Punta Cana
Caribe Club Princess Resort
February 23, 2007 thru March 2, 2007
Day 1:
We (eight of us) left the airport on Allegiant Charter out of Milwaukee on time. This is a very noisy plane with a bad PA system. Food was good as well as the drinks. We arrived on time at the Punta Cana Airport, picked up our luggage and saw the Apple rep and boarded a bus. There were only 10 of us on the bus and we made no stops until we got to the resort.
We arrived at the resort around 3:30 and rooms were ready. We asked out Travel Representative to request 3 things for us. 1) The same building, 2) upper floor and travel together group. Well the hotel said there were no more upper floor rooms available. We paid our $24 for our safe key and requested our remote for the TV as we were told. They told us that these were already in the room. The luggage was loaded on the tram and we were taken direct to the room. Porter put luggage in the rooms and left. We fumbled around trying to figure out the light switches, etc. The bulb was out in our hallway outside the closet and we used the bathroom light to see where to put things. One of the people in our group got into their room and after putting everything away decided to take a shower. Opps, not working, so they called the front desk and about 2 hours later someone from maintenance showed up, took a look and left not fixed. They had to call 3 times and finally they cam and completely redid the shower. We went to turn on the TV and guess what, no remote. Another one of the rooms had a refrigerator that heated everything instead of cooling everything in it. They called 3 times and finally 2 days later at 11:00pm they came and put a new refrigerator in.
We decided to go to the beach bar have a few drinks and then go to the buffet, since we had no reservations for any of the restaurants. Walked back to the lobby to get a remote and around the resort and made an early night of it. I figured, I’d get the coffee maker ready, so all I would have to do was plug it in the next morning. Opps, no carafe. So we called the front desk and requested one, housekeeping showed up with coffee instead. My wife showed the gal what we needed and she brought one back. I filled the coffee maker with coffee and water and we went to sleep.
Day 2:
We all got up around 8:00am and I went to the coffee maker to plug it in and Opps, not converter plug on it and mine would not fit this coffee maker. No coffee. We all met for breakfast at the buffet. The food was very good and the variety was fantastic. Anything you wanted for breakfast could be found. We went back to the room got our towel carts and went to the beach. We got towels and walked the entire pool and beach area and not one available chair could be found. We ended up laying on the beach on our towels. As you can imagine, sitting or laying on this for the entire day was not comfortable. I can’t believe the 3 resorts couldn’t have at lease one chair available per person at the resorts. From what we could see no one was using more than one per person or hording them. Lesson learned. We made reservation for the Mexican restaurant for 9:00pm that night, but ended up eating at the buffet instead of eating that late. Left the beach around 4:30, showered and dressed and went to buffet at 6:00pm. After dinner we went back to the lobby met Tony the Apple rep and told him the problems we were running into, he said he was sorry to hear that. Nothing more. We went to the Front Desk and told them about the coffee maker converter plug and they wanted to sell us one, my wife said no, there should have been one in the room on their equipment. They gave us their last one. We caught a show, had a few drinks and went back to the room. Guess what their converter plug would not fit the coffee maker. Okay, I had it and no coffee in the room the rest of the trip.
Day 3:
Two of us guys got up the next morning at 7:00am and went to the beach with towels in hand a reserved 8 chairs under two cabanas, plopped ourselves in the chairs and tried to go back to sleep. Not happening because the beach was very busy with people doing the same thing. We made reservations for the Mexican restaurant for tonight and also Chinese for the next night at 6:00pm. The beach at this resort is some of the best we have ever been on. The drinks good and you never really waited a long time to get them. Sometimes there were 4 bartenders falling over each other and other times there was 1 trying to keep up with the orders. At the Mexican restaurant they put Mexican hats on us after they let us in around 6:30pm. Food was good and the menu choices were many. Again we walked up to the lobby had a few drinks and took in the live entertainment. I don’t think we ever caught the tram up to the lobby even one the first 4 days. It was either full or didn’t show up until we were almost at the Lobby or back near our rooms.
