Serenade Punta Cana Beach & Spa

The property was lovely; room was spacious, staff was wonderful. Food was delicious with lots of dining options. Evening entertainment was fun, activities during the day were fun, options for additional excursions or services (spa) were great.

This was our second trip to Serenade. We were a group of 8. We stayed on the family side both times. I have seen multiple negative reviews lately but we all experienced a wonderful week. I understand that everyone vacations differently but if you follow a few safe practices, you should be fine. The resort is very walkable. It’s in a U shape so everything is in a straight line, with the buildings on opposite sides and the main buffet and lobby on the end. The on site store is quite reasonable compared to other resorts we have been to. If you aren’t interested in the timeshare presentation, just ignore the people asking you to take a tour of the resort and a free breakfast in the Preferred section. They will eventually force you to sit through their presentation. Throughout the week, just walk by them or tell them you are not interested. They will often try to stop you on the walkways close to the lobby. Once we said no, they didn’t seem too aggressive. We have been to other resorts where it was very annoying and they won’t take no for an answer. Just be polite and ignore them. I have read complaints about the elevators. A few days in, we realized that the elevator buttons are on the wrong spots. In building 2, the 1st floor button was swapped with the door close button, so we couldn’t figure out why the number 1 button wasn’t taking us down. Once we figured that out, it worked fine. Perhaps the other building elevators had the same issue and that’s why people complained that they weren’t working. But we didn’t use the other buildings to check the situation. The main buffet was always delicious, lots of options for everyone. I especially loved the desserts and ice cream. 😀 For the alacartes, the Teppanyaki was our favourite. There is no menu to choose from. The chef cooks up chicken, steak and shrimp, along with veggies and fried rice. You can just let him know which you prefer. We all had a bit of everything. The portions were large and they put on a great show. No dessert is offered but just go to the buffet if you want dessert. We also tried the steakhouse and the Asian. Both were underwhelming. The steak had a great flavour but it is difficult to achieve anything other than well done. So if you like that, it would be a great option for you. They do also have chicken, which one person in our group had, and they said it was very good. The Asian a-la-carte is located in the Teppanyaki restaurant but it is a separate table area with a menu. I had the teriyaki salmon and it was delicious. The others ordered the Beef and noodles. They didn’t really enjoy it as it was covered in cilantro. If you like the taste of that, I suppose it would be good. Perhaps you can ask for no cilantro. We didn’t know that ahead of time so didn’t ask about that. The sports bar food was okay. Service was quick.The nachos were very good. Chicken wings were hit and miss, sometimes undercooked. The chicken fingers were sometimes nuggets and had a weird flavour. Chicken tacos were delicious as well as the fries. The “Gelato” station is connected to the sports bar. It’s actually just ice cream, but real gelato, but was very delicious if you didn’t want to walk all the way to the buffet just for ice cream. I can see that if you had small children, it would be handy for that. The food truck on the beach was good for a quick snack. Ask for the burgers well done to increase your chances of not getting sick lol. The hotdogs tasted fine and the fries were delicious. The Mexican buffet is only open for lunch. It is a smaller selection but was good for a change of tastes. Everything was always hot and tasted fresh. In order to stay as safe as possible, we didn’t use the tap water to brush our teeth, not even to rinse our mouth or toothbrush. Just put bottled water in the glasses provided and use that. The mini bar was always stocked with beer, pop and water. My husband wanted PRESIDENTE beer instead of Coors light. After a few days of leaving a note with a tip and still nothing, we realized that the maid and mini bar service are 2 different people. So we put the note and tip INSIDE the mini bar and that worked. We left an extra tip for the maid beside the bed instead of on the living room table. (We had the master suite). The beach was clean and walkable. They were always cleaning up the seaweed every day. It was very annoying to see beach loungers saved and then the people didn’t show up until early afternoon! We did save seats because we were a large group and some of us have medical issues where we need shade but we were always out there by 9-10:00 am. We did see the security guards removing towels after 11:00, so if you do save seats, please use them! If you are a cigar lover and want to purchase some to take home, Cigar Country just opened a store in Punta Cana. It’s just a 10 min taxi ride. They have great cigars and great prices. We ordered a taxi from the bell boys. They did try to talk us into going to their “friend’s store” but we just said NO, we want to go to Cigar Country. That part was quite annoying because he tried to change our mind a few times. You just need to be assertive and say what you want. Before you go, take a screenshot of the address and directions so that you can show it to the driver, just in case he tries to go elsewhere. Overall, we had a fabulous time. The staff work very hard and are very helpful. Just be respectful and use Google translate if you can’t get your question answered. I saw a few rude tourists who were mad that the staff didn’t understand English. Well, you are in the DR and English isn’t their first language. However most of the staff does understand basic English. Because we had 1 person in a wheelchair, we did hire a private transport to and from the airport. Even though it’s only a 15 min drive, it was quite helpful to get to the resort before the shuttle, so we could check in without the crowd. We used DAT Transport. Highly recommended!! They were very reasonable ($180 cdn round trip) and the driver offered cold water and was very safe and friendly. We would definitely return!

Staff are friendly enough but work at a slow pace, even with consistent tipping. On face value when you arrive it seems new, modern, and a hidden gem so we were initially excited. But eventually realize it’s either cheaply made or was rushed and poorly constructed and finished (resort is relatively new). Elevators were generally not working in multiple locations and locks to public washrooms were not working in both men’s and women’s public washrooms. The three way switches for the lights in our room were crossed wired and had to operate in a certain sequence. The sofa couch was wobbly and felt like it was going to fall apart. Our door to the room needed to be forced closed for it to click and lock into the strike plate. The kids pool area and beach were the positives of the resort. Food was hit and miss, but generally decent, however we saw multiple cockroaches near and in the buffet room. There is no difference between the restaurants and buffet in quality of food. We had bed bugs in our room and our building elevator was not working. With a recent knee injury, it was not easy going up and down the stairs. Knowing and seeing this, we were still placed on the top floor of our building. We asked to change our room three days in a row and were consistently brushed off by the lobby staff and manager, which is why I’m writing this poor review.

Disappointing experience. We are actually still at the resort as a write this. Positive: the rooms are great and clean. The service here is dire. We have had to set our own tables at the buffet, get cutlery from other tables, wait way too long for basic service like drinks with meals. The quality of food and drinks is really low. After waiting over an hour for a meal at a restaurant tonight that never arrived, we went to the buffet to find empty dishes. We’ve basically eaten out of necessity this entire trip and today that was barely possible. We were never told to make reservations at the restaurants and they book way in advance (despite many empty tables). We were never told about the “towel cards” and had to figure that out on our own. Room service is limited and doesn’t include drinks. The elevators rarely work. Smoking is allowed everywhere. Sales staff come around all day. Half of the pool loungers are broken and you have to “reserve” them by about 7:30am. I don’t blame the staff for this at all, but many lack the basic language skills to interact with guests. For what we paid and the hotel rating, this was an incredibly disappointing experience.

Very nice place delicious food Beach is too small for all the guess and a lot of see weed they should clean better Stuff should be more friendly and better trained