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Had a fantastic time
We stayed at Superclubs Breezes Punta Cana (now Barcelo Premium Punta Cana) from 16th to 30th October, 2006. We are a family of 2 adults (now married adults!) and 2 children (9 & 5). We went out to this resort not really knowing what to expect after reading all the bad reviews but we needn't have worried as we had a fantastic time.
CHECK IN:
We had no problem with check-in, very fast and the porter even had the cases at our room before we got there.
FOOD:
We only went to two of the speciality restaurants, the Italian - very nice and the Marlin (BBQ and seafood) - also nice. The only downside was that there wasn't much choice in main meals, there were about 6 options in each. Being fussy eaters this wasn't too good. We didn't fancy any of the other restaurants but heard that they were good, especially the Japanese. The rest of the time we ate at the buffet (Alcazar) which had too much choice, the dessert section was amazing, too hard to try just one! Breakfast at the Alcazar was also good with a wide variety of foods (omlettes, eggs, cereal, toast, fruit, pancakes, sausages, beans and lots more). Lunchtimes we mostly ate at the beach bar (Marlin) which was also very nice. We did go to the El Sombrero once but service was very slow (waited about 1/2 hour to be served then about 40 minutes for the food) and when the food did arrive the order was wrong so we didn't go back there. We did hear that it was good from some other people so maybe we were just unlucky.
ROOM:
We had room 7113 which was a suite on the ground floor. This was very nice with a sitting room which had a settee bed for the kids and their own tv, they also had a seperate bathroom. Our room was brilliant, we had an en-suite with a jacuzzi bath and seperate shower. Our bed was HUGE and we also had a large tv. The room was cleaned every day along with towel and linen change, the maids also left pretty flowers around the bathroom sinks and swans made from towels either on the bed or on the towel rail. The fridge was stocked daily with soft drinks and water, we also left a tip every other day and got beer everyday too. My husband asked for a bottle of rum and got one in the room the same day so we gave him an extra tip. We also got another bottle another day without asking. We had a bottle of champagne the day we arrived, we had another one on our wedding day and again the day after. We also received a phone call one evening asking if wanted a bottle of champagne or beer - we got both at no cost! We had a few ants in the room but that was down to sticky drink on the side. We did have a couple of unwanted guests by way of cockroaches but these were thrown out of the door. The kids loved our daily visit from Lenny the Lizard outside one of our three balcony's. We had views of the beach, jacuzzi's and pool from our room and we could also hear the sea at night which was quite nice.
BEACH & POOL:
The beach is amazing, the sand feels like flour to walk on. We had mostly orange flag days, one red and on the green days we couldn't tell the difference between the orange days. The sea was quite rough so wouldn't let the kids in without one of us being in there with them. There are plenty of sunbeds and it is kept very clean.
The pool was very refreshing on the hot days and clean most of the time, we only found that there was rubbish in the pool (i.e. water bottles, cups) when there was an influx of American and South American visitors. Other than that we don't have a bad word to say about it. There are constantly workers going round picking up rubbish and clearing plates from around the pool. We quite often saw them cleaning the pool too. We always managed to find beds around the pool.
There are two guys that go round during the day with different animals (parrots, monkey, iguana) that you can have your photo taken with. You can then buy these from the photo shop on the evening for 8US$ each.
EVENINGS:
The entertainment team work very hard and put on some good shows (Night Fever, Circus, Magician, Broadway shows). The only downside for us was that when these finished at around 10.30 there wasn't much to do as the children were only allowed into the disco on family night which is once a week. This didn't matter too much as we would go and have a drink at the beach bar while the kids played giant chess or we would go back to the room and sit on the balcony while the kids watched tv. There was a fantastic guy who was in the theatre area most nights who did fabulous paintings. He also did spray painting with the kids, ours did two each over the two weeks and they loved it.
TRIPS:
We went on the Outback Safari which was excellent. Our guide was Daniel and our driver was Louis (his driving license was a bottle of rum!) and they were both very good. It is a good way to see some of the country and get local knowledge. We visited a dominican home and a rum shack. We saw schools and a cock fighting pit. We also saw how they made cocoa and coffee. Lunch and drinks were included and it was always happy hour. Before we returned to the hotel we were taken to a beach where you could go body boarding (the sea was very rough here).
The second trip we did was going to Manati Park. We booked with a rep at the hotel as Airtours does not endorse this park, we found out why when we went. We got a free bus from the hotel to the park and the cost was 75US$ (which included swimming with dolphins). It was good to walk around and see the animals, we went into the Iguana enclosure and could walk round with loads of large and small iguanas. We also went into the bird cage and had birds eating seeds off our heads and out of our hands. There were a range of other animals too and there were also shows you could watch (horse, parrot, dolphin and sealion). When we saw the dolphins we realised why the tour operators don't support it, the pool that the two dolphins were in was tiny, barely enough room for one let alone two. However, as we had paid for the experience of swimming with them already we did so. It was an amazing experience being in the water with them and stroking them, they gave us a kiss and they pulled us across the pool one by one.
BAD POINTS:
The only bad points about this resort are when the locals come onto the complex some evenings selling items they were a bit pushy and don't like taking no for an answer. I would of actually liked to look at some of the stalls but don't like to be pushed into buying something and not left to browse in your own time. The other bad point was the invasion of the South Americans who were very load and not very clean (rubbish). Apart from these two we couldn't complain about anything else.
WEDDING:
We got married at the beginning of our second week. We could not have wished for a better day, it was lovely and sunny (if a bit hot!). We stayed by the pool in the morning and I went off to the spa to have my hair and makeup done at 2pm. They were very good in there (even if they didn't speak much English) and the lady I had did a wonderful job with my hair. We were due to get married at 4pm but the judge was late (we were told that this was normal). We chose the beach as our location for the ceremony so I got ready at the spa. The flowers were beautiful and so was the decoration on the beach, we had a palm leaf arch with flowers on and there were rose petals sprinkled on the floor in the shape of a heart. We had a trio who played the wedding march walking behind me as I walked to my now husband and son waiting at the arch (the other son walked with me). The ceremony was in spanish (the wedding coordinator translated) and lasted no more than 10 minutes, we only had to say 'I do' . We did a toast, then cut the cake (which was delicious - two tier, one chocolate one vanilla covered in artifical cream), had our first dance under the arch while the band played and it was all perfect, we couldn't of wished for a better day. We had lots of photos taken and our photographer (Vanessa) was brilliant. We had some taken on the beach, some on a sand dune and in the gardens. We had dinner at El Marlin (they decorated a table for us) and then went to the entertainment. We made our way round all the bars several times (somehow managing to drink our way through 8 bottles of champagne - between the two of us - from the moment we got married!) The day was amazing from start to finish and the wedding coordinator (Jennifer) could not have been more helpful.
We found all the staff friendly and helpful and wouldn't hesitate in going back there. We hope that if you are going you don't listen to all the bad reviews and if you are thinking of getting married there we would certainly recommend it, it's definately the best way to do it. If you have any questions you can email just_stevens@hotmail.com, we would be happy to answer as I know I found this helpful when we were planning our holiday/wedding.
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