We stayed at the Riu Bachata from April 16th-May 1st to attend our son’s wedding. There were 31 wedding guests and two sisters getting married on two different days.



Our flight from Halifax with Air Transat was great, met our Sunquest representative at the airport, no problem. On our arrival, our rooms were not ready and we waited from about 11 am. To 2 pm. No problem, we toured the resort, had lunch at the Beach restaurant. Our room was as requested, king size bed, oceanview.



Wedding

On our first full day, we met with Maria, the wedding planner, to chose the flowers, location of the wedding, restaurant, discuss times, program, costs etc. That took about 20min to ½ hour for the two bridal parties. On our son’s wedding day, we just had to show up at the Pagoda on the hill 15 minutes and everything went as planned. The weather was amazing, view was amazing, wedding was effortless. The only suggestion that I might have is that the area should be closed to anyone other than the wedding guests for at least 15 minutes prior to the wedding, so that pictures can be taken of the setting prior to the wedding without tourists in them. I don’t think that is too much to ask when extra is paid for the location.

Renaldo ?, the waiter at the wedding, was great fun, organized the chairs, munchies, champagne etc. very well. It was all truly amazing and I would highly recommend a destination wedding; a lot less fuss, cost, amazing surroundings. The wedding dinner was held at the Steak House, complete with cake. The second wedding the next day was at the Spaghetti Specialty restaurant. I liked the food at the Spaghetti House best.



Food

I don’t know how anyone could complain about the food at this resort. There was an amazing selection of everything that one could want. We ate most of our lunches, if we ate lunch at the Beach restaurant and again the selection was very diverse and of good quality. One of last nights at the resort, there was bacon wrapped filet mignon and it was the best we have ever tasted.



Tours

Most of the wedding party went on the Mega Truck tour. Talk about an action-packed day. We visited a typical Dominican home, school, coffee making session, carved stone location, horse-back riding, held a python, sat on a 2000 pound Brahma bull, ate a great Dominican lunch, and went to a secluded, white, sandy beach for about an hour. This is the first time we have gone on a tour while on a Caribbean vacation because we chose to stay two weeks and are glad we selected Mega Trucks. A few others went on the Skyview tour and were a bit disappointed because a good part of it was shopping, bartering and not enough time was spent at the Amber museum. Some took a taxi from the lobby to Puerto Plata to see the Amber Museum, Brugal factory and that may be the way to go as it might be cheaper and you could see what you want and stay as long as you liked.



We have been to the Dominican 4 times and this is one of the nicest resorts. We didn’t spend a lot of time at the two other resorts as Bachata really has the nicest pool, although when we went for walks, we would stop in at other hotels for a cool drink. Certainly the beach is better down near the water sports area, I think the Meringue area. Loungers were plentiful and even though there were people who marked their spots early every morning, there was usually space where you could either have shade or sun, (must be sad to be so regimented on your vacation). In the morning, our biggest decision was beach or pool? Some people lounged at their spot all day and only got up to go in the pool. That became a concern to me as you wondered what they were really going in the pool to do! Good thing they really shock the pool at night! After my observations, I preferred the ocean.



This is our second Riu hotel stay and we really like this franchise. Everything is consistent and of good quality.



Entertainment

When we had the energy to stay up this late, we attended most presentations. Most were very professional. There were a few sketchy night where the audience is used as the entertainment. These are a little less than what I would like to see. Unfortunately, during our second week, there was a Karaoke night, which had been quite good at one of the other hotels the previous week, but the second week, there was an influx of children. Karaoke Night became a night of children wanting to perform. They usually had their time from 8:30 pm. to 9 pm. The 9:30 pm Karaoke should have been left for the adults who wanted to perform only. There were a few amazing adult performers, but the children left a lot to be desired. The Animation team did a great job trying to find the children something else to do, but some parents just don’t “mind” their children. The night of the fire-eater and glass walker, the kids were pushing right to the stage, even though there was something else planned for them. I found that the second week there were other locations where parents should have “minded” their children too. Four teenage boys were climbing and jumping all over the nets across the pool, tearing them and could have possibly hurt themselves. Guests shouldn’t complain about the locals on the weekend, when they can’t look after their own kids. These “obnoxious” children were not “locals”. This week made us think that another time, we might look for an “adult only” resort. Wonder whether Riu has such a thing?



