Vacation in Punta Cana: Staying at the Luxury Bahai Principe

Every five years, my husband and I take a big trip together without the kids. There have been little trips here and there fora night or two, but these trips are week-long, no-cell-service and many-many-adult-beverages-consumed sort of trips. If you’ve been with me a while, you’ll remember we did a Norwegian Cruise in 2011. This year, we headed to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic to celebrate our 10 year anniversary.

This post is all about our resort, the Luxury Bahia Principe in Punta Cana.

I’m going to break this trip down into several parts and I’ll add in the links to the categories once they are all posted.

Flight to Punta Cana
Resort
Our Room
Entertainment
Restaurants
Flight home from Punta Cana
Things to do
Things I learned
Our day-to-day

So read what you want, skip what you don’t, but know that all of these opinions are my own and I was not compensated in any way.

We arrived at our resort via private shuttle, which was nice.

The Luxury Bahai Principe in Punta Cana was huge. There were 7 different hotels on the grounds. We were in the Amber, which is an adults only portion with its own pools, beach area, restaurants and entertainment.

We were immediately taken to the Privilege Lounge. I assumed this was to get a time-share lecture as we had booked this trip through my husband’s family’s time share access. The last time we went on a trip through this company was in 2006, for our honeymoon in Cancun. We spent almost an entire morning listening to the pitch for something we would never buy into or afford.

This was our first attempt at using the service again and I was anticipating more of the same.

But that wasn’t the case. We were given our Privilege Club bands, drinks and told to go have lunch at the closest buffet while they got our room ready.

The buffet was huge and had a bunch of food. fruit, salad (but no ranch), pizza, sandwiches, soup, burgers, chicken fingers, desserts and the like. We had a good meal and returned to the Privilege Club. They had our dinner reservations for the week, resort information and our private golf cart ride to our room.

These little black bands that we wore all week proved to make our stay among the best it could be. We were allowed in any area of the resorts, a special area of the beach and any restaurant.

Each area had it’s own lobby areas, buffets and specialty restaurants and pools in addition to the beach.

What Was Available

I should really list what wasn’t available. Restaurants, buffets, shops, a market area, spas, auditoriums for shows, bars…basically we never had to leave the resort. And honestly, we didn’t. We never even went on an excursion. We had picked one that we thought we might like, but as we heard other people talk about their experience, the reviews were mixed. We were enjoying ourselves at the hotel and decided just to stay there.

Getting Around

As I mentioned above, we had a private golf cart ride to our room. That turned out to be a perk of the black Privilege Club band. We could get a golf cart just by calling to the front desk and giving them our room number…and it was always private.

Those without the black bands rode on small golf-cart trains that ran up and down the main roads of the resort and stopped at train stops and lobbies. Or, they could pick up a bus-type cart at the hotel lobbies that would take them, and several other people, to various areas around the resort.

This made it easier to get to the beach, another hotel or restaurants that were across the complex.

Strangely, we rarely used the service. We frequently walked from our room to the Ambar Lobby and asked the concierge to call the golf cart with us. We found it faster. And we honestly didn’t care if it was private.

More than anything, we walked. It was quite a hike from our room to the beach, but we made that walk a couple times a day. We’d hit the buffet along the way, or even the other adults-only pool. it was a beautiful walk, the weather was perfect and we didn’t mind the stroll.

I did find the grounds slightly…complicated. I could get from our room to the lobby, nearest buffet, pool and beach. Ask me to get to the Privilege Club Lounge or half the restaurants we went to and I’d have no idea. Thank goodness my husband did the navigating.

So while it was amazing to have so many resources on the grounds, it did pose transportation challenges.

The Environment

I really enjoyed the Ambar at the Bahai Principe. The adults-only aspect was initially off-putting to me. I thought it would be stuffy and I’d miss the kids being around, but honestly…it was nice. The shows were geared to adults. The pools were quiet and calm. Plus, we had our choice to go over to the other resorts, shows and restaurants where there were children, but we just didn’t.

The lobby areas were busy all the time. I can only assume it was for the internet. While we had WIFI access in our room and around most of the resort, not everyone did. It was a Privilege Club perk. The main lobby areas provided free WIFI to everyone. And they were busy. We also had to be aware of the off-site trips and excursions. The sales people were really all over trying to real you in, especially in the lobby areas.

The resort was pretty full when we were there. We saw several weddings, family reunions, honeymooners and families. We never felt like things were crowded. The beach was busy, but there was always a chair and the waits at the bars weren’t long. We barely ever waited at a restaurant or buffet.

We definitely liked the resort itself. The next few posts will get into the nitty gritty of the hotel details.

So, would we go back here? Absolutely.