Iberostar Waves Dominicana Full Review

Back in the spring of 2022, our family was starting to plan our family vacation for 2023.  Prior to COVID, we were big cruisers and looked forward to setting sail every February.  When COVID hit, the cruise lines were required to put numerous precautions in place to try to limit the spread of COVID onboard.  We understand why they had to do so, but we also wanted our vacation to be as relaxing as possible, so we opted out of booking a cruise for our family vacation in 2023.

We had traveled to Florida with our children and Steven’s parents in 2021 and 2022 and enjoyed trips to Disney and SeaWorld, but were looking for something a little different in 2023.  Steven’s mom had always wanted to travel to Punta Cana, so a quick phone call to our travel agent is all it took.  Our travel agent started to look at options for us and we quickly came up with two different resorts that fit our budget that we could consider in Punta Cana.  Both were all-inclusive, kid-friendly, and both had great online reviews.

Our travel agent booked our trip with Apple Vacations. It included roundtrip airfare, hotel stay, and roundtrip transportation to and from the airport and hotel.  We ended up booking the Iberostar Dominicana with a non-stop flight from Milwaukee.  When traveling with kids, a non-stop flight is a must for us, so we quickly booked the trip to ensure we could get tickets.

Take a look at Pre-Travel Tips for Your Once in a Lifetime Beach Family Vacation for some tips and a packing checklist to prepare you for your next family vacation.

The Iberostar Dominicana is situated on the beautiful Bavaro Beach in Punta Cana.  The resort has 6 themed restaurants, 2 buffets, and 7 bar options.  These restaurants and bars are shared with the Iberostar Punta Cana, which is right next to the Dominicana.  The Iberostar Dominicana and Iberostar Punta Cana each have a pool area and an area for nightly entertainment.  As a guest at the Dominicana, you are able to enjoy the pool and entertainment at Punta Cana.

PRE PLANNING

Once our family books our trip, we always start a countdown for the big day.  We start to plan our stay and look into what events and activities we can enjoy during our stay.

Check out our Pre-Planning for Your Next Trip Blog.

Iberostar has an app that allows you to view their restaurants and activities at any of their Iberostar resorts.  You can browse as a guest until you check in.  We immediately downloaded the app and started to look at some specifics we’d be able to enjoy.

There is also a Facebook Group that allows people who have visited the Iberostar Dominicana or Punta Cana, or people looking to visit the resorts, share their past experiences and ask any questions they have about the resort.  We highly recommend joining this group as the members are eager to share their experiences and are so much more positive about the resorts. We have found that the common travel websites people more commonly post negative reviews.

TIME FOR VACATION

We arrived in Punta Cana for our 7 night stay on Thursday, February 2.  Since we booked through Apple Vacations, we were told to look for the Amstar guys in the blue flowered shirts at the airport for our transportation to the hotel once we got our luggage.  We quickly found our Amstar Rep, Benny, and he took us to our shuttle.

Once on the shuttle, we took a quick 30-minute ride and arrived at the resort.  Upon arrival, we were instantly in awe of the resort and the beauty of the property.  At our arrival, we were greeted by staff members at the front lobby with a welcome drink and met our concierge, Francisco.  Once the check-in process was complete, Francisco arranged a golf cart to transport us and our luggage to our room and our vacation was underway!

OUR ROOM

Our family booked the Family Master Suite. We were originally going to be on the main level, but we asked our travel agent to request a room that wasn’t on the 1st floor, and we are so glad that we did!  We ended up on the 4th floor, in room 4354.  The views from our balcony were amazing!  We had views of the pool area, and we could see the beach and the ocean as well.  Our room also provided close and quick access to the beach and pool areas, which was wonderful to have with the kids.

The Family Master Suite has two rooms, one with a king-size bed, and the other with two double beds. There was 1 main door to enter from the outside hallway that goes into the main room and the second bedroom was off of the main room. The rooms are separated by a door. Each room has a decent sized closet, a desk with chair, and a flatscreen TV.  We didn’t even turn the TV on once during our stay; too much other stuff to enjoy!

