Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Punta Cana
This is hotel official description:
"The 1,775 room Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Punta Cana is situated on pristine sugar white sands stretching 121-acres along Macao Beach in the Dominican Republic. Hard Rock's first all-inclusive hotel and casino exudes lavish five-star amenities and personal service to create the ultimate rock star getaway.
Among the resort's many offerings are luxe accommodations, the signature Rock Spa, 18-hole Nicklaus designed golf course, iconic music memorabilia and a larger-than-life Vegas-style casino - the largest in the Dominican Republic, featuring Oro nightclub. Guests also enjoy 11 expansive pools, four swim-up bars, a kids pool and lazy river.
A variety of gourmet dining options is available through the resort's nine restaurants. The property also features more than 65,000 square-feet of flexible event and meeting space."
Before booking of any hotel, you should read reviews and experiences of other travelers. Judging by recent reviews, this hotel was good at the beginning but quality of the service is dropping down.
Very often you'll read that food is mediocre, sellection of drinks is very basic and drinks are often watered down, computer systems for reservations and bookings (spa, restaurants, etc) are down most of the time, most of the "all-inclusive" services are actually with additional charges and 25% fees, very loud music from the pools is blasting all day, service by the employees is not as expected on many fields, complaints and comments are received with a shrugging shoulders instead of resolving the situation or escalating the issue to the manager, horrible customer service became a norm... also be prepared to be pestered by "representatives" and "concierge" that looks helpful at the beginning but after 30 minutes you'll figure out that their only goal is to try to drag you onto the timeshare presentation and get a commission.
Most of the reviews are answered with canned copy-pasted answers, obvious sign how much your opinion matters. On reviews full of comments, positive criticism and complaints like this some random employee writing on behalf of "General Manager of Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Punta Cana" is replying in this ignorant, infuriating "we didn't even read your opinion" style:
"Dear 601tinan Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback of your recent stay. We really love to see that you enjoyed our facilities and services. You are part of our Hard Rock family and we will more than happy to have you here again!."
You deserve better service for your hard earned money, to say the least. There is more than hundred other resorts and hotels in Punta Cana / Bavaro, so do a better research and avoid this type of overrated, overhyped places.
Reviews
Good Resort for Families - But Huge !!!
Took our kids and grandkids to the Hard Rock. The resort is huge and requires a "disney-like" tram to get to the beach and pool areas. The service was good, but we felt that the "selling" of "timeshare/add-ons" was way too much!
It was great for the grandkids since they could "fend for themslves" as long as they remembered their room numbers.
Since it was spring break for many schools in the mid-west and northeast, the resort was extremely crowded and getting lounges anywhere and eating together was quite difficult (although we were accommodated many times for dinner by the lovely restaurant hostesses and managers).
Our experience as grandparents was less than great, but it was a good place to have kids of all ages because they could be on their own.
SunLoversNaplesFLA
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Expected More
My partner's mother was taken sick at the last minute and she could not join me so I was a lone traveller. I got tired of explaining why I was booking stuff for one so in the end, just booked for two :-) It is not a bad hotel but having stayed in a few 5-star hotels this was average at best. The food was uninspiring, staff making oop oop noises and dancing about does not make food taste better. The best meal I had was a pizza nice and fresh.
There were clouds of mosquitos in my room and as I am allergic to bites I did ask three times for the room to be fumigated. The spa was great, a highlight of the holiday by a mile. Also, the ice cream shop was good. The staff were OK as long as you are prepared to tip for everything. I am glad for the experience but for the price would not go again.
Hydrous
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Computer system down but never fixed
My family and I were there over easter weekend. We had $1500 in resort credits as part of reservation. After we checked in and they took a $500 deposit for incidentals we were informed that the "system" was down and we could not charge anything to the room or use any of the $1500 in resort credits.
The system was down our entire six day stay and we were never offered anything in exchange for our inability to us our $1500 in resort credits. Worse yet, they refuse to refund the deposit when we checked out because the system was still down. It is now over a week later and I still have not received the deposit back. They keep promising to send the deposit and confirmation but still have not.
brian
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Fourth time but last
Just got back from this resort and our 4th visit for our family. This resort is slowly fallen victim to penny pinching and cutbacks to achieve higher revenue for the owners at the expense of their customer, so unfortunate but true for this resort. If you are going to lay in the sun all day and walk the beach then all is good , however you can do this at most all inclusive resorts for a lot less cash. I cannot understand how this resort only offers 2 basic wines which are cheap and hardly drinkable and 1 beer selection, this is not how to treat your guests and for the price they charge their should be good selection on both wine and beer, come on Hard Rock get with the times!!! If you like rum then u will only have basic Dominican brand.
The Buffett has same repeat of food every evening , no carving stations , tough meat and limited seafood and every morning music is so loud u can hardly have conversation. At the Hard Rock u would think at poolside classic rock would be playing, not the case as Latin music was on continuous from morning to evening. The property is beautiful overall but for my money I would like to see more food selection and access to nice wines and international beer and spirits, maybe some craft beers and modern cocktails, not a drink thrown is a plastic cup which is the case here for the most part. The bands and entertainment are in dire need of improvement as well. This resort needs to clean up its act if it is going to keep up with customers needs at this price point!!!
