I am a travel agency owner, who likes to take my staff and venture to various resorts to match specific clientele needs. I stayed one night at the Riu Palace, very typical of all Palace Resorts (I've stayed at several) Best customer service amongst the hotel chains I've come across. Then we stayed at the Gran Bahia Principe Ambar for three nights. I had a disagreement immediately about rates with the front desk who presented (after my demanding) a manager, her name was Marta. It was very difficult for me to believe anything she was saying after looking at the tongue piercing jumping in and out of her mouth, extremely unprofessional. A wonderful bellman helped us to our room keep in mind our room was in a Villa very close to the pool (Number 6100) not very close to the main house. It was on the second floor. They do NOT have elevators. So if you have difficulty climbing stairs or pulling luggage up and down stairs, make sure to enquire about a ground floor room.
The rooms are beautiful, very accommodating. There are NO OCEAN view rooms at this resort. Four poster bed frames with sheers for privacy. The furniture is very nice, a comfy sofa and nice table and chairs. Bathrooms come with a seperate shower area, a seperate toilet area (both have closing glass doors) and a whirlpool bathtub. Nice sink area and stocked amenities. The refrigerator comes with four bottles of soda, two El Presidente Beers in a can, three water including soda water, drinking and one tonic. They say it will be restocked daily, it was not. The rooms come with coffee maker and all the necessities (including a large bottle of water) to make coffee or tea anytime. In the closet are the pool towels, robes and slippers for all guests. You have a safe with keypad entry. Patio small table and two chairs, they put a candle for you to light. There is also a light inside the sliding glass doors for the patio. The patio does not have open rails, they are enclosed. Just a note, air conditioner requires a room key (bellman inserts one for you) in the controller by the door for the air conditioner, also, it will not kick on if you don't have the patio door tightly closed with the handle downward.
The restaurants and food were all very good minimal selection at the Italian and Mediterranean but delicious tasting. Buffet is truly the best option for all meals.
Pool area is virtually for couples and honeymooners. They staff the pool bar with one bartender only.
You can enjoy a massage near the pool on your way to the beach. Beware of over pricing. I did hear guests complain they only received the basic massage but were charged double for a deep tissue. Make sure you read the bill before you sign it.
Beach is wonderful, tons of palm trees to relax under, and plenty of beach loungers (though not as nice as the loungers by the pool, the beach at least has some shade and is much cooler.)
Venders walk up and down all day, and are not pushy at all. In fact they usually end up giving you merchandise as a gift! They are really grateful to the "tourists" coming to their country.
There is no beach service for drinks. You can opt to walk back up to the pool bar or go to the beach bar located near the water sports hut. Neither bar is very convenient to beach goers.
The service at the Lobby bar is terrible. I sat and watched guest after guest wait twenty minutes in an uncrowded area unnoticed by staff. I witnessed a waitress walk up and ask a client what they would like to drink in Spanish; the guest answered in German and motioned said she didn't speak Spanish. The waitress walked away and cleaned up another table instead of helping them. This is not unusual for this resort. They lack big time in the communication department. Riu staff members speak English no matter what country they are from. They also take classes in German, French, Portuguese, English and others. The beach vendors spoke better English than the staff at this hotel. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, but rather as an observation.
Nothing is close to the Ambar. You have to ride the small train to the Bavaro for the nightly shows, the casino, the shopping in the courtyard etc. In fact when you arrive, the cab will drop you off at the Bavaro and you have to take the train (by train I mean a mini truck cab with attached open air cars) to the Ambar to check in.
There is no Apple Vacations Rep. at the Ambar. You have to go all the way over to the Punta Cana for that one. And the gentleman behind the desk the day we went was VERY rude which truly surprised me, I've never encountered a rude Apple rep before.
The Ambar is adult only, but on the beach are tons of kids from the other Bahias. No one stops them from coming over to the newest, adult only section. So families with three or four kids will be surrounding naked women. Not offensive for some but should be made aware for others.
The Good-the food, room layout and maid service were outstanding. The beach was wonderful and well taken care of.
The Bad- the staff at Piano Bar (mostly the gentleman in the suit.) Some of the people at the front desk Eusermo and Marta the manager (and her tongue piercing)
The Ugly-Tons of small spider/ant like creatures in our room all over the counter, it was very unnerving to see them all over luggage that had to be packed. Water in shower goes down VERY slow so you are standing in a puddle the entire time.
Everything shuts down at 11:00pm unless you want to take the ‘train’ to the sister property. Room service is pretty prompt, not a lot of choice but really good.

