Occidental Caribe - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

17563 reviews

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  Affordable All-Inclusive

  Our group was a party of 3 with 2 rooms. We have stayed here once before at the premium level, and this time that was not available unfortunately. Check in was easy for us, but on other days there were huge lines. Make sure you make any dinner reservations as soon as possible (7am the next day). They only permit 2 nights of dinner reservations. The food was not great at the buffet, though there were some stand outs. Japanese restaurant was our favorite. Also, the pizza restaurant above the beach bar/restaurant was good and had amazing views. This is open until 6pm. The resort is aging and really needs renovation. Some of our issues included the elevator going out of order, the room safe dying, damaged dresser in one room, and the doors sticking/needing to be forced shut. Rooms were kept clean. We loved the beach. Beautiful clear water. However, nobody served drinks at the lounge chairs. There was a bar just off the beach though. Also, venders pass by often. Make sure to barter. If you are into the party scene, there is a dj and events up at the pool. Get your chairs early either way. We did some snorkeling at the resort, and saw some fish, stingray and even a turtle. However, if you are really into snorkeling go on a snorkeling excursion. You don’t need to tip at the resort, but they really appreciate 1-2 dollars when eating dinner. Also, there may be different maids coming into your room, so best to tip a little each day instead of all at the end. The best parts of this resort are the affordability and the beach. We enjoyed ourselves.

  Feb 26, 2025
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  Great vacation

  Loved our vacation, loved the people, loved the location. Food was ok, but I would never book for the food. If you can’t find something to eat at a buffet then you have a problem

  Feb 25, 2025
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  great beach

  amazing beach balcony view incredible food was good staff were great. the tokyo restaurant and seafood restaurand were good fresh food good service will go back to hotel

  Feb 24, 2025
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  DO NOT GO HERE PLEASE!

