| | Playa Bavaro-la Altagracia, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
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Overall Community Rating: |   8.9 (based on 1 user reviews) |
 Ifa Hotel Villas Bavaro Beach Resort: A good place to relax by Calmer Chameleon |
| Posted 22 February 2006 about a visit in January 2006 | Overall rating: 8.9 |
We enjoyed this holiday, and would recommend it to anyone who wants to relax, swim, read a good book, but maybe not to those who enjoy wandering around a holiday location looking to experience the local history or going trekking. We were told it was not safe to wander off-site, and one guy was mugged for his wallet by two local women on the little road running up the side from the beach (but it was after dark, and he was drunk and walking alone), and we were told that recently someone had had their finger cut off when walking off-site in order to have her ring stolen. But we were never certain if these were just rumours. But we weren't bothered, we had gone there to relax and read a few good books.
WARNINGS!
One word of warning - we flew from London Gatwick, so we had to put up with it being a 12 hour flight each way, as it went via Manchester, but we weren't told, and we were only aware of it from reading holidays-exposed.com before going - others definitely didn't realise.
Another word of warning - our hold baggage (checked-in) allowance was 20kg on the way out, but on the way back it dropped to 15kg, so we actually deserted a lot of our clothes (they weren't new anyway) and a few books in order to just squeeze our baggage weight within the lower level. We did feel there was a scam to make money out of some of us on the way back, but it did seem a bit random - we smiled at our check-in lady and said how wonderful we thought the place was, and she ignored our cabin baggage being not totally to the regulations, but one or two of our fellow travellers were stung for the extra, which technically was 15kg check-in plus 5kg cabin baggage allowance - they weighed both in some cases, and charged for the excess. One party got away with stating that they simply didn't have any currency left, and were let off.
Also remember to hold on to your visitor visa cards - one of our fellow travellers misplaced his, and was almost fined, but fortunately found them at the last moment(the cards you pay $10 per head for when you enter the country).
The staff were extremely friendly, even though we didn't tip heavily. We made sure we tipped the woman who cleaned our room, at about $1 per day, and I tipped the baggage handlers $1 per bag carried, but that was almost all the tipping we did, but the waiters were all extremely friendly and helpful - and honest too - when we were leaving I left my 35mm SLR camera on the back of my chair in the buffet restaurant, and when I returned 10 minutes or so later it had already been handed in to the desk in reception by one of the waiters, so I was able to recover it.
But watch out at the airport - one of our fellow travellers took her eyes off her handbag for a few moments when we were travelling back at the end of the holiday, and it was gone - and this was in the departure lounge at La Romana airport, after check-in. I also annoyingly had my souvenir lighter confiscated when going through the metal detector - but they would not have had it taken off me if I had thought to put it in my cabin baggage rather than in the plastic box that you can put your pocket contents into.
RESTAURANTS
The Caribe Restaurant was the best, in spite of what we felt were dodgy-sounding descriptions on the menu ("kebab of bird" = chicken kebab, "head of cattle" = beef).
I experienced a slightly dodgy tummy after the Mexican Restaurant (which is unusual for me - I rarely have reactions or tummy bugs on holiday), though the food was tasty.
The "Japanese" Bamboo Restaurant was quite good, but (having been to Japan a dozen times or so) I would describe it as Chinese with a bit of Sushi and Teriyaki thrown in - maybe not a bad thing if you like chinese food.
The buffet restaurant by reception was very good, and never gave problems, in spite of the birds that tended to raid the food towards the end of the restaurant opening (perhaps safest to eat as soon as it opened!). In spite of the rumours the buffet restaurant next to the beach was actually just as good, cleaner, and less frequented - and therefore less queuing.
The worst thing about the eating experience here was the queuing system to book the special restaurants (Japanese, Caribe and Mexican), but having said that we almost always managed to book the restaurant we were wanting, it just took half an hour of our day to book it for the following evening - and we weren't allowed to book one every day (only one booking per week per restaurant), so it wasn't so bad.
We tended to get up at the crack of dawn and wander down to the front of the buffet restaurant by reception where there was coffee, herbal teas and danish pastries available. We had a feeling it was there for the staff, but nobody seemed to mind the few guests using it.
The coffee lounge in front of reception, next to the pharmacy, did a very good latte or capuccino with freshly ground coffee, but that didn't open til 9 or 9:30 am or so (it seemed to vary a bit when it opened).
BEACH
One thing we didn't realise, probably because we weren't paying attention, and also missed the greeting meeting with our rep, was that on the beach a lot of the (non-motorised) water sports were free. You had to give them a returnable deposit ($30?) to borrow each set of the equipment (wind-surfing boards, canoes, scuba-diving gear).
SHOPS
The market by the beach was a good source of cheap fags - cheaper than in the hotels, but you had to bargain for the good deals ( 500 pesetas for 200 Marlboro).
There were no English papers available, but some American ones in the hotel shops. Another local hotel reportedly had a machine that would download and print out three different UK papers (Times, "Grauniad" and Mail/Independent, I think), but our friend who tried it ended up empty-handed as it had run out of the paper to print the newspaper on....
There was internet access available at a price in a number of locations on-site, charged by the quarter hour.
ENTERTAINMENT
There was a great mix of Americans, French Canadians, South Americans, Brits, Germans, Italians, French, Dutch, etc., which made it interesting to talk to people, though some were a bit cliquey. The evening entertainment for kids was a bit late, very repetitive, and poorly attended (but that didn't effect us). The same band and set of dancers seemed to be on every night, even if the theme changed, but they were pretty good. The audience participation at the end when people got up and danced looked fun, and were liked to the little dance and exercise sessions in the middle pool behind reception. Oh, and there were two very good sized pools, and one rather small one down at the beach end, where they seemed to be doing some building work, so we avoided that small pool.
We probably won't go back, as we like to experience new places, but put it this way, I certainly wouldn't mind going back.
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 Ifa Hotel Villas Bavaro Beach Resort Reservations |
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Ifa Hotel Villas Bavaro Beach Resort Questions | Have you got a question about Ifa Hotel Villas Bavaro Beach Resort that you want answered before you book online? If our reviews do not contain the information that you need, ask a question and let other visitors tell you the real story!
 Ifa Hotel Villas Bavaro Beach Resort: resort map |
| 30 Dec 2006 by Jeanne Jones |
My family and I are staying at the IFA Villas Bavaro Beach Resort this spring does anyone have a map of this resorts grounds that they can e-mail to us or any tips they might have for us thank you so much. Jeanne Jones USA
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| Ifa Hotel Villas Bavaro Beach Resort: Changing Rooms |
| 06 Jul 2006 by Theresa Spender |
Help! We are in the villas section. I think, from reading reviews, we need to change to the ocean section. What is the best way to do this. Will we need to tip? We are Americans, will that be a problem?
I do not speak Spanish. Would it be best to write it down & take the request in spanish: Please may we swith to Ocean Section?
Thank you
>> Answer this question | |
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