My adult daughter and I took our first trip to Punta Cana and stayed at the IFA Bavaro Village. I was pleased at the cleanliness and eye appeal of the resort. I would recommend learning some basic Spanish for communication. I found the staff to be very friendly.
The beds/pillows were very comfortable.
Our air conditioning was not working properly - but was fixed as soon as we reported it. The food was fine at the two buffets with lots of variety. Two a la carte restaurants (Mexican & Japanese) were available by reservation. Piccolo Pizza by the pool was good too.
The beach is wonderful. Three pools to choose from, and night entertainment. I would definately go back again.
We paid a small fee for use of a safety box in our room. We had a mini fridge, coffee maker, hair dryer, flat screen TV mounted on the wall with satellite service, and a telephone. Internet service was available for a reasonable rate near one of the souvenir shops. There were spa facilities available, as well as a shuttle service. Lots of beach/water activities.

I stayed at the IFA Village from May5-May12 for an inexpensive relaxing getaway. This was my fifth time to the DR and I've stayed at countless other places. I read all of the reviews before I left so I had a good understanding of what to expect. I have a physical disability that limits my walking ability so I figured that this would be a good place to stay since most of the areas are close together.

It must not have been busy when I arrived on Monday because I came in after a 25 minute ride on the Apple bus at 11:45AM and though they initially had me farther away from the main area on the third floor(I had requested ground level) they quickly found me another room. I turned around and made three dinner reservations(They even offered for that evening) and I was in my room and unpacked by noon. I spent the $21 for the safe for the peace of mind and it was worth it.

The room looked okay when I first entered and it was clean with a King bed that was the hardest bed I ever slept on and I like a firm bed. I had to take Ibuprofen every night so I wouldn't wake up sore in the morning. They had a nice LCD TV in the room which was fine the first 2 days but then they changed their TV and their were no English speaking channels eventhough they had Spanish, French, Italian, German and Chinese. If you wanted to watch TV in English, you had to pay $8 a day for TBS, TNT, Speed and CNN. This was a total ripoff and when I went to complain to the "Guest Relations" Manager Petra, I encountered the worst person I've ever dealt with in a hotel/resort. She was flat out rude and didn't even want to talk to me. After I wouldn't take "thats our new policy" for an answer, she started to scream at me. Other than that the room was okay with no view and no patio or balcony. Not many of the rooms have much of a view and none of them have balconies on the Village side. If you want to stay near the main area(main pool, lobby & restaurants, I would stay in the 3000 series of rooms. If you want to be closer to the beach, stay in the 4000. None of them are really beach front. There was no soap in the bathroom so bring your own. On my first day, there were two waters in the refrigerator. I left a $5 tip after the first night and every night thereafter and a note for 4 cervesa's and they put so much Brahma beer, soda and water in my fridge that it was hard to keep everything cold.

I ate the first night at the main buffet near the lobby and the food was pretty lame in taste & choices. They tore it down the next day for renovations. I ate at all of the other restaurants as well. The Mexican A'la carte is a buffet and it was pretty weak but the service was good. I've been to other resorts where their appetizer Mexican buffets had more to offer than this did. They did have a great dessert (Chocolate Lasagna) in here. The Asian had pretty decent food with excellent service and the Caribe had the best food and was the most elegant. Other than the pizza buffet by the pool, which was pretty good, the buffets here have really bad food. They lack taste, are cheaper ingredients or are cooked improperly. I would recommend trying to book at the Asian or the Caribe every night. I went back and booked a couple more resevations after my first three and had no problem. In the day time, it's pizza or nothing and pizza gets old after a while. BTW, their coffee and espresso were great!

I do enjoy to go to the bars when I'm on vacation and fortunately, I'm really just a beer drinker because the liquor they serve is really sub par. If you want not even top shelf(Absolut, Dewars etc.)it's an extra $7. I was worried about having to drink the Brahma beer instead of Presidente but it turned out to work pretty good because the Brahma was Ice Cold and poured from a bottle instead of a tap. I did find Presidente on tap at the Beach Bar/Disco. The bar service was excellent before I gave them their first tip and they were really good people. Darlin, Juan, Miguel and all of the others gave that nice Dominican Culture to the trip. I usually tipped them $5 at the end of each shift and they treated me like a rock star.

The pool area was nice and on the busiest day there, half of the chairs were still empty. The beach was nice and the water too. The beach shuttle was hit and miss on timing and it was hot with no place to sit while waiting for it to come and pick you up at the beach.

