This was our second time at this resort- why take a chance when you are pretty happy overall the first time.
If you are uncomfortable with mingling with folks from Russia, Poland , Italy , Quebec, Spain, England and dealing with people who do not speak good English, well .... stay home and freeze.
The hotel is a great value , cafeteria food was excellent, but with 7 or 8 nice restaurants there is lots of variety. With a bit of friendly banter with the staff it was easy to get a couple of extra restaurant dinners . (Helps if you speak a bit of Spanish). We ate 5 out of 7 dinners at the restaurants. Best ones are the Italian Japanese and French) What I really like, and not everyone realizes this , is that breakfasts and lunches are served at some of the restaurants eg. the italian for breakfast and fish restarant at the beach for lunch. No reservations needed. The quality of these is much better and the atmosphere is nicer than the beach cafeteria plus its full service.
Rooms are large and vey nice and maintenance is excellent .. the staff is really trying hard to please.
I find the Dominicans are generally shy, but try hard to speak English, a few worda of Spanish are well appreciated. Hey, this isnt Cleveland and thats part of the charm. Once you make initial contact , no problemo. My wife speaks Spanish very well so we got the inside scoop and a few nice perks as a result .

One hint, ask for a room facing the pool, if not you are looking at the mango swamp.

Getting a good spot at the pool or beach is always a bit problematic. Just get there early or very late or talk to A****** at the pool cafeteria.

I was pleased to see that the Bahia is improving year over year.. the food was better overall.

Small gripes.
Drinks are totally inconsistent even from the same bar i.e. weak - strong , cold- warm etc. need some standards.

Also we hosers from Canada like to bring our big insulated Timmys coffee mugs along to get filled with Margueritas etc. Well , mid week management decided they cant do that any more so they gave us 3 small plastic cups which we quickly transferred to the mugs. No big deal.

The beach is second to none.

Great vacation.. again.

We recently returned from Gran Bahia Principe Punta Cana and had a wonderful time. The rooms were clean and in good shape. The entertainment and drinks were plentiful and the pool was wonderful as well. There were very times that I didn't notice the cleaning staff working around the grounds. The only aspect of the hotel that I didn't enjoy was the food. On a scale of 1-10, I would give it a 4. Don't expect too much in that department. If possible book or ask for an upgrade to the Gold Club, It is closer to the pool and the Ocean and you will save time on the walk/bus ride. I would return to this hotel.

Got back from the Bahia Principe, Punta Cana on March 28th.

First of all, I must say that DO NOT TRAVEL WITH AIR TRANSAT. Seats were cramped. Imagine sitting for 7hrs in a cramped position. The flight attendants were good. They knew that the plane was packed and crammed as well.
As far as the hotel is concerned, it was absolutely wonderful. Granted, it was big, however, the service was so good that you didn't feel like it was that big.
The beach was actually the best I have seen, and I have been all over the caribbean.
The hotel next to us had a terrible beach with weeds ( Majestic Colonial). The other hotel on the other side to us, Riu, shared our wonderful beach.
The food was a little bland in the buffet, however, a lot of people liked it. Our favorite theme resturant was the French, Mediterranean,
seafood, and fried chicken from room service(24 hrs room sercice)

Anyone that complains about their time here is way to picky.
I was at the Bahia Principe from April 28 - May 5 2007 and I had an AMAZING TIME.
Went with my mother, father, brother (aged 21), his fiance (aged 21), my best friend(aged 19), aunt, uncle and 2 cousins (ages 13 and 17).
The airport was a little confusing to find our shuttle bus, but wasen't bad. It was extremely interesting driving through the cities, seeing how they live and the cultural differences.
When we got to the resort, check in wasen't bad. While waiting in line we were given fresh watermelon juice, as we were all really hot from the heat and still being in long pants. Check in took approx. an hour for all of us, getting 4 rooms, all in the same buidling like we asked, 2 together on a floor, and 2 together on the other floor. Only thing we couldn't get was 2 rooms with 2 double beds, instead 3 of our rooms had a king, but that wasen't the biggest deal. Before we even got our rooms we had our wrist bands and went over to the lobby bar in shifts to grab and drink and run back to the line.
once we had our keys we were quickly wisked to our rooms, where they helped us to carry our bags up to the 3rd floor. Quickly through on our bathing suits and went down to the pool.

Food: The food was really good, buffet changed things up every night. The fruit was like nothing i've ever tasted here in canada, it was so fresh and so juicy. We went to the Garden Grill one night, really good, buffet style though, so seemed alot like the buffet. Japaneese was by far the best, very entertaining and the food was really good as well. Mediterranean was really good, i had an amazing soup there. As for illness, 3 of us the food didnt always sit great, but i know for myself no matter where I have ever travelled too it never has, no big deal though, careful what I ate.

Bars: My favourite bar by FAR was the swim up in the main pool, shout outs to John and Juan. They were hooking us up all week, they saw our drink was empty and it was refilled within a few minutes. They even let me and my friend hook our Ipods up as long as the music wasn't distastful. The bar at the entertainment was always fairly busy, but everyone went to the nightly entertainment that you can't blame them, still not as busy as a bar here in toronto.

Entertainment: AMAZING, they really take pride in this and making sure people get involved. Laying on the beach, I would always get approached saying come dance,come dance, learning the merange, and aerobics on the beach. At the pool, always games, volleyball and such most of the day, near around 2-4 always contests like bingo, drinking contests and tons of other fun. Best was having to watch my brother "shake his stuff" to be able to get his bottle of rum he won in bingo. Went to the disco a couple times, it was packed, but didnt have alot of people dancing, still fun though.

Rooms: Nice enough, tv was good, bed was comfy, BIG bathrooms/showers, always enough towels, if not asked for more. Really didn't go there to spend time for the room so didn't care what it was really like.

Beach: Gorgeous beach, amazing clear water. Went parasailing one day, absolutly amazing experience. Any vendors understood no and left us alone. Chairs weren't bad, we usually got one for all of us.

Overall, amazing time, go and you will not regret. The people that complain really are just not letting themselves relax.