Each room has a separate balcony with a table and chairs. The kid’s side had a cute little kid’s table and chairs. There was also a drying rack on each balcony which was super helpful for all the wet swim gear!

The safe and mini bar was located in the main room.  The mini bar was stocked daily with Presidente (Beer), Coke, and Sprite.

The Family Master Suite has one bathroom. It is your standard bathroom with a sink, toilet, and a really nice rain shower with a removable handheld shower head. This came in handy for washing our little one as there was no bathtub. They had shampoo, conditioner, body wash, hand soap and lotion stocked in the bathroom. There was also a magnifying mirror and blow dryer.

The water in the room is not drinkable, we found it helpful to use a hair tie and wrap it around the bathroom faucet. It was a good reminder not to use the sink water for brushing your teeth but still allowed you to wash your hands.

There were several outlets in each room that were all compatible with US type plug-ins.

In our opinion, the room was great for the price.  The beds were comfy, the fridge was always stocked, and the views were unforgettable.

THE FOOD

Our family loves food, and we love good tasting food.  Prior to our arrival, we had read mixed reviews about the food at the resort, and to be honest, this was what we were most worried about. We have 3 kids that can be picky eaters and we didn’t want to have to worry about spending the next week worrying about a bunch of hangry kids.

As stated earlier, the Iberostar Dominicana shares 6 themed restaurants, 2 buffets, and 7 bars with the neighboring Iberostar Punta Cana.  The 6 themed restaurants include Maria Bonita (Mexican), Star Rock Cafe (American), La Marimba (Smoke House), La Sibila (French), La Pagoda (Oriental), and La Cana (Mediterranean).  All themed restaurants require a reservation.  You can make the reservations with your concierge, guest services desk, or on the Iberostar App.  During a 7-night stay, you are able to book 3 themed restaurants. They open reservations for the week every Sunday.

For our family, we really wanted to try the Smoke House and the Mexican restaurant; the other 4 didn’t excite us too much, so we opted out looking into making reservations at them.  We arrived on a Thursday and found numerous openings for the Smoke House on Friday and Saturday night, but the Mexican restaurant was full both nights and unfortunately, we were unable to find a reservation for the Mexican restaurant that fit our schedule on Sunday when they opened additional reservations for the week.  They did have some later times available throughout the week, but with younger kids, those later reservations times wouldn’t work for us, as it was leading into their bedtimes.  We’ll just have to try again at when we visit again in the future!

We were able to book La Marimba (Smoke House) on our second night of our stay.  Steven has a smoker that he enjoys using throughout the year, so we were excited to see what La Marimba was all about.  At the end of the meal, we don’t think we sent any food back on a plate – it was that good!

Our full review of La Marimba can be found here.

For the other nights, we enjoyed the buffet at Higuey, which is the buffet located near the Dominicana lobby.  They had a huge variety of food from fish to steak, pizza to nachos, rice and beans, and so much more.  They also had a pasta station where you could pick your pasta, sauce, and any toppings you desire.  We really enjoyed the pasta station, nachos, and pizza.  They had homemade chips the one night they had the nacho bar, and these nachos were probably one of the top 3 things we ate on the trip. The pizza at Higuey is also great.

Breakfast options include buffets at Higuey and Hispaniola.  Hispaniola is the buffet on the Punta Cana side, near their main lobby.  Both buffets served the same options during our stay.  Breakfast options included your basic pancakes, waffles, eggs, bread and croissants, donuts, cereal, bacon, fresh fruit, hash browns, etc.  They also had people ready to make you a fresh omelet or fried egg upon request.  We tried both buffets, and for some reason, we tended to end up at Higuey.  The lady at the omelet and egg station was wonderful and made us the perfect omelet and fried egg on multiple occasions.  Both buffets also have a specialty coffee machine ready to make you a fresh espresso or specialty coffee drink.  We loved the cortado and macchiato and wished they had a machine or two open 24 hours.  We were really impressed with how good the coffee was!