My husband and I arrived in Punta Cana on 07/05/2008. Much to our surprise when entering the Punta Cana Airport we were required to pay a $10 charge per person to enter the country (not a large fee, but something you should know).

We did not book transfers to the hotel on this trip, but we easily found a taxi to transport us to the hotel (approx. 30 minutes) for between $35-$40.

Upon arriving at the hotel we had no problems checking in and were upgraded to the Ambar section of the hotel. We were originally scheduled to staty in the Punta Cana section, but were upgraded for free. This resort is very large (100 Acres or so) and has four different sections within. The sections are Punta Cana, Bavaro, Ambar, and the Golden Principe Club. The Punta Cana and Bavaro sections are pretty much exactly the same. They have all the normal ammenities (pool, buffet, a la carte restaurants, etc). The Ambar is very similar, but is the adults only section. So the entire Ambar section does not have any children (pool, resaurants, lounges, rooms, etc). The Golden Club I believe is there special "top of the line" section. I am not 100% sure what that entails.

Our overall review of this hotel would be that the rooms are very nice (clean, large, and well equipped), the buffets were very large with a big variety (usually enough variety to satisfy everyone) and the food was decent, the beach was beautiful with white sands, clear blue waters and enough chairs and shade for everyone. The pools were large (very warm) and all had easy access to snack bars and drink bars. We went to three of the a la carte restaurants (Medditerranean, Italian, and Gourmet). Thought we though all were good, the Italian was our least favorite.

Final thoughts, there is plenty to do at the resort (though we thoroughly relaxed the whole time). Men will need long pants for all dinners (including the buffets) and shoes or nice sandals. There is a decent language barrier, but can be overcome with persistance ( if you are easily frustrated by this type of thing make sure you have a few key phrases ready to go).

We visited the Bahia Ambar from June 22-29, 2008. This was our 12th visit to Punta Cana and our first stay at the Bahia chain. Most of the resorts we have stayed at in Punta Cana have been five stars, so we had certain expectations going in as far as service, food, etc. We enjoyed a lovely vacation and had a good time, but we will not be returning to the Bahia Ambar. It seems they've bitten off a little more than they can chew and have some work to do before I would truly classify this as a five-star resort.

That said, let the review begin!

Arrival & Flight: Our flight with Air Transat arrived on time and we got through customs and the baggage claim quickly. Everyone on our bus was going to the Bahia Principe so we didn't have to make any stops along the way. The people staying at the Bahia Principe were able to check in on the bus; Ambar guests had to wait until we got to the resort. Once we arrived, we were dropped off at the Bavaro lobby and took a quick shuttle trip over to the Ambar. Check in took a matter of minutes as there were only a handful of people arriving with us. A bellboy accompanied us to our room with our luggage and showed us the safe, a/c, etc.

Rooms: Our room was on the third floor corner of villa 64, #64317. We were pleasantly surprised to find a gift bag contining two Bahia Principe t-shirts and a bottle of rum awaiting us. A maid also showed up within a few minutes of us getting to the room and brought us slippers and bathrobes to use during our stay. The room offered plenty of seating between the couch, small table with two chairs, desk with chair, and another chair with ottoman in the corner. Our king sized bed was quite comfortable and we were happy with the pillows provided so we never made use of the pillow menu offered by the butler service. The plasma tv worked well and had a good selection of English channels to watch. The room was typically cleaned by 2 p.m. each day and the mini-fridge was refilled with a few Presidentes, soft drinks and Pringles (a nice touch!) I think the room could have benefitted from another chest of drawers, but otherwise it was perfect. The bathroom was enormous! We had good water pressure in the shower and the jacuzzi tub filled up quite quickly. There was also a hairdryer (I think 1200 watt) available that did a decent job of drying my hair.

Grounds: Quite mature for such a new resort. Lots of trees, greenery, flowers, etc. Everything was kept very clean. Nothing was more than a five-minute walk from anything else. The Ambar section is very easy to navigate but the main resort next door is absolutely huge. Definitely keep your resort map handy if you venture over there! You can catch a tram to the Bavaro section outside of the Ambar lobby. It's not a very far walk if you miss the tram - maybe 7 minutes or so. I believe the tram service runs until 3 a.m.