Only suggestion that I can make would be that on our last day, we had a late flight. The hotel was kind enough to let us stay in our room free of charge until 2pm., but it is still a long wait until departure from the hotel at 7:30 pm. We had dinner and played cards, but what would be really nice would be an air-conditioned room with maybe a TV, internet, tables, chairs, couches, so that you could relax and not take up lobby space. Just a suggestion. I think every resort should have such a room for late departures.



Wonderful time had. Would recommend Riu Bachata to anyone for a wedding or for a vacation. Could have stayed 2 more weeks.

Well what can i say, just got back from a lovely warm , but damp climate, swam every day, and went to the beach.

Took my 16 year old son john, he loved the fact that he could get in the night club, he had a great time, he met lots of freinds from all over the world, and played ball games on the beach.

Took my 9 month old baby. There were lots of babys there, but they dot speciffically cater for them, but will help you if you ask for something.

Our request from the travel agent was for a honeymoon room or sea view, and a cot, we got neither. They obviously didnt read the rquest or couldnt care less.

We had to go to the reception to ask for a cot, which should have already been in the room. We had been up at 4am and by the time we reached our destination, we were very tired, especially the baby. I ended up falling asleep on the bed with him, wich wasnt that safe as the floor is stone. Had he have woken up and fallen on the floor it doesnt bear thinking about, but we had been up 18 hours, and it would have been nice if the babys cot had been in the room. However after asking at reception it came, although it was some 3 hours later.

We booked with riu for a wedding, and it stated in the brochure, that you got a complimentry free upgrade to a honeymoon suit, or seaview, well we got neither, we got fobed off with there was no availability as the hotal was full, well the hotel wasnt that full, we were there for 2 weeks, and the majority of people go for 11 days or the yanks go for a week, in any event we didnt get a free upgrade, we were given a familly room by the road, it smelt of damp, and we were by the drains, and the smell was awful at times, so we very rarly went on the balcony. I have taken shots of the damp, and the electric wires exposed behind the hairdryer in the bathroom.

Im very annoyed and dissapointed, that they couldnt care less about the fact that this was our wedding, pedro the manager on the desk was less than helpful. He couldnt evan look me in the eye when he said there was no upgrades available. So im not sure i beleived him, i think if id have offerd to pay for one there might suddenly have been one.

I also emailed ahead of time to request a nice ocean view room, so dont think if you request a room you will nessacerilly get it, we didnt, and we payed for a holiday and a wedding.

On top of that we didnt get a complimentry free wedding cake, we did complain, but sorry was all we got, so i had a wedding with no cake and no honeymoon suit.

On a positive note, the wedding was lovely, and the wedding co-ordinater maria garcier did a good job, of making the day nice.

The food was plentiful and i think there was a lot of selection, my 16 year old son is quite fussy, but evan he found things to eat.

The second chef henry was helpful in blending food for the baby, if you ask a lot of the staff they dont understand this requst, so if you need something specific, look for a chef with a high white hat, they are higher up in the kitchen, and can make desisions. The higher and bigger the white hat the more clout they have.

The animation team work very hard, and make your holiday happy and evantful, there is stuff going on all day long if you want to partisipate, like darts, pool aerobics, volleyball, horseshoe, bingo, dance lesson. They do the entertainment in the evening. Its a bit naff, but funny. The only 9.30pm show i enjoyed was the micheal jackson show, that was good.

In the bachata i didnt see any thompson reps that were english, if we needed to find one we had to go to the other hotels, and they were difficult to find, dave from liverpool was a lovely helpful guy, but unfortunatly he was posted to the other side of the island, and when he left we didnt see anyone. We saw a girl called fiona, on the last day, who had a very aggresive personality, we were scared to ask her anything, very grumpy woman.

On the whole our holiday was good, but dissapointing regarding the accomadation. Think it was good value for money. Dont know if i would choose to get married there again though.

mini bar very good, stocked every 2 days with beer and soft drinks. you should get fresh water every day, for your teeth.