Higuey and Hispaniola were open with a lunch buffet, and La Marimba and La Cana also served a lunch buffet down by the pool and beach.  We were usually down at the pool and beach every day at lunch, so we never made it up to Higuey and Hispaniola to check out their lunch buffet.  La Marimba is located on the beach on Dominicana’s side and is a little larger than La Cana’s lunch buffet. They served thick crust pizza, hot dogs, burgers, pasta, chicken, fresh fruit, and salads.  Dessert was also available.

La Cana is a much smaller buffet and is located on the beach on Punta Cana’s side.  It offered hot dogs, burgers, fries, pasta, and a nacho bar each day.  Fresh fruit and desserts were also served daily.  We’ll be honest, you’d find our family here every day for lunch for their nacho bar.  Their guacamole and pico de gallo were excellent!  They also had a beach-side grill on Dominicana’s side that they made something on each day at lunch time.  Steven and one of our daughters tried it a couple of times when they were serving shrimp paella, and it was absolutely delicious! Be sure to try this out if you are staying there.

So, as you can probably guess from the input given above, overall, we really did enjoy the food at the resort.  Some days were harder to find a ton of things that we liked, but in the end, it is really what you make of it.  If you don’t like something, go back and find something that you do like.

Top 5 foods we enjoyed:

1. Pizza at Higuey
2. Pico de gallo and guacamole at the nacho bar at Higuey or La Cana Lunch Buffet
3. Our meal at La Marimba (Smoke House).  Full review of La Marimba can be found here.
4. Shrimp paella at the beach-side grill
5. Egg station for fried eggs and omelets at breakfast

WATER

As previously stated, the tap water at the resort is not drinkable. They supplied 4 large glass bottles in the room that we could fill with drinking water at a refilling station. We chose to keep the glass bottles in the room and brought our own reusable water bottles for when we were out and about. The refilling stations could be found on each floor of the resort by the elevators, at the buffets, and at the bars.  None of our family had any issues with the drinking water at the resort.

SPECIALTY BEVERAGES

Now this is an all-inclusive resort, so you know that we had to try some cocktails and other kid-friendly beverages.  Below are some of our favorites.

Favorite Adult Drinks

1. Miami Vice
2. Punta Cana (don’t have too many in one day, they are strong)
3. Mamajuana (locals claim if you take 2 shots you won’t remember anything afterwards)
4. Presidente (this is the only beer available – good with or without lime)
5. Frappuccino (non-alcoholic but delicious!  We found this at the Lobby Bar.  Too bad it was on our last day)
6. Cortada and macchiato at the specialty coffee machines

Favorite Kid Drinks (alcohol free)

1. Dirty Monkey
2. Banana Mama
3. Shirley Temple
4. Strawberry Daiquiri
5. Miami Vice

ENTERTAINMENT

The resort has various entertainment for your enjoyment throughout the day.  Poolside activities generally started around 10:00am, and from what we saw, were held on the Dominicana side of the pool.  Our family had fun with the Pool Exercise Class, Bingo, Crazy Game (adults-only) and Dance Lessons.  You could see the entertainment staff walking around the pool everyday encouraging people to get involved in some activities.

At night, we spent most of our time at the Theater on the Dominicana side.  During our stay, we enjoyed live music from a saxophonist and singer.  They were both great and our kids loved going out on the dance floor to dance.  It was great to see the entertainers interact with them.  Our 2-year-old even called one of the singers Barbie.  We couldn’t help but laugh at that.

The resort also had a larger show that would start at 9:30pm. They were supposed to have a Beach Party on our first night.  Unfortunately, they ended up canceling the show due to weather.  From what we saw advertised, the other shows included a Vegas Show, Michael Jackson Show, Magic Show, and a 70’s show.  We’ll be honest, with 3 kids, we never made it to any of the 9:30pm shows.  Kind of disappointing, because they looked like they could have been fun.

