only, check in was very smooth and we got introduced to our concierge Carlos who was very attentive, nothing was too much trouble. The rooms are huge and the only thing I would recommend is taking damp rid bags for in the wardrobes to help with the humidity. Carlos made all our reservations for the restaurants and the food was great. We managed to obtain a cabana bed every day which were very comfortable. The only down side was the entertainment at night it was very spread out and quite confusing. We loved our holiday that much we have booked up to go back next May.

Where do i begin, Check-in took over 45 mins and there were only 9 families ahead of us. We were given no direction after we checked in and was a guessing game where our room was. Once we found our room we had the worst smell in the room, room temp was never below 73, the AC didn't work at its full potential. We called about it and were told nothing they can do, so we sweat every night. Our room was turned over 4 out of the 6 nights we were there, we had no clean room towels and no toilet paper on the last night. We called the front desk and after 3hrs it showed up. Getting pool towels after 2pm is not possible so be ready to walk to your room soaked. Getting restaurants reservations for the three reserve places will never happen so be ready to eat at the buffet every night which was also terrible in taste and always short on food. Alcohol drinks are watered down as i had about 10 drinks a day and felt as if i didnt drink at all. Getting a drink at the pool side bar or lobby is not worth the wait as it takes about 20 min to get because there are two bartenders working at each bar and 20 people ordering. The beach is not swimmable as there is so much seaweed. Overall i would never return to this resort.