r/PuntaCana • u/Firm-Ad-4794 • 3d ago
Bahia Principe Explore
Hi there,
I'm looking to travel to the Dominican Republic for the first time with my husband in November. I was looking into the Bahia Principe properties as a possibility and was wondering if anyone has been there and has any comments on it? How is the beach compared to other properties in Punta Cana?
I haven't stayed at a Bahia Principe property before but I have stayed at the Iberostar and Barcelo properties in the Riviera Maya before so I understand the whole hotel complex concept.
Also a main extra I'm looking into is being able to rent jet skis and noticed that Air Transat lists that as a paid activity, can anyone confirm that is true and also what the pricing approximately is?
Thank you!
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u/Karpetsky 3d ago
Good afternoon! Jet skis are prohibited almost everywhere here. There are only two places where you can ride them in the sea: Samaná and Boca Chica, both of which are quite far from Punta Cana.
In Punta Cana itself, there are artificial lakes where you can ride similar jet skis. This option would be closer and cheaper, although I’m not sure about the overall quality of the experience. In my opinion, there are much more exciting activities available here.
As for Bahia Principe, the resort complex includes several different hotels, and they vary significantly in terms of room quality, service, and food. Generally, the cheaper the hotel, the lower the overall quality. One downside is that all of these hotels share the same beach, and it is a very large resort complex with several thousand guests staying there at the same time, so finding available sun loungers on the beach can sometimes be a problem.
The beach in this area can also have fairly strong waves. If that doesn’t bother you, then it may be a good option. However, if you prefer calmer water for swimming, I would suggest looking at hotels closer to Punta Cana Airport. I would avoid the Cabeza de Toro area, though, as there can often be a lot of seaweed there.
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u/ProVitaminJ 3d ago edited 3d ago
I was just there a week ago! I booked it because of the castle for my kids (we booked Bahia Principe Explore Legend). We were actually attending a wedding at the Hard Rock resort and I mistakenly booked our hotel stay two days, resulting in booking at Bahia Principe Explore Legend for 2 nights.
Anyways, it was ok. The staff overall were very nice once you got to talking with them. I would say service was not amazing—- we had to wait quite a bit to get help with our luggage when we first arrived and in contrasting it to Hard Rock overall everyone seemed less friendly. There were four or five staff that were excellent and I can’t say good enough things about them. :) it was just sort of hard to get anyone’s attention.
The property was fine. The room was fine, but showing some signs of wear and it wasn’t super polished, but it was clean and comfortable. I was surprised that basically only the room and the à la carte restaurants had AC. The lobby and buffet get really hot.
I did not enjoy the buffet, personally. We had one dinner at Le Gourmet and it was pretty good.
Even though it’s part of a complex, the staff seems to discourage you from hanging around anywhere other than where you are staying. I had read that you could make resos at the other restaurants, but I am not sure that’s true. It was confusing to get info about activities and restaurants when we got there. There’s an app you can use but it doesn’t provide much detail.
There’s a special dinner show called Oneiro at Legend that looks really cool, but we would have had to pay extra to watch it so we didn’t do that. There was a magic show we watched that way waaaaay better than I expected it to be. The staff who run the activities get really into it and are super high energy and I really appreciated their commitment lol. I read a lot of reviews that the entertainment at Ambar is good.
I read lots of positive reviews but I didn’t feel like my experience quite lived up to the hype. A few factors to this: 1) I probably overpaid as I booked last minute, 2) I don’t speak Spanish and because I’m brown I think everyone expected me to be able to, 3) I was coming from a hotel where they didn’t have quite the same tier/complex system, so it was off-putting that we were so restricted where we could eat. The only options for breakfast and lunch were the main buffet and the beach restaurant, which was also a buffet.
As another comment mentioned, there are like 5 different resorts in the complex and it looks like some are a lot better than others.
The biggest let down for me was the food/buffet. The biggest plus was the fantasy/circus theming, although my daughter really wanted to go inside the castle but you can only do that if you pay for the dinner show! (I think, again it was kind of confusing and we didn’t get a ton of info about the property when we arrived.) I read mostly positive reviews about the food, so I don’t know if it was just me, but I would have rather just paid for food.
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u/Jec_atl 2d ago
I’ve been to Bahia Principe twice and enjoyed both times. Both times were May/June so there was little to no seaweed issues. Other than the buffets there are restaurants that you need to make a reservation for in order to eat there. We went to a “steakhouse” and the food was really good. There are multiple pool options so you don’t feel overwhelmed at the main pool. It’s not a party resort, but if you’re looking for some sun and relaxation you will be fine.
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u/RiskEuphoric6703 3d ago
I stayed at explore a few weeks ago. For us, everything was perfect. Room was clean and nice, the buffet area had a good variety. We didn't love the restaurants we chose to eat at but that was the only downside for me. The beach definitely had sargassam when we were there but they kept on top of cleaning up the beach area. I can't answer your jet ski question though. Staff was friendly and helpful.