Barefoot Bride Meghan’s Honest Review of Royalton Bavaro

Hey there! Meghan and Miguel here to write a review about our wedding site visit at Royalton Bavaro. We stayed here from Thursday June 4, 2024, to Saturday June 6, 2024.

The goal of this visit was to determine if this resort was where we wanted our guests to stay for when we get married in Punta Cana. We admit that this resort was not originally on our list of places to visit, as other resorts had caught our attention. However, one of the resorts we were planning to visit (Lopesan) was out of our price range and after going back to the drawing board and speaking with Sharon, we decided to try Royalton. Notably, this resort allows children. As you’ll see later on, we also met with the wedding team to learn about the wedding packages they offer. Some of our research entailed joining three Royalton Bavaro Facebook groups to see reviews and posts about the resort, some of which occur in real time by guests who are currently staying there.

The Property/Check-In

The property in and of itself is on the larger side in comparison to other resorts, as it takes about 15 minutes to walk from the lobby to the beach, which are on opposite ends of each other. There are areas of the resort that are beautiful, however, other areas seemed run down and in need of an upgrade.

There is an option to upgrade to Diamond Club, which allows you access to additional areas. We did not choose to upgrade.

When we arrived at the resort (2pm), check-in seemed hectic but the resort was also hosting a medical conference and those participants were also arriving. However, the employees were organized, as someone approached immediately, asking us for our name to check for our reservation. Then that employee walked us to the check-in desk and waited with us until we were helped. We were told that our room number would not be assigned until 3pm, but we were given bracelets, which were used as our room key, which allowed us to get drinks and eat.

Accommodations

We reserved the Luxury Junior Suite, which is the most basic room they have to offer. However, upon check-in, we were upgraded to a Luxury Family Suite. The room was very spacious, with a king-size bed and a pull-out couch and could fit at least four adults. However, it appeared to be a little run down. As crazy as it sounds, the coolest part about this room was the shower because it had one shower head on the wall, two shower heads on the ceiling, and a small seating area. The refrigerator was supposed to come fully stocked but ours had not been restocked yet. Our bellhop called for the service and someone came to the room in under ten minutes. Had it been stocked, the refrigerator would have had soda, water, juice and Presidente beer. The bathroom came with the basics, such as shampoo, conditioner and body wash. The one critique that we have is that there were a few mosquitos that may have already been in the room, and it took a few hours for us to kill them all. I (Meghan) had even gotten bitten on the face! Every time we came back to the room, we were always wondering what bug we would find inside.

Food and Drinks

Since we had to wait until 3 to check-in, we immediately went straight to the pool without eating. The first thing we noticed was a food truck that made burgers and hot dogs. After swimming for a little bit, we ordered a chicken burger and fries, which hit the spot!

Something to note regarding a la carte restaurants is that Diamond Club members are able to make reservations. For Zen, which is the hibachi and sushi restaurant, a reservation must be made regardless of club status. For non-Diamond Club members, every morning, there is a table set up in the lobby for the guests to make reservations, which are for the same night.

For breakfast, we only ate at the buffet and there were plenty of options. Initially, the buffet looks huge, but it is actually multiple stations of the same items to help keep the lines moving. Don’t get us wrong, there were plenty of options which included an omelet station, hot food station, a pancake/waffle/French toast station, a smoothie station, a bagel station, a fruit station, dessert and the best of all…a donut wall!

For dinner on our first night, we ate at Hunter Steakhouse, which is yes, their steakhouse! We were provided bread and butter as a starter. For our appetizers, we ordered the corn chowder, the crab cake (Miguel couldn’t stop raving about it) and the French onion soup. The main courses consisted of the ribeye steak with a side of creamed spinach, and the Portuguese style chicken breast with onion rings. The best part: dessert; we had cheesecake and crème brulee (Meghan’s favorite!). We loved our meal here.

Dinner for our second night was at Grazie, the Italian restaurant. For our appetizers, we ordered calamari and the antipasto (meat and cheese board). The main course consisted of gnocchi pesto and eggplant parmigiana. For dessert, we had strawberry ice cream and tiramisu. The food and service were great here. Miguel was particularly happy with the waiters that served us at this restaurant.

The only critique we had was there were a lot of flies in the restaurants. We felt like we spent a decent amount of time swatting flies from our food, drinks and faces.

With respect to drinks, we both brought our own 40-ounce tumbler because we heard alcoholic drinks can be served in them. The rumors are true! We mostly drank pina coladas, and the bar staff filled up the tumbler with no issues.

Amenities

The gym on the property has a variety of weight lifting equipment for various parts of the body. There was a small area for those who like to use free weights. I (Meghan) had no issues with equipment being unavailable and made use of the options I had.

There are a few pools. We utilized two of them. The first was the infinity pool, which at times, was crowded depending on the time of day. However, there was a DJ and staff members who guide the guests in dances water activities. Notably, there is a swim up bar. We have no negative reviews of our time spent at this pool. The second pool we used was the lazy river, which is VERY lazy; there is a very slow current but it was our favorite because along the route were different waterfalls to get you wet!

On our second day, we visited the beach, and it was very pretty. There is a vendor next door that offers water sports and we saw some groups go on a banana boat. The water was a good temperature but there was not a lot of room to swim as the resort put up a seaweed blockade relatively close to the beach. This did not impact our experience. There were no issues looking for lounge chairs but beware that there are vendors that will approach you. All you have to do is say no thank you and they will move on to the next person.

The resort offers night time entertainment, which usually involves a show with a different theme. Our first night did not have a show because instead the resort hosts a white party on the beach. After everyone starts getting into the groove of the music, the fire dancers came out to put on a show. We loved it! Afterwards, the staff lined up in the front to dance to the music and the guests were able to follow along. Warning, it can be very tiring to dance on the beach, but we had a great time. For our second night, we saw a show at the plaza, which was the rock show. We were singing along during the whole performance and the band was very talented. Afterwards we went to karaoke at the sports bar to hangout. We will admit that night life at this resort is lacking. Other than the sports bar, there is nothing else to do after 10pm, unless you go to the casino. We normally do not stay up that late, so this was not a problem for us.

Wedding Visit

We set up our site visit prior to our arrival thanks to the help of Sharon. Considering that we had chosen to visit this resort somewhat last minute, the wedding team responded quickly to set up the appointment. We met with Angela, who was actually busy with another couple at the time of our arrival. She was going over that couple’s final information for wedding that was in a few days. As part of the process, the wedding couple had to do a site inspection of all the areas they were planning to use. Therefore, even though it was 20 minutes after our appointment time, that couple had allowed us to join them on the tour so Angela could avoid doing it twice. They ended up being very nice people and we saw them a few times around the resort before we left and exchanged hellos. We liked that the gazebo was semi-private, away from many guests that stay on the beach. The ocean view terrace above Oceanside Restaurant/Rio was very pretty we liked the view of the ocean. After the tour, we sat down with Angela back at the wedding office, where she showed us the wedding packages and services offered. She was very friendly; however, we felt like we were just another couple to her, as she really did not try to get to know us nor did she really explain the wedding process. Although we are considering this resort for our guests, we are not considering this resort as our wedding venue site.

Wrapping up

Overall, we were happy but not overly thrilled about our experience here. There are so many activities to do during the day and we felt like our guests would have a lot of options of how they would want to spend their time here. However, there was a lack of cleanliness and a rundown feeling. We would still recommend this resort to family and friends and we would consider staying here on a future trip.