Restaurants/Food: One of the major disappointments at this resort. In general, we were quite unimpressed with the Palmyra buffet. Service was brutal and the food was nothing special. We only attempted breakfast twice...getting a cup of coffee was like pulling teeth! They had the usual breakfast offerings of pancakes, fruit, made to order eggs, etc, but the service was so bad that we eventually decided it wasn't worth getting up early for. Dinners weren't much better. Nothing on the buffet was hot - I ate lukewarm veggies, rice, and pasta with my meals when we dined here. The chef's charving station was good and I had some delicious beef there one night, but in general we did not look forward to our dinners here. The gala night on Saturday was probably our best experience in the buffet. There seemed to be a wider selection of foods available and service was as it should be in a five star resort. We were seated by a waiter and our drinks were waiting for us by the time we got back from the buffet. When they asked us to fill out surveys about the resort at the end of our meal, we realized the reason for the sudden change in service.

The pool restaurant, Las Brisas, was our favourite spot for lunch. They didn't have a ton of food to pick from but what they had was good. Hotdogs, burgers, usually a cut of beef or pork, delicious roasted chicken, a nice salad bar, and good pastas with at least two choices of sauce. Service was typically better here, but it could also get very busy and seating was hard to find by mid-afternoon. Ladies, keep in mind that if you eat here you do have to be covered up. A sarong or shorts & a t-shirt is sufficient. I'm not really sure why they are so adament about women being covered up when men are allowed to dine shirtless. Perhaps it's their way of making it up to the men who have to wear long pants and shirts with sleeves to dinner at night?

When we arrived at the Ambar we had three a la carte reservations pre-arranged for us. We ended up rescheduling two of them in order to try the a la cartes next door, and we were unable to make the third one as I was feeling ill that day. The a la cartes that we tried at the Bavaro section were the steakhouse (Garden Grill) and the Barbecue, which is right on the beach. The steakhouse was excellent and was probably the best meal we had all week. I had fork-tender beef tenderloin with the most delicious, buttery mashed potatoes. My husband ordered the rib eye which was tasty but very thin. Their appetizer buffet seemed a little odd with its large selection of roadhouse type foods (nachos with cheese & chili, mozzarella sticks, onion rings, potato skins) but everything we tried was tasty. They also had a soup and salad bar available. The Barbecue restaurant was another winner. The side dishes and salads are served buffet style but you can get pretty much any meat you can think of grilled up at the barbecue stand. They had sausage, ribs, chicken, pork, etc along with a tasty paella. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was very nice being right on the beach. Service in both a la cartes was friendly and fast.

The quality of the room service was fine but the menu left a lot to be desired for an adults only resort. Choices were limited to hamburgers, hotdogs, chicken nuggets, sandwiches (ham & cheese or BLT), roasted chicken, or a fruit plate. Everything came with a heaping pile of french fries (except the fruit plate, I assume). Drinks were not available through room service. When you call to order, they tell you it will take at least 45 minutes for your food to arrive. We ordered room service twice and both times our food was in our room in less than a half hour, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Bars: The bars that we frequented most were the pool bar and lobby bar. The consistency of drinks like pina coladas and bahama mamas were much better at the lobby bar, where they had blenders, but still tasty at the pool bar. The resort needs to have more waitresses working the lobby bar in the evenings. The outdoor seating area was always full (partly because of the lovely breeze out there, partly because smokers could not smoke in the interior bar), yet they only had two waitresses to serve everyone. As such, wait times to order and actually get a drink were long and many people resorted to just going to the bar to get their own drinks. The lobby bar had a pianist playing in the evenings who provided some nice background music. Other reviewers were not kidding when they said this place shuts down at 11 p.m. Literally, the lights start shutting off, the waitresses take your seat cushion, and they empty your drink into a plastic cup. Closing up shop at 11 resulted in a mad dash to the bar around 10:50 each night. After 11 p.m. you can go to the Pueblo Principe square at the front of the resort for drinks, entertainment, and snacks. While we were well aware prior to our visit that everything shuts down at 11 p.m., it was disappointing that patrons of the adults only resort weren't able to sit and enjoy a bit of a later evening at their own resort. Definitely bring some bug spray if you are prone to mosquito bites at home. The noseeums went to town on my lower legs the first night we sat out at the lobby bar. After that I wised up and used the OFF spray that I'd brought from home (thank you to the makers of OFF for coming out with less offensive smelling products!) and our subsequent bar visits were much more comfortable for me.

On our first night we ventured over to the Bavaro section to sit at their outdoor bar. Their patio was very large and there was plenty of seating available. Service was fast and efficient, but be aware that they will ask you to sign your room number when they realize you're from the Ambar. You won't be charged for anything - they just want to track who is going where.

