Carolyn Always Earley

All-inclusive resort stay – February 2025

Wedding Guest in D.R.

I traveled to Punta Cana with my best friend, Veronica, to attend a destination wedding in which she was the maid of honor. We flew overnight from Phoenix, connecting in Charlotte, NC, and eventually arriving in Punta Cana. We chose to upgrade both tickets on the way there to first/business class respectively so that we would be more likely to get sleep, but I think I slept 1.5 hours in total on both flights. I will say the upgrade was worth the opportunity to hang out in the Admirals Club (for free) in both PHX and CLT airports – especially since all of the restaurants and bars were closed in PHX due to how late we were traveling (our flight departed at 1 AM).

The Hotel

The wedding and associated events took place at Hard Rock Hotel Punta Cana. We booked a Caribbean Suite with double beds, and the room was great! It was spacious, the beds were comfortable and the view plus jacuzzi on the balcony were a nice touch.

Personally, if I travel to Punta Cana again, I would not choose this hotel – but I’ve listed below my thoughts so you can decide for yourself whether you’d want to stay here. I will say that it’s family friendly so that’s great if you’re looking to travel with kids, but not so great if you’re looking for a relaxing, adults only vacay.

Pros:

• The property is huge! There are many restaurants, shops, and pools; there is a spa and a casino with a nightclub; there is a lazy river and a water slide. With so many ways to entertain yourself, you’ll never get bored.
• The restaurants were great – for some, you needed a reservation and the hotel let you know this upon check-in. We ate at Ciao (Italian), Bistro Med (Mediterranean), Zen (teppanyaki) and the Market (buffet) and all were delicious!
• The hotel is beachfront and the beach was beautiful. Several of the pools lined the boardwalk to the beach and you could grab towels there and walk over to the beach.
• They had activities scheduled daily at the Central Pool or other locations and a published entertainment schedule so you could plan ahead.

Cons:

• The property is huge! I know, I’m repeating myself but stay with me here. On average, if we wanted to walk from our building to the beach or to any of the restaurants, it took 15 minutes. There were trolleys that you could hop on and off to get around the property, but they filled up quickly and often you’d have to wait up to 10 minutes for one to arrive.
• Only one of the pools was adults only, and that pool plus one other had a swim up bar (out of 10+ pools). Also, there were no hot tubs on the property outside of the ones on the room balconies.
• The amenities were very much geared towards American tourists. This can be great in some aspects (like the toilets), but I felt that it was unauthentic. When I’m staying at a resort in another country, I would like to be able to experience that culture – here, the food and even the music were all American. (Note: Apparently some of the smaller and VIP-exclusive pools play Latin music, but the bigger ones where events were held all played rock or pop music.)

Day 1:

We arrived a day earlier (on Wednesday) than most guests to allow time to relax and unwind before the festivities started. Once we arrived, we had planned to take a nap but that did not happen as we got a second (or maybe third) wind. Instead, we walked down to the beach, checked out some of the pools and had an early dinner at Ciao. The bread, pasta and wine were all delicious!

Day 2:

We decided to go down to the beach again, in hopes of finding one of the massage therapists from the spa to get a beach massage. We didn’t find them but we did get approached by a guy with a couple of parrots and decided to take some pictures. I’m actually terrified of birds, but I’d already had one rum drink and figured this was as good a time as any to check it off my bucket list. (Barceló con jugo de piña was our drink of choice for this trip – sooooo good!)

Later, we met friends at the Central Pool for the foam party. The foam party was fun – if you haven’t been to one before, they have these big cannons that shoot out foam (soap bubbles) and typically a DJ plays loud music. Hype men and women lead the group in dance moves and other activities. After, they came out in these costumes (pictured below) for more dancing.

That night, we went to Infinity Bar for the bachelorette party. Our amazing travel agent, Jere’e, booked a bus to transport 50 of us over there, which was about a 30 minute drive (I think 10 minutes of that was just to get off the property). I’m not really a club person, so I would say that this club was pretty much what I expected – lots of VIP areas and bottle service to make sure everyone spent lots of money. (We had prepaid so it wasn’t a big deal – I believe it was $60 per person excluding transportation.) The club had a fun vibe and you could purchase extras, like hookah and food, while there.

Day 3:

All of the wedding guests attended a brunch in the ballroom. The hotel set up a nice buffet with all kinds of breakfast foods, plus coffee and juices. The bridal party stayed after for rehearsal, while the rest of us headed out to the pool. We booked a cabana again – it was about $150 for the bottle of liquor (the bottle was mandatory for the cabana rental), which was well worth it for 4 of us to split both the bottle and the cost.

By the time the bridal party joined us, there was an inflatable obstacle course set up at the pool and both kids and adults tried to complete it. There was a DJ playing music and everyone was having a great time! After spending the day in the sun, we decided to take a nap and then head to dinner. This time, we tried the Market (buffet) and, while the food was good, we were disappointed that there was no Dominican food available. The only cuisine options were Mexican, American, Asian or Italian.

Day 4:

This was the day of the wedding, so we were up early for our appointments at Posh Beauty Bar to get our hair and makeup done. I showed example pictures to my stylist, Rosa, and she did an amazing job recreating the look I wanted! We met the bride in her suite to get ready and then we all headed down to the Ipanema Garden. This was one of the outdoor wedding locations that wasn’t directly on the beach, and it was beautiful!

The hotel booked golf carts to take us all from the wedding to the reception. The reception was held at the Piano Gazebo, an indoor/outdoor space farther down the beach. It actually rained for about 20 minutes during the reception, so thankfully we were all able to fit inside the gazebo temporarily.

Day 5:

This was our last full day in D.R., and we booked a party boat. This was actually my favorite activity – the weather was beautiful and we had such a good time! There was food, a full bar and we got to choose our own playlist.

The full boat trip lasted about 3 hours and had several stops. First, the boat took us to an area where people could swim. At the second stop, people could choose to snorkel (if they were sober). The third stop was shallow and you could get off the boat and order food or a drink in a pineapple, and there were animals you could take pictures with: a monkey, an iguana, and two parrots.

After the boat, we had a late lunch at Bistro Med and booked a late dinner at Zen (one of the restaurants that requires a reservation). We also grabbed a few souvenirs from one of the gift shops. Overall, it was a fun trip with great friends and I’d definitely go back (but I’d stay at a different resort)!