The IFA Village and Beach Village are average and no more. The Villas are far from everything. The facilities are okay at best. Other than the Guest Relations Manager, the service was very good. This resort is a perfect example of you get what you pay for. I thought I would try to do something on the cheap and get a little more than I expected. It was an okay place to relax by myself for a week but I wouldn't recommend this place to my friends and especially not to anyone with families. I didn't hate it but in hindsight after having to pay the extra money for the safe and TV, I could have stayed at the Iberostar for $100 more.

Hello,



We are from Montreal (in our early 50s) and we just came back from a 6 days/nights vacation at IFA-Bavaro Ocean (beginning of April-May, 2008).

I believe we are advised travelers (Mexico Riviera Maya: Bahia, Palladium, Puerto Vallarta, Cuba: twice, Panama, Costa Rica, Margareta…) and we have a good perception of what 4 stars should cost and offer in this type of business.



I am writing this note to advice people that this resort is NOT 4 STARS--- except for the rooms.



The services are in fact 3 to 31/2 stars. We booked 5 days in advance and this was the only resort available having 3 tennis courts (this was important for us).



Who wants to play tennis must avoid this resort. 3 courts are advertised—in fact are only 2 (plus one basket play ground). The most important thing is the courts are not in the resort; you must walk ~ 10 minutes in the village. The courts are located among private houses of Dominican people; you have to pass in the front of a guard that has a real loaded gun. The courts are not maintained (poor quality surface) have no services at all (no representative from the resort, no water, no bathrooms), dirtiness.



We had reservation for each day as requested by the customer service of the hotel. The first day, we arrived on time but the courts were occupied by Dominican people who claimed “the courts are their property and if we don’t like it we have to call the police”.



We did not comment because there was a possibility that the guy with the gun was paid buy the tennis players. We reported the incident to the hotel customer service and we were assured next day everything will be OK. Next day the courts were available. After one hour play, when we wanted to leave, 3 big dogs showed up at the court door. We manage to get to the hotel, but that was the end of IFA tennis for us.



Apart from this, we noticed the people had no training at all in English or not enough training (even at the front desk). They were actually surprised to notice that some people don’t speak Spanish (amazing !!).





Who likes nightly entertainment/shows must avoid this resort. There is (almost) nothing. NOTHING TO DO AT NIGHT. If it was boring for us, I am wondering what young people should feel like ?!



We found the beaches to be gorgeous: fine, white sand, clear water (with algae in places, but this is OK). Too bad they were heavily populated with people offering free presentations of surrounding resorts (very annoying).





Conclusion: This was our first and last “last minute booking”. No more IFA for us. We expect a better quality for a 4 stars resort.

on arpil 24th my girlfriend and i arrived back home from spending 2 amazing weeks at the Ifa Bavaro Village

i live outside of guelph and my girlfeind is from saskatoon. i parked my vehicle at the econolodge near pearson and went to meet my girl at the airport. we arrived in the DR late that night. the bus trip was very short 15 minutes or so.

when we arrived at the Ifa the check in went pretty fast. the sliding door in our first room wouldn't lock so they moved us to another room right away. we then went to the beach disco for a drink and some food { don't eat the rice and chicken balls on the air transat flight, not good }.

we have stayed at the 5 star gran bahia pricipe in cancun twice so for a few days we compared the two resorts, there area few things better at the bahia but alot of better things at the ifa.

we read many reviews about the ifa and not many of them where good but we knew there was construction going on and it would be pretty much completed before our arrival. we learned from a couple that we met from edmonton that this whole resort has gone through a complete makeover in the past year or so.

the food at the ifa was not bad. the pizza bar was amazing, fresh made pizza along with chicken fingers, fries and fresh made burgers oh and yes the ice cream. the buffets didn't change much over the 2 weeks the bacon is deep fried and usually either undercooked or over cooked. we found that the buffet closer to the beach had a better dinner menu. the drink where very strong. they only use small plastic cups so take a big travel cup or mug with you. the drink selection was kind of limited but still pretty good. the beer was nice and cold and mostly poured from a bottle. there are 3 ala cartes, the oriental and the colonial where very very good. the mexican was ok. booked first thing in the morning to get a good seating. the system they have is not very good for booking but you can eat at the ala cartes everynight if you can get a seating. they are not very big.