We took baby powder to make bottles, so we requested 2 bottles of water a day. We also took a travel kettle to boil water for the botles.

We just got back from the Riu Bachata and were very pleased.

I had read a number of reviews online and I was a little worried because 1 out of 10 said it was horrible or the food was terrible or something. My feeling is that you get what you look for wherever you are.

After staying in the Bachata I can say they try their best to give every traveler a great experience. It was a very nice hotel and even though we went with a few reservations, we were very pleased about the hotel, the staff, the food, and our stay.

We stayed April 30 through may 7th booked through a friend who does Travel through GOGO tours. It was our 25th year wedding anniversary and we thought we'd do something cool. We arrived and they had a guy at a desk waiting for us at the airport, transfer to the hotel was easy, We did sit for a while in the bus while some guy took both our vouchers, gave us a different voucher, and told us who to meet in the Hotel for our orientation. The Orientation was nice but more of here's the excursions we have available originally. After we got to know Jacquline, our tour representative though, she became the go to person for finding out stuff and she was very helpful even with stuff not related to tours.

The Lobby of the Hotel is open but spacious and beautiful. A tropical paradise. Birds flying in and out which surprised me. But not once in our stay did we see a mess from the birds. They even zoomed in and out of the dining room but really seemed to know their place.

Our room was Great. We didn't spend much time there but it was above my expectations. It was clean. At first when you walked in it was a bit musty, but it's because you're in a tropical place, open the door or turn on the fan and the air and it was gone quickly. It was cleaned well daily. There are no doors except to your room, so each night as we came home it was interesting to see what had come in the common hallway during the day. We found a frog, a lizard, a hermit crab, but they each were just seeking shelter from the sun I suppose. No big deal and the hall was swept and mopped daily to clean the sand and leaves that were tracked or blown in.

The beds were probably the biggest concern. They were hard. I fell asleep quickly each night but about 4 in the morning I had to roll over and about 5 I had to roll to the other side and at 6:30 I had to get up because my old body was sore of laying there. I'm used to a soft pillow top mattress in the states, so I didn't sleep in as much as I thought I would.

I've read a lot of reviews and some reviews say the food is terrible. Well, it's not. Think of eating at Chuck a rama's or Hometown buffet 3 meals a day for 7 days. That's the best I can explain it. They have some great food, some good food, some not so good food and it's up to you to make what you want of it.

The Fish every day was the best. Put the butter/garlic or whatever it was sauce on it and it was great.

They almost every day had some type of beef, pork, fish and always chicken. The chicken was almost always over done though - I think it's just the way the dominican's cook.

They had lots of veggies cooked in a lot of ways, I ate mashed potatoes for breakfast, carrots for breakfast, and even some cold beef or pork dishes sometimes. Break fast was always great, different kinds of eggs, omlets, veggies, and lots of BACON!

I do admit after 7 days in the same place it was nice to eat at a burger king. They try to give you a variety but after 7 days, it all starts looking and tasting familiar.

We did the stake house one night and the stake was good, but you can't cook a 3/8 inch stake rare no matter how you cook it. The beef was always a little tough but good flavor. All in all I think they did a good job.

The waiters were always very friendly and helpful. I got to know a few of them and was happy to slip them a couple bucks because they were very attentive to getting us drinks and clearing our plates.

That's one thing I did after reading the reviews, I took $100 in $1 bills and it came in very handy. I probably gave $20 to various drivers and luggage handlers from the airport there and back but the rest I gave to whatever staff seemed to go out of their way and they seemed to sincerely appreciate it. I'd always ask the bartender for a non-alcoholic drink and he'd make me one or two up fresh and I'd give him a buck per drink. I couldn't figure it out though because sometimes they'd just go to the dispenser for a pina colada and give me that and I'd ask-no alcohol? He'd say yes yes no alcohol. The ones out of the dispenser always seemed to taste better though.

We tipped the maids about every other day and they were good about putting pepsi's in our little fridge. At the end I found out though it's a couple guys that go around restocking the drinks and the bar in the room although we didn't even use that. So I'm not sure who got the tips. When I saw the maid in the hall I'd give her a couple bucks and the next day a towel swan showed up in our room.