  My husband and I bid on and won a trip back in February 2024. We just completed that trip and found that there is no way we can’t warn the foundation and reservation company about the horrendous experience. We hope this will result in this option being removed as a bid item and possibly even a reimbursement of some kind as no one should ever go through what we went through. To start we bid on the 4 night stay in the Caribbean for $2600 and won it at that as we were the only bid. We chose Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic as our destination. Once I was able to book it with HGA reservations, I was given the choice of only 3 hotel locations. I did my best to review some of them and settled on Occidental Caribe. Fast forward to us waiting a year for our trip and then flying there. The transportation through Amstar was ok but very dangerous driving. We arrived at the hotel and someone immediately with no communication took all of our luggage. We assumed maybe this was part of the process. We tried to check in and were told its actually 3pm. We were given key cards for towels and told they were $20 a piece if we lost them. We were told nothing about the hotel, the layout, the restaurants, our hotel room, nothing at all. Every person we tried to talk to only spoke Spanish. If you are catering to English speaking people I would assume otherwise. So we wait till 3pm. We go back to the lobby which is full of people and are waiting. Meanwhile someone comes by and asks if we have a room, we say no, they take our towel cards and envelope and leave. We are told to wait there. Maybe 20 minutes later they come back and tell us to keep waiting and leave with our info again. Mind you, we still don’t have access to our own bags/luggage. Again another 20 minutes goes by and the man comes back with our cards and envelope and says we have another hour. The whole time waiting in the lobby we are bombarded with people trying to sell us dinner reservations, spa vouchers, telling us they will help us get to our room and carry our bags for a tip, etc. Finally my husband had to go find our luggage in a pile of others luggage outside. At 5pm we are given a room number. No other information at all. Except we are told some other man will take our bags up later. We said no and found our room ourselves. Information from the reservation agency showed gratuities included and this is not the case. You are expected to tip everyone from the front desk person to the lobby people, housekeeping, “waiters” that bring water. In the room there is an electrical box falling off the wall with exposed wires. The bathroom ceiling is literally falling in. The air conditioner turns on and makes a very loud screaming sound the whole time and smells of very foul mold and mildew and you can see black dust/soot like material in the vent. The bathroom is an open room type shower toilet combo. Everything is soaking wet including the toilet paper, which we ran out of and couldn’t get more. The shower only turns on hot, there is no cool water to lower the temperature. The drain in the shower doesn’t drain properly and starts to flood the room. There is no hand soap at all. There is another drain in the middle of the room that has the most foul raw sewage smell coming from it that we had to keep the bathroom door closed, hold our breath and literally light a piece of paper on fire to get the smell of smoke in the room just to be able to handle it. There is a light on in the closet that never turns off. The bed was like sleeping on a board and had oil type stains on the sheets. The pillows were like clumps of foam in them. The tv is in Spanish. There is nothing in the room as to information at all except a folder of blank papers. The minibar we were supposed to have in had one bottle of water and a coca cola. The room faced the pool which was fine however nightly this resort that is advertised as family friendly, there is a party at the pool or in the open lobby area adjacent that plays extremely loud dance party music till about 2 am. Our room was above the buffet which means you hear people all night long and then cleaning staff bang pans and dishes around and scream and yell at each other till again 2 am. The smell of the food is extremely nauseating. Onto the food. This is supposed to be an all inclusive resort with snack bars, coffee bars, 11 restaurants and a buffet. That is not the case. There is a buffet which is inedible. I lived on cantaloupe for 4 days because it was the only edible food. I lost 4 lbs. There were people spitting food out on their plates, pouring drinks out, leaving plates of food because its so bad. I wouldn’t feed this food to an animal, it’s that bad. All of the food is wet of floating in water. I started taking food that looked edible like an apple and storing them because I was so hungry and needed food. We found out one of the sales people in the lobby could give us a reservation at a restaurant if we left with them the next day to their timeshare sales pitch. We were so hungry we took the reservation. It was for the Italian restaurant. We went there and it was closed. So what they do is they have multiple restaurants but they close them and combine them together at random tables outside and that’s where you eat. NO one tells you anything about this and if you are 10 minutes late they cancel you. So we found out from another guest. The food at this place was just as bad. We were told we could make a reservation for the rest of the nights of our stay if we went at 7am to the guest services. Upon doing that, we were informed we only get one meal outside of the buffet per 4 days. Otherwise the buffet is our only choice of place to eat. We got one reservation at a Tokyo restaurant which at 7am was all that was left. You have to be formally dressed to eat there. It’s so extremely hot and loud and the food outside of the main course of rice and chicken, is again not food. The chef would sing and bang on tables etc which we understand is the environment but we were forced into it since they wouldn’t give us any other choices. There was a cancellation which allowed us to have the choice to eat there another night of our stay and we chose to not go back. You can’t drink the water there but you have to pay housekeeping to get another bottle of water. Obviously weather can’t be controlled however since it downpour rained while we were there, the resort floods. The lobby, the walkways outside, everything. You have to walk through this flood to get to anything. While you are on the beach you are bombarded the whole time with sales people. Everything from hair braids, beads, hats, scarves, sunglasses, parasailing, pictures with animals that they will just put on you and then tell you to cash app them, henna tattoos, spa services. It’s non stop. The chairs on the beach are for the large part broken. You have to check out your towels and return them to get your key card back or you have to pay. When you check out of the hotel they give you a piece of paper to take to another security/bell hop person who again tries to take your bags from you so you will tip him for “helping”. I left there with multiple bug bites from I don’t know what. We left this resort sick from the food we did get, the water, the heat, the air in the room and no sleep. The first day we were there was so bad and every day after that even though we paid and waited for this trip we tried to find flights home. It was a vacation from hell. I can not believe that this is even offered as a choice of place to stay. I hope someone makes this right for us and never subjects someone else to this.

  Feb 24, 2025
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  Don't do it, if you've ever stayed anywhere else.

  We stayed here last week. We got a great deal on the room, so decided to give this resort a try, after normally staying at another resort chain. Upon arrival, we were greeted by a Guest Representative, who actually told us we should stay at the other location, we should check it out with him the following morning, as we were able to use their amenities, as well. We were told we would be getting a voucher to use on room charges, or spa, whatever we'd like, plus a small gift for our children. After some consideration, we declined. The Rep then wanted almost nothing to do with us. No voucher, no gifts. Probably some time share meeting, we thought. That's why we declined. The staff spoke barley any english, so communication was difficult. The room we stayed in was not well maintained. Our bathroom sink leaked, leaving the floor flooded. I went to Guest Services for maintenance. Had to use Google to translate. The 2 mini fridges in our room were not emptied out after the last guest, so we walked into open bottles and food in them already. Plus, they were not filled until day 3, even though they were supposed to be done daily. We were on the ground floor, so bugs were an issue. There was not enough lounge chairs by the pool, as many people reserved in the am, and didn't even use them. Some people had to sit by trees to have a spot. The main buffet seemed to be short staffed, as table turnover was slow. There was no order to the food stations and seemed very chaotic, also didn't feel like there was enough tables for the amount of people. The food in the specialty restaurants was VERY good. Better than we expected. Options for kids, as well. The pool was clean and the perfect temperature. Fancy design, not just a rectangle. The beach was perfect. No rocks or algae of any kind. Beware of tourist traps, like pictures with exotic birds and monkeys.

  Feb 23, 2025