Wow. My girlfriend and I booked our trip to Iberostar Grand Bavaro  based on the many reviews I read. As the time came getting closer to the trip, I began to feel trepidation that perhaps we did not pick the correct hotel. As soon as we arrived, my fears were quickly put to rest. This place was just incredible.

I booked our trip through Mark T at TripGuy and he was able to take care of all of our essential details. He arranged for us to have private car service (as opposed to sharing shuttles with other hotels), and even got us a swim up room with a pool right off our balcony. I cannot say enough about Mark and will definitely be booking with him again.

The room itself was very large and unbelievably clean and had a bathroom my girlfriend wanted to take home with her! A concierge asked us if we wished for them to prepare our jacuzzi for us one night and we said sure. Upon returning to our room after a day at the beach and pool, we came to find the tub lined with rose petals and filled with bubbles, with a bottle of champagne on ice beside it!

Every night we had turndown service provided for us, again with fresh flower petals placed on the bed as well. We were definitely pampered and felt spoiled in a very good way.

The food was very good, but do not go expecting any Dominican food. The buffets were good, but the restuarants were even better. Of course, this is spiltting hairs as who could really complain about having shrimp and lobster available for every meal! It got to the point my girlfriend thought she was getting tired of lobster!

The thing I cannot rave about enough was the service. Everyone we came into contact with from the hotel went out of their way to provide us with anyything we could possibly need. No one passed without a smile or an "hola". When they saw we were able to speak passable spanish, they went out of their way even more and appreciated our efforts. I would especially like to thank Maria from the pool service, Antonio from the beach service, Clarkson from the swim up bar, and Victor from the Japanese restaurant for their outstanding service.

The only minuses I could name would be the "towel game" mentioned in many of the reviews. We actually started playing along, only to find a brazilian couple in our cabana after lunch one day! The staff assisted us in getting them to leave the cabana but still, if they had a policy that did not allow for "saving" cabanas and lounge chairs, I think that would work better. Most of these chairs and cabanas seemed vacant for most if not all of the day. The other issue was the lack of anything of substance to do at night. The boat had live music, but we felt it was a little hokey. We also took advantage of a golf cart ride to the other Iberostar hotels next door, but that was not too exciting either as we quickly saw we chose the correct hotel.

In all, I would have to say that we loved our time there and wished we had booked a longer stay. 3 days is definitely not enough!

Mike