Day 4: We decided to do a day of shopping. We went for breakfast and then took water bottle from near one of the entrances to our building. They only came to fill up our refrigerator once the entire week, so we helped ourselves. We got to the Lobby and talked to Tony from Apple and he told us we could get a van taxi to take us to Playa Bavaro for shopping. 8 people $11.00, no complaint. Walking would have taken us about 20 minutes and it was hot and no breeze, easy choice. The taxi driver left us off and we went about our shopping. Girls shop, guys follow along. I thing we must have gone into 30 different stores, same stuff different stores. We got a few good bargains, especially coffee. Now, I will tell you, you can find the same stuff a bit cheaper at the shack stores up the beach from the resort and save yourself some money. We were about to head back to the resort and the taxi guy who dropped us off saw us, but we told him 10 more minute, because we wanted to look into some bottle holders at a local bar. He never came back. We got another guy from the same company and he charged us $10 to take us back to the resort. We changed clothes and sat by the pool bubble pool. Not a hot tub, but a cold bubble tub. Again, there were no chairs available. Around 4:30pm, we went to turn in our towels to get new ones for the next day and there were none available, so we kept the wet ones for saving chairs the next morning. We got changed, showered and went to the Chinese restaurant. Again, we waited until 6:15 before they let us in. The food again was good and there were a lot of choices. Sushi was good (I am the only one who ate it), soup and salad came right away and they we waited for almost an hour for the main course, way too long. We again went to the Lobby, had a few drinks went to see the show and left within 10 minutes, not really a show, just a pick on male guest night. We shopped at some of the local vendors who were allowed on the resort to sell their goods and turned in for the night.
Day 5:
Again two of us got up early, this time at 6:00am because we wanted chairs at the pool. Almost all were already taken, but we got the last 8 under two cabanas and across from the swim up bar. Tried to go back to sleep, but nothing doing. Around 9:00am one of the couples went to make reservations for dinner that night and got reservations for the Dominican restaurant for tonight and the Italian for tomorrow night at 6:00pm. We spent the entire day around the pool. This is a real nice pool and there weren’t many people in it and not a lot of noise from kids, etc. BUT, the loudspeaker system at the foot of the pool is used for aerobics, Merengue and Bachata dancing lessons and is extremely loud. Don’t look for a quite relaxing time, it is not to be found. We left the pool around 4:30pm as usual, showered. Changed and went to the Dominican restaurant. We were invited in right away and had a great meal. I will tell you we always found something on the menus that everyone wanted or would eat. We hopped a trolley and went to the casino by the Bavaro Princess All-Suites resort. We lost our money as we expected and left there within an hour. We were taken back to the resort had a drink and called it a night.
Day 6:
We got up at 5:30am and headed for the beach to reserve chairs and cabanas. We got what we wanted and since it was dark, the light on the beach helped. By 6:30am all chairs we could see were taken. We walked the beach from the resort south to the Occidental Flamenco and also took a walk north to the LTI Punta Cana. My wife and one of the guys went parasailing for about $89 for the two of them together. She really enjoyed the trip and the view. Most of the group went for a walk to the fishing piers where the fishermen come in and they were skinning a shark that was caught and they also got a couple of looks at a whale’s tail off the shore. We left the beach around 4:30pm and showered and dressed for going to the Italian restaurant. I think this one was the favorite for the trip. Food was great. We walked around and again ended up at the Lobby and watched a couple of comic skits, but left early. We went to the beach bar (next to the seafood restaurant) for a couple of drinks, but the fried seafood smell was enough to make you sick so to bed we went.