Overall, the entertainment that we saw was better than we expected.  The performers were extremely talented and entertaining, but we wish the main evening shows would have started an hour or so earlier.

THE POOL

Punta Cana and Dominicana share the large pool area. There are 3 pools in total, 2 large pools that mirror each other, and a kiddie pool.

The kiddie pool was perfect for our 2-year-old, it was only about 1 ½ ft deep in the deepest area which was deep enough that she could play and walk around comfortably. She loved being independent in that pool and made a couple friends from different countries which was a really fun experience. She could stay in there for hours with a bucket, shovel, and a couple diving toys from her older sisters.

The large pools were a lot of fun. There was a zero-entry section and some deeper areas that got to about 6 ft deep. There were some areas with stairs as well that were nice for our little one to hang out with her older sisters. We had brought diving rings, goggles, and snorkels that were a lot of fun in the pool. We also brought life jackets for all our kids. There are none supplied by the hotel and it was nice to have the option for the kids to wear them as needed.

Pool towels are supplied by the hotel. There is a little building between the pools that is open 8:00am – 7:00pm. You had to get towels before 4:00pm; after that they were only open to drop off towels.

There was a bar in the middle of the two pools. The bar had self-serve water, juice and soda in reusable plastic cups. They also had bartenders working. There was one bartender that walked around the pool area when she was on duty, Maria “drinky drinky”.  She was there for about half of our stay and was great!  You could tell that she loves her job, and she makes some good drinks!  When she isn’t on duty though, you will have to go get your own drinks at the bar. We chose to bring a couple insulated drink cups with us for our alcoholic beverages – this was a great choice as our frozen drinks stayed cold! We also brought some reusable straws as the resort is plastic free, so they only had paper straws.

There are lounge chairs all around the pool with umbrellas. Some people went early in the morning to save chairs, but we never found the need to go down early to do that.  We read a lot of reviews prior to our visit of people that had issues finding chairs by the pool.  Hotel occupancy may have been higher during their stay, but for our family, we didn’t have issues finding chairs around the pool at any point during our stay.  We even went down to the pool at 10:00am one morning and found chairs right away.

THE BEACH

The white, sandy shores of Bavaro Beach were absolutely beautiful.  The sand was soft with no rocks at all.  Most mornings you would find our family out on the beach for a morning walk and to enjoy the sunrise, which was generally shortly after 7:00am.  Even if you’re not an early riser, we recommend getting up at least once to watch the sunrise, you won’t be disappointed!  Every morning, we saw staff members cleaning up the seaweed on the beach with tractors and equipment.  We had read several reviews about how much seaweed was on the beach during the day, but the staff did an amazing job keeping the beach clean of seaweed during our stay.  Bavaro Beach has quite a few resorts next to each other, which allows you to walk up and down the beach and feel safe about your surroundings.

It was a little windy most days during our stay, which made for some rough waters, but it was beautiful watching the waves crash and it didn’t stop us from going in a bit and playing in the waves. There was a lifeguard on the beach, but we would recommend keeping your kids close in the waves, as they were pretty strong! We packed some sand toys for the trip, which were great to have, as the kids loved playing in the sand.  For those that don’t have room for sand toys in their luggage, there were several shops at the resort where you could buy sand toys, goggles, and more.

There were a lot of lounge chairs at the beach as well. You could choose to sit in the sun or in the shade under an umbrella. Again, we didn’t have an issue finding chairs at the beach.

For those that need a refreshing cocktail or beverage, you are in luck!  There is a bar right by the beach.  They also serve ice cream all day, which our kids really enjoyed.  Be prepared, there were no staff members walking around taking drink orders though, so be prepared to get up and take a walk to the bar for your drink order.

There is also a volleyball net and soccer goals on the beach.  There were often groups that got together to play a game. It was neat watching people from all over the world get together for some friendly competition.

Our only negative about the beach is that there were a lot of vendors walking around that would ask you to go on excursions, buy souvenirs, etc.  A simple “no thank you” is all it took to keep them moving along, but there would be someone else coming around to ask you the same thing again and again throughout the day.

