Whala!Bayahibe

This is our second visit this year to this lovely, small resort. Clear, clean deep blue waters on the coral reef are great for snorkeling, diving and fishing. Plenty of activities to choose from. Staff is very attentive and friendly. Good choice of food.

we are spending our last night at the hotel, we have really enjoyed our wks hol, DO NOT LISTEN TO THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS, this has been well worth what we paid for the wk, the hotel is lovely, staff brilliant, yes fare enough rooms could do with a bit of a make over, but this looks like it's happening as i write this, also the dining area could do with a refurb, all the staff from cleaners to kitchen staff to reception staff to bar staff even managers all do extremely long days, we had an issue with our air conditioning, when i went to reception they sent a maintenance guy straight away, the staff are always brushing, mopping and tidying, please don't let the very few negative reviews put you off, just 1 final thing, the hotel is in the process of changing its name so might go under whala, enjoy your stay....

First day here. Room is adequate good aircon lovely balcony and side sea view. Pools are fabulous..food Is tasty but luke warm but there is a microwave, so can heat it up. Nice pool and bar area with sandy area with sun loungers not a problem getting a bed. Staff are friendly and helpful. So far so good. Will update later.

We booked our vacation via Sunwing for 7 friends for 7 days. Upon arrival, our friend who did all the booking had no room assigned to her & both of the men at the desk seemed very confused about checking all of us in even when our names did show up in their system. They did end up finding a room for her. We had 2 rooms that should have had 2 beds but instead had 1. It took a few days to sort that out. The rooms were apparently renovated & were attractive & clean. We had no water in our entire building for 4-5 hours upon check in which we got different explanations about. Frequently there was no hot water during the week long stay. The beds were rock hard and the pillows were horrible. Every night we woke up with sore backs and crappy sleep. The food was over all very good. The buffet had a great variety. The International Restaurant was Mexican theme all week. We went once, the service there was horrible. Slow, confused, no refills offered on drinks & the food was cold. The Italian restaurant was AMAZING. We ate there 3 times during our stay. We made sure we told them how wonderful their service was and how great the food was. We spoke to other groups who had similar experiences at the two locations. We never tried the sushi place because you had to pay for it and we heard mixed reviews. The food truck & snack shack were great for lunch & snacks pool side. The bar drinks were strong so be prepared! None of us had any issues with the food, water or ice making us sick in any way. The pools & resort were beautiful. The view from the pools were amazing. We loved that despite not having a beach you still had access to the ocean via a dock. Lots of lounge chairs and umbrellas to spend the day on. Basically all of our bigger problems were around the rooms, beds & a general sense of being disorganized. I was looking forward to a better night sleep then I was able to get. I wouldn't go back because of the beds but I would tell others about the resort and my experience and let them decide. Maybe I needed to go to bed more drunk for it not to bother me.

stayed at this resort for 6 days with my partner. the Resort is located in the Dominicus area, has direct access to the sea but does not have a beach. the structure, the rooms and the facilities are very dated (90s). we had problems with the poorly functioning air conditioning system. even the buffet meals, although of considerable quantity, are very lacking in quality. pros: all the staff, the 4 pools and the presence of a diving center. cons: the rooms and the mediocre quality of the food and the availability of the safe which is not included (something that has never happened to me in any other hotel). all in all the quality-price ratio is acceptable

Went for a week trip with my disabled grandmother and found some pros and cons to this hotel. Flew into Punta Cana airport and it was a 50 minute drive to the hotel, upon checking in reception staff were really friendly. Found throughout the holiday the majority of staff speak very minimal English (Spanish speaking) however do try their best to communicate. We requested preferably a ground floor room with two beds, for my grandmother. They allocated us a ground floor room however upon getting in the room, noticed that the a/c didn’t work at all. Queried this with reception who sent a maintenance man to the room and told us to wait 30 minutes and if it didn’t work, to come back. So as we did, and reception offered us another room with working a/c, however this was on the 3rd floor but did have access to an elevator. There are 4 restaurants, one buffet with standard all inclusive food but did themed nights, two al a carts which are included but need to be booked and a sushi restaurant which is an additional cost. Drinks were good, handmade cocktail list and access to local spirits, soft drinks and beers, bottled beers and non-local spirits were an additional charge. Unfortunately when eating in the restaurants there were lots of stray cats who would sit by the table and walk round by the food, itching and cleaning themselves, and guests would feed them. There are 3 salt-water infinity pools which we found to be lovely and the view was beautiful and had plenty of sun loungers with umbrellas, however a lot of chipped paintwork along the walls and lots of dead bugs but staff were regularly fishing these out. There’s a small ‘hot tub’ which we didn’t find to be particularly warmer than the standard pools, and an additional fresh-water pool with cabanas round. Did not find there to be much issue with mosquitos during our trip, found more so the annoyance of the sand wasps absolutely everywhere round the pool. Everyday had a full schedule of entertainment, workshops, dance classes, water aerobics etc. Take advantage of the food truck which is included and found to be the best food by the pool. The resort is not on the beach and has no access to the beach unless you take the free shuttle bus which runs every half an hour. The room had a mini fridge, which had water in upon arrival but unfortunately didn’t get restocked throughout the trip despite daily housekeeping, towels replaced only when we physically went down to reception to ask, and bedding would be tidied not changed at all throughout the trip. Unfortunately we had an evening where the hotel had no water for approximately 3-4 hours but did come back on eventually. Found a lot of the staff to look incredibly unhappy to be there, including the general manager and unfortunately we wished they had greeted customers upon crossing them in the hotel but majority did not. We were unfortunately woken up many times throughout the nights to the loud noise of hammering and machinery with workmen working on r