Beach & Pool: The beach was breathtaking and very clean. There were always lots of chairs and palapas available at any time of day. The swimming area was flat-bottomed and a good size. There is a fence of sorts that separates the adults only area from the section that's available for everyone to use. The water was yellow flagged every day that we went down there.

The pool was very nice, but getting a chair after noon was challenging. Some people did head out early in the morning to reserve palapas but chairs were usually readily available until late in the morning. Pickings were slim after that. The pool itself was very clean and never very crowded. The resort did a good job of keeping the area clean; there was always someone walking around picking up empty cups. The washrooms at the pool were also kept impeccably clean. The pool was very quiet - there was no animation team (yay!) but also no music. Sometimes the bartenders had a radio going so you could hear some quiet tunes when you were right at the pool bar, but otherwise it was completely quiet. It was definitely a relaxing environment.

Activities & Entertainment: There were no poolside activities at the Ambar, which was fine by me. We often heard a ruckus coming from one of the pools next door so there was no doubt where to go if you wanted some daytime amusement. We never made it to any of the shows at the Bavaro, either. I believe the shows started at 9 p.m. and included something for the kids before they got to the main show of the evening. One night we did venture over to the Pueblo Principe and the disco. The square was quite busy, as everything at the Bahia closes up at 11 so people from all three sections end up there. I can only imagine how hot and busy it must get over there during peak season. The disco was very busy and very loud. They had a few staff members available to teach us some bachata and meringue dancing, which was fun. Unfortunately they had the strobe lights going a mile a minute and I'm very sensitive to them, so we didn't stay for long.

Tours/Things to Do: Since we've been to Punta Cana so many times, we never bother with any of the organized excursions. The only trip we make each time is to Don Lucas cigars, where we pick up our coffee, rum, and cigars for my husband. They also sell jewellery, artwork, t-shirts, and such. If you decide to visit, look for Kelmin or Rafael - they're great guys who really know their stuff. Round trip transporation is free of charge. You can arrange a visit through guest services, or call Don Lucas directly at [--]. On the topic of cigars, I should mention that the cigar shop at the Ambar is operated by Don Lucas Cigars, so if you choose to purchase cigars there you don't have to worry about their authenticity. Prices at the resort shop are a good 20% higher than at the factory though, so if you plan to purchase more than one or two, I would definitely recommend visiting the factory.

The Bahia resort has a few things on-site to keep you occupied. They have tennis courts, a mini-golf course, and I think you can rent bicycles as well. Unfortunately our one attempt at playing mini-golf didn't work out so well. The kid at the sports equipment hut spent a good five minutes playing on his cell phone before he acknowledged our presence. When we told him we needed clubs and balls for mini-golf, he said we'd have to wait because the four clubs that the resort owned were already in use. Seriously? Four clubs for a resort of this magnitude? Ridiculous! By the time we got to play a round with our friends, it was getting quite hot so we cut our game short. A round of mini-golf isn't going to make or break our vacation, but the lack of equipment and the blase attitude of the attendant didn't make a very good impression on us.

Departure & Checkout: Checkout is at 12 noon and Air Transat wasn't picking us up until 2 p.m., so we left our suitcases with the bellhops and just kept our carryon bags with the essentials (passports, tickets, etc). We hung out at the lobby bar until it was time to go. I never did find out if there were courtesy rooms available so I'm not sure what we would have done if we'd chosen to hang out at the beach until our pickup time. The bus picked us up at the Bavaro lobby on time and we headed back to the airport to endure the 3+ hour wait until our flight left.

Conclusion: The Ambar is a beautiful property, but they have some work to do in their service department before I would truly consider it a five star resort. Service often came without a smile and it didn't seem like most of the staff was very happy to be working there. My husband and I usually tip very generously on our vacations but this was the first time that we came home with almost as big a stack of $1 bills as we had when we left. All things told, we did get what we wanted out of the trip, which was a relaxing week away from home. Unfortunately that week didn't come with first class food and service, but hey, you can't win them all. Hopefully our next trip, lucky #13, will be a winner!

If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them - just email me at ginnyfyris@yahoo.ca

upon arrival we got upgraded to ambar, the room was spectacular, marble shower, jacuzzi, stunning! so were the junior suites as we had friends staying in them.
the hotel grounds are huge so much to walk around or catch a little cab, they run constantly.
the beach was stunning the food was amazing the a la carte restaurants wow what can i say.
the pools are lovely, the people are so friendly.
i absolutley loved this holiday,
the only thing i had a problem with was the airport, no aircon!!