Michael M
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Waste of money
What a week. I don’t know what was worse the staff trying to get a hold of our girls to come with them , the rudeness of the staff, the apple bee quality food, or the dirty facility. If you have girls please keep your eye on them. We came on a family membership and there was no distinction what so ever. They nickel and dime you to death at every turn. Be aware that there is a 25% tax on everything you buy and do.
They are so disorganized and keep pointing you from one person to another. Getting dinner reservations is a nightmare with long lines. We are palace members and this resort needs to learn what service, quality and appreciation of there guests means. It is way over priced for what you get unless you like to be treaty badly and feel sick from the food. I would never return nor recommend this place.
Damon D
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Not so impressed the second time around
After visiting Hard Rock 2 years ago, I bragged about it to everyone I know. Convincing a group of 15 people to head down there for the holiday. Well, upon check in I did not receive my complimentary drink, as I did last time. We had some children that were starving- I figured they would eat at the buffet spread they always had set up in the hallway, that was no longer there. Like everyone else it took us an hour to check in because their systems were down “everything was being done by hand” aka they had no idea what the hell they were doing. I had called 3 months ago requesting a certain building, requesting my rooms be in the same building- that wasn’t reflected at all upon check in.
After an hour of trying to work it out and several hungry kids screaming we decided to settle with what we had in order to be on our way. After the first day there I wanted to come home. You couldn’t make dinner reservations, couldn’t make an appointment at the spa, resort credits- pointless because you couldn’t use them anywhere, once again because their systems were down. You will meet several nice staff members, but not all of them can be so kind. They want to act like they are doing you a favor by doing their job. Instead we the tourists are the ones putting the money in their pockets.
Waitress staff and pool side staff were amazing. Other than that- front desk, store, cleaning staff- terrible! Room wasn’t really “cleaned”. I would find my hair and things that fell on the floor there when I got back. Manager at front desk was very impolite and didn’t provide respectful customer service. I heard many people complaining by pool and front desk and it’s unfortunate what happened to this place because it was a great vacationing spot.
christina d
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Exercise
One thing that I really enjoyed about this resort is the great atmosphere at the pool area. The team provides a great aqua aerobics and events in the pool. It's actually fun for the whole family and motivational. Definitely a great asset to any vacation. They also provide free scuba tryouts in the pool which my daughter found fascinating seeing me underwater.
Steve
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Go anywhere else
From the minute we walked into the lobby, it went downhill. The computers—which had been down for 2 days already—were still down and yet, there was no contingency plan in effect. Staff was confused, and totally ill-equipped to handle the throngs of incoming guests who were expecting a vacation. We were VIP and it still took over an hour to check in. Our room was pedestrian at best, doors didn’t close, paint was chipping—we were lucky though, no bugs!
As for the food...All-inclusive shouldn’t mean lack of variety or inability to get a dish prepared to your liking. Plus, restaurant wait times were absurdly long, just getting a drink took over 30 minutes.
To be made to feel that their computer issue was my burden, was just an insult. How do you run a resort with not a single nod to the guest who has planned and paid to relax at your property?
This place needs a serious overhaul to its physical plant and to its corporate mentality. As a guest who will never, ever return, nor visit another Hard Rock property because of this mess, the company needs to recognize just how badly they let down paying guests.
EPS
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Not somewhere I would return to
I will start with positives. Pretty beach, enjoyed the spa and casino, and had a couple decent meals and room service worked out well for breakfast. Biggest negative is the overall staff’s attitudes it seemed they wanted you to offer them money every time you were trying to make arrangements including the vacation planners. I get it was a busy holiday week but come on everything like making reservations for dinner was a production. Don’t think you’ll have a decent meal without making them. Then when you go to dinner you see half the restaurant empty.
There’s not enough beach chairs so I asked to reserve a Bali bed for a day for my whole family to enjoy. Was laughed at by the vacation planner that all were booked for the week again then see 50% were unused each day. Had airport transportation included but would only take us to the airport at 6:30 am for a 11 am flight. Very disappointed with the overall vacation.! At least my family used the experience as just something to joke about. Stay away! There’s got be better places to go.
Chris_H3001
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My first hard rock visit and perhaps my last.
I’ll be honest, this is my wife’s review not mine as she has been here before. So here it is:
I’m a bit disappointed with this place, and I’m not sure I’ll come back. This is a big resort. There have always been trolleys to take people all over, but I always walk it. You’re drinking and eating non stop, so you might as well walk it off. Plus, I’m on vacation, I’m in no rush. The trolleys have taken over this resort. I can’t walk anywhere without being run down by one, crammed full of people that are too lazy to walk 500m. And the golf carts! New addition. Not only can you wait for a trolley, but now you can rent golf carts to drive yourself around. Which means, more obnoxious traffic to dodge, and people parking them wherever they want. It’s become very sales-y and agressive.
They have segregated many of the pools and beach areas, to create upgrade levels, only accessible to members that choose the upgrade option. We paid $6000 for this week, only to find out that we don’t have access to several parts of the resort that were previously included. I could’ve gone back to Paris for a week on this budget. Doing some research, the upgraded vip levels would have cost about $10,000 for the week. That’s an insane amount to spend here. I’m going back to Iceland with that budget...
