Royalton Bavaro, An Autograph Collection All-Inclusive Resort & Casino

John Wheeler

This is not a 5* hotel. Our 1st impression of the place was set on our arrival by the one and a half hour wait standing in a queue to check in, totally unacceptable!!!! The rooms are overdue a refresh, they were probably lovely 10 years ago. The service is also poor, housekeeping fine but water and other fridge items were only restocked once in 10 days and that was after I complained, and not again afterwards. The food in the buffet is abysmal, mostly Luke warm, over cooked or almost raw (fish). For some reason tables were never laid with spoons, sometimes there would be spoons somewhere amongst the buffet offerings, but it was like a treasure hunt. If you asked a waiter you would normally be given a tea spoon. Coffee in the buffet was absolutely undrinkable. The pool and beach areas are nice and the waiting staff good. The entertainment was poor and way too loud. The one highlight for me would be the coffee/ice cream shop where the staff were excellent and the products good. We have been to many 5* hotels in the Caribbean and the Royalton Bavaro was definitely a low point. Our advice, go somewhere else!

Nicole Matthews

Extremely disappointed in the quality of stay at this all inclusive resort. We were immediately pressured by Diego (concierge) to join the diamond club and when we decided not to he said that WE would be the reason he gets in trouble with his boss and maybe “loses his job” because we didn’t go on the diamond club tour. Diego proceeded to ignore us the rest of our trip, and even put his head down when walking past us down a hallway and didn’t even say hello back to us. Most importantly, I felt extremely sick while staying in our room. Every night my eyes & nose would burn and run so bad, couldn’t swallow at all & then found BLACK MOLD EVERYWHERE in our shower. I’m assuming this is also in the A/C vents and this is why I was feeling sick in the room, but not during the day while outside. “Reservation-free” dining is a lie. Food was awful, buffet was the only thing available because reservations were booked every night. The only good thing about this trip for us was getting engaged, and our excursion off premise. For the price you pay, SAVE YOUR MONEY! We expected so much more than the quality of beds, pillows, rooms & service we received.

Elizabeth Haynie

Came here to celebrate my sister and I’s birthday, but we were highly disappointed as we could not get reservations at a single restaurant. We had to eat at the buffet or the bar every night because those are the only places you can go without a reservation. The buffet was good the first night, but the next two nights the food was not good. We could not even sit together at the buffet, we had to have a birthday dinner at the airport on the way home. Really disappointing considering that it’s a Marriott and I thought it would be smoother. The only highlight of the resort was the swim up room. I also noticed there was a ton of hair in our Jacuzzi, it was gross. At night they have music or some kind of performance then everyone goes to the bar that is there. The gift shop is also really expensive. The employees in the gift shop, the front desk and the room service people were really sweet, but everyone else was rude. My sister even got into it with a cook that refused to give her a steak at the buffet. Although we had fun, I wish we would’ve stayed at a different resort. We spent thousands of dollars and couldn’t even eat a good meal together

Naomi Spewak

We recently traveled to Royalton Bavaro (March 1-6). I have to say I was a bit nervous after reading reviews online that weren’t so positive. We booked our vacation with certain requirements- distance from airport, swim-up room, all-inclusive, & price. This resort met all of our requirements. We had a great trip. Our meals were all great, the buffet options were very generous. Overall we had a great experience. I am making this review as honest as possible because of the concerns we had before traveling, there were definitely some cons to staying at this resort, we did not know before booking that most of the restaurants required a reservation. You can only make reservations for that day or the next day, there was rarely availability for the majority of the restaurants. We booked with diamond club so we were fortunate enough to have a butler who was able to obtain the reservations for us but that definitely would have been frustrating if we didn’t have that option. Another con was the musty room smell, we didn’t unpack our suitcases as to try to keep some of the musty smell from settling in to our clothes, we understand with the humidity in this area that it might be hard to keep moisture from causing this problem. Although our room was tended to daily, we constantly had to ask for washcloths, housekeeping would take ours and not leave new ones. This seems like a small problem but if we didn’t track down housekeeping to ask for more, we had to contact our butler to get them for us. We did feel like our room was not thoroughly cleaned prior to our arrival, we felt as though they rushed it to get us checked in an hour early, we would have preferred they checked us in at the normal time and spent that time cleaning our room a little better. Also, we did not use the sofa, it did not look clean, it had visual stains on it. This con is not the resorts fault but some of the guests were slobs, I know you have this anywhere however, guests would just leave empty cups or plates sitting -along the lazy river, on top of garbage cans, basically any surface that was available when they were tired of carrying it. The grounds were kept very well but this seems to be a problem that their staff can’t keep up with. Smoking was also allowed pretty much throughout the resort, other than restaurants, this is not something that we’re used to. They did not seem to enforce the use of designated smoking areas. Almost all garbage cans had sand on top so this seemed to almost be an invitation for smoking throughout the resort grounds. Our vacation was great, we loved the amenities of the resort and room - just wanted to provide honest info in my review.

Lexi Chandler

Our stay was very enjoyable! Honestly, I was surprised at all the awful reviews left right before we came - and a little concerned - but as soon as we got there that all went away. We were offered cocktails as soon as we stepped into the check-in line! The spa service was great and honestly very affordable - less than $200 a person. The drinks are strong and delicious, the food left us full, and the entertainment was very impressive - and every night! I will say, we checked in on a Wednesday, and by the time we checked out on Saturday the resort was packed. Our timing probably played a role in how great our experience was because there weren't as many people on the property, but I mean, you're traveling to the DR and staying at a 5-star resort - expect it to be packed and for service to be a bit slower. The expectations that people had with these 1-star reveiws were just unreasonable in my opinion. WE LOVED IT! I DEFINITELY RECOMMEND!