One evening as the people go back to their room and the maintenance guys come out to put all the lounge chairs on the beach back in a nice neat row I came upon an older dominican gentleman named Cesar raking up some leaves. I gave him a couple buck and said good job and thank you. He said Gracias a couple times and seemed very appreciative. A couple days later I'm laying on the beach and he comes by and asks in broken english if I want a drink? He pulls a big green coconut from his wheel barrow and with a few wacks of his machete he hands me a tropical coconut drink. He seemed to remember me which I was impressed. Warm coconut water doesn't compare to a pina colada, but I thought it was a very nice gesture on his part.

I talked with two very nice tour guides, ours was Jaquiline from GOGO tours and I also became friends with Irma - now at Club Caribe tours who was very friendly, helpful and just a delight to talk to. Irma helped me understand a lot of the Dominican way of life. From what I understand, most employees at the hotel get around 250 or 300 dollars a month - doing the math I figure between 10 to 15 dollars a day depending on days. So tipping a buck or two can significantly increase their daily wage. I asked if the Hotel treats the workers good and they said yes, because they provide the Dominican's a job at an ok wage but they pay typical wages and work long hours so even though it's good for the people there, it's not like they're getting rich or anything.

But Jaquiline and Irma (pronounce eerma - and roll the r just a little) - I could never do her name justice but she was sweet and pretty and very nice anyway - but they were very helpful with our way around. They understood I'm not a rich american, but that I wwork hard to save up money to come to their beautiful island and they weren't out to take me but to help me enjoy my stay and truly be very friendly and helpful.

We did the Jeep tour and had a blast. Our Guide was Elvis who has been doing it about 20 years. He was very personable and helpful. Originally we were going to do the monster truck tour, but decided on the jeep tour and were glad we did. After seeing a poor domincan home, a stone carving factory (actually a hut where a buch of guys whack at stone with machete's and carveing it and sanding it smooth), and then how an old Domincian lady makes cocoa and coffee, and taken to a couple souvineer places we had lunch on a very nice hill top looking over domincian jungles and cane fields. The lunch wasn't much to speak of, rice, beans and ove done chicke, but it was good and filling. We didn't get to go in a school because they were closed for some holiday - I never caught exactly what it was but nobody seemed much to care what holiday it was. The Jeep tour ended at a Dominican Republic state park called the 7 waterfalls or something. After about a 20 minute hike you come to the base of these falls. You climb up 7 different falls ranging from several stories high to about 6 or 9 feet. After you get up to kind of a dead end where you would need ropes to go higer you get to slide/jump down these falls. You actually have to swim up this river with the rocks going up both sides of you about 20 feet. It's a real trip!

With the help of Jaquline and Irma we also booked our own custom tour through a guy standing int he hotel lobby. Originally I thought my wife and I would catch a bus to the cable car mountain place - Telefocos or something like that. But we didn't feel like that big of an adventure so while we were standing there Daniel Aremonte came up to us and asked if we wanted a tour. Now I never reallly got how it works, but apparently he gets us a taxi, we pay the taxi and then we give him a tip. The Taxi works for what they charge and he works for the tip.

Now I'm kind of cheap and did't want to feel like I was being taken advantage of, so I wanted to understand the deal. I asked how much tip is appropriate he said whatever you feel. I asked what a good tip was, he said a million pesos. I said what's a bad one, he said One peso. ALthough I really didn't care for this range, after discussing it with my wife we hired him and the driver for an agreed price of $45 for the taxi for a tour of the telefocos - the cable car up the mountain and a short excursion into town for shopping. We headed up the cable car first.

THE CABLE CAR UP THE MOUNTAIN IS COOL! Daniel took us up there, helped us get our tickets, gave us a tour of the gardens at the top, took a couple great pictures of me and my wife in very good settings. He was a hobbist photographer and actually did a great job. After about an hour or so on the mountain we came down and went into town. Because of the holiday a bunch of stores were closed, but he took us to a place that didn't give us too much of the "Cheepy cheepy just for you" crap.