Day 7:
One of the other guys in our group offered to get up the next morning to get chairs by the pool. We figured since it was our last night at the resort, we wouldn’t make reservations at any of the restaurants and just lounge around the pool late and then hit the buffet. This was Carnival day and they made plenty of noise around the pool. Loud speakers blaring and dancing in costumes, etc. We stayed there until about 5:30pm and turned our towels for the last time and got our towel cards back. We went to shower and get dressed. My wife went into the broken drawer to get some clothes and out popped a roach and she jumped. This was the only one we saw the entire trip. We went to the buffet and skipped the Lobby, show etc. We walked around the resort and ended up at the little bar in back of the buffet (next to the little kid’s theatre. The kids had some program going on and again it was very loud. We called it a night. Went back to the room and did a little pre-packing.
Day 8:
Time to leave. We got up around 8:00am, packed most everything and all left for the buffet around 9:00am. We then went back to the room and finished packing. Once this was done we walked around the Tropical Princess and the Punta Cana Princess resorts taking pictures. Now the Punta Cana Princess has a beautiful pool that is surrounded by trees and has no loud speaker system. Looked like plenty of chairs and room. Wish we would have seen this sooner, we would have gone over there for a day. Went to the room and called the porter for luggage pickup and got someone who did not understand English and hung up on me. A couple minutes later someone who spoke English called us and confirmed the 11:00am pickup and the room numbers. They showed up on time and got us to the Lobby in plenty of time for checkout and bus pick-up. We had a large bus with only 2 other people on it and other than a school bus accident on one of the reads, getting to the airport was no eventful and always interesting viewing the cities and the people along the way.
After 10 guys climbed over each other to remove our luggage from the bus, we took our luggage to the Allegiant Terminal and checked in our luggage, got our seats assigned and went to the customs area. They asked two of our couples to fill out Declaration forms and they next gal got two of us couples and waived us through. This has never happened in 4 years of traveling into this airport. We did some shopping ate some food and went to gate 1 to await our plane. Surprise, it loaded almost 40 minutes early and they were on last call. We ran to get on the plane. Once on the plane (which was very warm as you can imagine, the pilot came on to explain the since there were two flight leaving around the same time our luggage was on the wrong plane and it would be 20 minutes before all of it was switched. The attendants started to serve cool water right away, since the fan above the seats will not really work until the engines are running. They got it all switched and we left within the 20 minutes. Then the pilot said it would be 4 hours and 40 minutes for the trip. This trip has never taken more that 3-1/2 to 4 hours before this, ever. We got outside of Milwaukee by about 100 miles and the pilot told us the airport was closed temporarily and that we were 5th in line for landing in 31 mph cross winds and snow. It was a long and bumpy landing but we made it amen.
General Comments:
Some in our group played miniature golf at the Tropical Princess. Some went for rides on bikes. Two in our group got into the ping-pong ball tournament (one won it). There is always something to do, from Bache ball to archery, etc. The entertainment group was great. Each morning we would be greeted by Victor and Geraldo. The maid service was great. They didn’t always have towels after they cleaned the rooms, but most night we had them before we went to bed. The waiters and waitresses at all of the restaurants always had a smile on their faces and enjoyed joking with us.
This resort was listed as a 4 Apple. I disagree with this assessment. I would put it at more of a 3 Apple. What is needed is for each room to be completely looked over electrically and plumbing wise. Small repairs would remove quite a few of the complaints. Yes, the pillows seemed to be filled with socks or rags and the mattresses were hard, but that never seemed to bother me anywhere else, so I had no complaints here. You get what you pay for. The drinks were good, but I have to admit I prefer premium liquid refreshment. I could have paid for VIP, but really, it isn’t worth it, unless you really need the bathrobes, cigars, bottle of rum and the premium drink brands. Besides, if you want 1 or 2 drinks of premium, you can purchase for $4-$6 each.
The beach and pool were some of the nicest I have been on or in. Other than the loud blaring music and speakers, it was a relaxing place. I was extremely un-relaxing to have to get up so early in the morning just to get a chair and should never be the case at a resort ever.
Al Mauch
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