the communication at this resort needs alot of improvement. most try hard, unless you speak spanish or french. to be very honest the people that tried the hardest to communicate where in the restaurants. the front desk staff where really not that helpful in some ways. trying to get a translation from english to spanish can be a chore. we booked with i travel2000.com . we got bumped to later departure and an ealier time to go back home. we flew with airtransat. a little cramped going down but not bad. the food was not good but overall a good flight. the service from nolitours was terrible. no information what so ever all of the binders that had any info where in spanish. we could find and english one till the day we left. when we got to the airport in punta cana our nolitours rep didn't even know what line we had to be in was a joke. the airport in punta cana is pretty cool. the customs and imagration was a breeze to get through but the food and rinks in departures are a huge rip off. $12 for 2 pops and a slice of pizza.

to make this a bit shorter i will itimize things and say what we thought about them

communication - needs alot of improvement but remember we are travelling in a foreign country so we do have to be patient

beach - the beach was amazing, the water was like bath water it was so warm. powdery white sand. many times we just walked for and hour or 2 picking up seashells. it is such a relaxing place to be and if the main resort is too hot you will love the beach always a nice breeze.

beach shops - the shop workers will greet you on the beach and bring you into their shops. some can be very persistant but mostly not bad. everyone says they are cheapy cheapy. they love us Canadians. there are not prices on anything. we bought a painting that started at $140 and we got it for $45. never pay what their first price is. offer atleast half if not less. we got an idea of prices from the resort shops and the malls a 15 minute walk away. that will give you a better idea.

resort shops - we found the resort shops to be very reasonable price wise with most things. usually you get ripped off at these places but i guess they have alot of competition with the beach shops close by. make sure you bring lots of sunscereen, asprin anything like that these things are very expensive here.

internet - there is internet access, $3 dollars for 1/2 hour. if you are from Canada contact your cell phone provider before you go. i could not get service down there with our wonderful bell telephone but pretty much everyone else did no matter what country you are from. we get ripped off by bell and home and away.

nightly entertainment - the theatre burned down 2 nights before we got there so all of the night time entertainment was at the beach disco. it was not bad not anything like ths hows at the bahia principe. the beach disco is a pretty cool idea. lost of food drinks music and dancing.

rooms - our room was on the second floor right beside the main pool. they have all been redone and they look great. inorder to expand the washrooms the has put the sliding doors on the outer edge of the balcony so no balcony. that was a bit disappointing but didn't ruin our trip. everyday the rooms where cleaned with fresh towels and bed linens. they do not have face cloths so bring them if you need them. no beer or soft drinks in the fridge just water. we took tim hortons coffe along with liquid coffee mate. the coffee in the buffets is very strong and the milk is not very good kinda like carnation milk. after a few days we bought travel mugs so we took our own coffee to breakfast. the rooms where spotless. we saw no bugs but we did get a rain storms one night and the roof leaked so we used the other bed. bring things for the taff there especially the cleaning staff. we took toiletries, socks, veg and flower seeds, pencils, watches things of that nature and also gave a cash tip each day as well.

pools - there are 3 pools here. they are not very big but the do look after them pretty good. the main pool is pretty much always busy. there is water arobics there every morning and that is where they have the dance lessons and things. they could have a few more things to do but overall not bad. the other 2 pools are some what deeper and usually not as busy. we went during the slower season so during the busy season they can be very crowded.

cafes - there are a few cafes where you can get drinks and very good capicino. make sure you are not wearing a bathing suit in them, you will not get served. shirts are a must here.

buffets - pretty much the same menu each day. the selection is not bad a little bit of everything. buffet closer to the beach is the better one especially for dinner.

inclosing the ifa bavaro village is a wonderful resort. we all have to remember that we are not at home and we have to be a bit patient when things are not up the the high standards that we have in Canada. there have been some people that have put some very unfair reviews on tripadvisor. some of them are from when we where down there and i don't see how any of the bad things that they say are just. this place is great value for your money. my girlfriend and i are already talking about go back next april. if you are flying out of pearson airport the econolodge is a great place to do the stay and park package. we had 2 weeks parking 1 nights stay when we arrived back and shuttle service as much as we needed back and forth to the airport. it is not a big hotel but they will look after you every well. my contact was a person named ziva and she was very helpful. i booked everything by email juast go too www.choicehotels.ca/cn568


please contact me if you have any questions i will be more than happy to help out if i can.

brian..