That's one thing that bugged me, they want to sell you stuff but start out about ten times what you want or expect to pay. We'd say no, they'd drop it 5 or 10 bucks, we'd say no, and they'd do that about 3 times and then say what price you want to pay?

Well, I want to pay a buck, but I never tried that. I just kept saying no until they got to the price I wanted or I just set it down and wander off. These shell necklaces I'd expect to pay $5 for started at $35 and finally came down to 6 or 7 bucks a piece. We got a few at that price but I didn't really like playing the pricing game.

Every single shop had the same crap in it. Dominican paintings which I guess if you get into domincan paintings are fine, but they are all the same high school painting of lizards, dominicans or bob marley. A lot of African inspired art that I though odd. I know domincans are decendents, but I thought they wouldn't have the same african masks - dunno just me. THen they all had the country stone (Triptofan or something) and then Amber that I was pretty sure was produced in some back room using epoxy. I don't know, there can't be that much amber on that island.

I thought I'd spend more money on souviners in their country if they had a little more variety or something that didn't seem like it had been laying there the last 10 years including most of the cigars.

Ok, ok, I'll get off our shopping adventure. Anyway, Daniel Aremonte and our cab driver Jesus hung around outside to take us wherever we wanted to go. They even drove us through town, down my the shoreline, past the historic fort - that my wife didnt' care to tour so we diddn't - but Daniel was very accomidating.

At the end of our trip I tipped Daniel Aremonte $30 american and whatever loose peso's I had in my pocket about 500 of them. So I think I paid him about $45 bucks too, but I was happy with that. and felt it fair for him and worthwhile for me. I suspect it was double what he was used to. I felt justified in that because He was very friendly, told us about his family, showed us pictures of his house, his wife, and pointed out his house from the top of the cable car. At first I was apprehensive, but I felt well taken care of and we got a personal tour for which I felt happy with the price.

Last thing is the beach and pool. My wife has stayed at a 5 star resort in arizona and said the pool at the Bachata was every bit as nice.

The beach was great and bad. IF you want to sit on the beach under the palm trees, watch the waves this is great. If you want to snorkel and see fish and coral, this is not great. The beach at the Bachata is rocky and if you walk out too far you are standing on sharp jagged rocks - I did it. You can move down the beach to the mambo or the merenge and find softer sand and great swimming area with a very wide sand area. Visibility in the water during our stay was poor, but a storm rolled through while we were there. I talked to some nice dutch people who went out on several excursions and said it was fantastic. Just like you see on national geographic with colorful fish and clear water, but you need to get out from the north shore to see the clear water. I tried snorkeling on the beach and I'm glad it's not one of the primary reasons I went.

The visitors at the hotel were mainly dutch, german, a few english and american. During the weekend the population doubled at the resort with mostly Dominicans. Now, I have nothing against them, but it was interesting most Dominican visitors at the resort almost gave an attitude that I was in their way. Not true of the people who worked at the resort. They were always nice and friendly and willing to help in any way. On our last day some dutch girls came in in a tizzy because they had missed their bus and were in tears yelling at the hotel staff. I was impressed the hotel desk called some guy over who didn't seem to take much crap from them but efficiently solved whatever their problem was. nearly everyone was friendly and we had a few great volley ball games and a good water polo game.

All in all it was a wonderful vacation. Great people, I really like the Domincians, unless they're first or last name is Cheepy cheepy. Then they just view you as a mark or someone to sell something to.

A big thanks to Irma and Jaquline who are very sweet and helpful.

We have just returned on 29th April from the Riu Bachata. I have to say it was the most enjoyable all inclusive resort we have stayed in and we have travelled virtually all over the world. The food was good, staff were so helpful and it is spotless. They never stop cleaning. I just don't know what people that write bad reviews expect for their money. It was excellent value and we will definately return. Best of all and a very big thanks to the animation staff. They work their socks off to make sure that everyone has a thouroughly enjoyable time. We spent the 2 weeks laughing our heads off. Can't be bad. A special thanks to Power 69, Spaghetti, Ms Yesse and Susy. Well done to them all.