Catalonia Royal Bavaro

This would be my second time visiting this resort, my first time was around 2013. This time I stayed for 5 nights in a swim up pool room. We arrived at around 5pm, check in was around 5-7 minutes and it was only my girlfriend and I checking in. Right from the beginning we knew that the resort was going to be packed because of the number of cars in the parking lot. We were taken to our room and it was a nice comfortable room wit the small pool right outside the backdoor. The room itself was clean, the in room fridge was stocked with a few beers, waters and sodas (no hard liquor), I can tell that the room itself is right in between the "need of a renovation" and the "almost new" kinda look. The Royal Catalonia is not the typical resort everyone would think, it's just basically the "VIP" side of the Catalonia, it's small, about 2-3 (there might be another one) a la carte restaurants, no lobby entertainment, no nightclub, 2 pools and only one has a swim up bar, a piano bar which is basically a small lounge type of space where you can order drinks and just listen to music or watch tv. A lot of the times if you want the entertainment and the other amenities that come with the larger resorts, you have to just walk over to the Catalonia because the Royal Catalonia lacks them all. I completely understand that times are rough for everyone due to covid, it's caused so much damage to the tourism and travel industry the Royal Catalonia and Catalonia are no exceptions. The food on both sides is very limited, we visited both resorts for food and the food selection for the buffets and the a la carte restaurants is just so limited. We visited the buffet by the beach and the other buffet by the lobby and it's just the same food night after night, it can get a bit tiring after a while. After dinner we would go to the Catalonia's entertainment spot where there's a small theater, the buffet restaurant is there and there's also a bar. My review is not meant to make the resorts look bad, I'm reviewing based and what we saw and felt. Notice I'm giving the resort 4 out of 5 stars but there's one observation that I made that caught my attention. It's obvious that the resort has lowered their prices because demand is low due to covid, when you lower your prices, you'll attract people that normally would not visit a resort like Royal Catalonia. There's a clear sign at the check in counter that states "No hookah smoking, no loud music" this sign has no meaning for a lot of the people visiting the resort, right next to my room people playing loud music, smoking hookah and not once, it was an every day thing you would see yet the resort staff probably never noticed or really did not care on enforcing their own rules. At night when we would go to the bar and the entertainment area, it seems like the Catalonia turns a blind eye on social distancing because mostly every night and specially weekends these two areas were packed, some families with kids at the bar, you had people looking at you like they wanted to start a fight or they wanted to rob you, it just seemed like I was back in the hood instead of a resort. We stayed only for about an hour because it was too much. Another night it seemed like they turn the a la carte restaurants in the Royal Catalonia into buffets so then you'll have people from the Catalonia eating at the Royal Catalonia, I mean, I thought the Royal was an exclusive resort, seems like after these 5 nights, that went out the window, and I can attest to that because of the different color bracelets some guest were wearing. On another day there was some other people yelling and screaming early in the morning, playing loud music (yes in the morning), others on the balcony having arguments over the phone (like we all want to hear their conversation) One night my girlfriend and I were waiting in line waiting to be seated, when all of a sudden this lady wearing a Carmen Miranda dress cut in front of us all, told the guy at the door something and skipped everyone, the hell is the purpose of waiting in line then? Overall it was an ok stay, there are limitations to everything, short staff, like two times we had to call the main desk to have the cleaning service show up because they would some times skip us. I like the resort, please don't get me wrong, but the resort right now all they're doing is attracting the wrong crowds and lowering their standards just to fill rooms.

First off the Catalonia Royal Bravo is a beautiful resort. We stayed in the duplex villa and it was lovely. Very private and being on the adult only side it seemed less crowded. All of the covid safety regulations were followed and applied. That made us feel comfortable and safe. I would say that I’m not sure if the property was ready to operate with the amount of guests they had because they were very short staffed. I saw the same employees working all day and there were times I tried to order room service and just received a busy signal over and over. We had a problem with our room the A/C did not work in the bedroom for first two nights and that was pretty uncomfortable. When I notified the front desk we had to wait a while to be serviced. I had to keep walking up to the front desk because no one would answer the phone. They had to come back and repair it several times. I believe if they improved the food and beverage options it would improve the experience a great deal. The first day we got there it was later in the afternoon so the only food options were the poolside dining. We went to the family side and went to grab burgers and fries. My husband asked for cheese on his burger and the employee grabbed 3 slices from the deep freezer by the food station slapped it on his burger and handed it to him. My husband asked if he can grill it and he laughed but it on the grill for two seconds and returned it back to him still frozen. (This really happened and were shocked but we didn’t want anything to ruin our trip because a relaxing getaway was totally necessary.) We were really taken back by that when we told the front desk he was just like sorry that happened. It was hard to get any dinner reservations. We were told to make them on the morning and they we found out guest were making them days in advance. We had to really go back and forth with the front desk and like I said room service wouldn’t answer and closed by 10:30pm so you could end up staying hungry until morning. I definitely would have liked more Caribbean style cuisine. There was only one day there was “Dominican style” breakfast and we were there for 5 days. Closer to the end of our stay we had dinner on the family side and met an amazing waiter named Juan and a beautiful hostess named Carolina. We were very appreciative of the service they provided for us because up to that point we really didn’t receive great service. They went above and beyond to make sure our last two dinners were great. Like I said everything about the property was as far as decor and cleanliness were on point. The service, food and drinks could use an upgrade.

We are frequent visitors to CRB and try to visit twice a year. Our visit began August 3rd and we departed August 14th. We were so happy to be back to relax at our favorite resort. The entire staff from reception, restaurant, entertainment (Oliver), housekeeping, and Pool Bar (Genevieva and Daniel) made us feel so well taken care of during our stay. Activities are limited but Oliver is running the show expertly and we love his enthusiasm and kindness! We felt safe and all Covid-19 protocols were followed! Restaurants are currently open on select nights per venue and reservations needed. As we were told, as occupancy increases restaurants will open up for more nights of availability. All restaurants were terrific as always and we look forward to returning soon.