We opted out of booking any excursions with these vendors, as our Amstar Representative did not recommend it.  More about our Amstar Representative and Off-Site Excursion we did book in a bit.

We did choose to do some hair braiding for all 3 kids through a lady on the beach. She was very nice, and the girls’ hair was adorable.

OFF-SITE EXCURSION

We met with our Amstar Rep, Benny, on Saturday morning.  He informed us of our scheduled shuttle time to transport us back to the airport on our departure date, and shared various off-site excursions that we could book through Amstar.  We knew we wanted to do something but weren’t quite sure what to do since our youngest is 2 years old.  Benny was very knowledgeable about the excursions and had various pamphlets on what each excursion offered. We decided to book the Scape Park, which included various ziplining activities, a cave tour and cave swim, pools, and a whole lot more.  Our family had a blast on this excursion.

Take a look at Scape Park Punta Cana – Unforgettable Way to Spend the Day for our full review.

TIPPING

Make sure to bring a lot of small bills for tipping! The staff really appreciated the tips and they welcome US dollars. We found some advice from other travelers on the Facebook Group previously mentioned and got about $150 in $1’s and $5’s.  This allowed us to tip the bartenders, wait staff, concierge, drivers, cleaners, and more. It was nice having these small bills handy as some of the staff went above and beyond to help us out.

STAR CAMP

There is a kids camp available to send your kids. They had groups for kids anywhere from 4-17 years old. We didn’t choose to send our kids here as we were having a great time together as a family, but we did see some of the groups out and about and they looked like they were having fun!

The kids are broken into the following age groups:
Monkey 4-7
Dolphin 8-12
Eagle 13-17

LANGUAGE BARRIER

Anytime we are going to another country, we expect to have a language barrier. We downloaded the Google translate app as our Spanish is quite rusty.  The app came in handy, as we had a hard time communicating with some of the staff members. Our concierge spoke English pretty well and most of the bartenders and waitstaff did as well.  It was fun teaching the kids a little Spanish along the way!

WHAT WE WOULD CHANGE

1. As we said earlier, Iberostar has an app that you can download that highlights various things at each resort.  We found ourselves using it most to look up times of entertainment each day and restaurant menus and times that they would be open.  We do wish that they would be more descriptive when listing the entertainment rather than just “Headliner Show”.  It would have been nice to know what exactly was going on each night with a brief description of each event.  Some nights also listed entertainment that didn’t match what was on the stage.  We also found that not all of the buffet opening times on the app were accurate.  There were a couple buffets that listed an 11:30am opening time, but they didn’t end up opening until close to 12:00pm.  We also thought that a chat feature would have been a great addition to the app to enable us to chat with people we were traveling with or with our concierge with any questions we had.
2. The Iberostar Dominicana has a ton of food options for you to enjoy during your stay, but we found ourselves wishing that they would have had a small cafe that would be open most of the day.  Just small finger sandwiches, snacks, and pizza would have been nice to grab and go as we pleased.
3. When we are on vacation, we like to sit back and relax.  We do wish that the resort would have servers on the beach to take and bring you your drink orders.  It was great to have Maria “drinky drinky” by the pool for part of our stay.  We tipped her well and appreciated all she did.  We were just surprised the resort didn’t have more of this.
4. We had mentioned the beach vendors looking to sell souvenirs and excursions earlier in the blog.  Although this didn’t ruin our experience on the beach, we do wish that there would be fewer vendors.

CONCLUSION: IBEROSTAR WAVES DOMINICANA FULL REVIEW

Even though we listed a few things above that would have enhanced our vacation experience, none of them ruined it.  The Iberostar Dominicana is a beautiful resort situated on a beautiful beach.  The food and weather were great, the staff was personable, and most importantly, our family had an unforgettable family vacation!  Our kids are still talking about it and will be for some time to come.  If you come across those negative reviews about the resort, just remember it is what you make of it.  Don’t focus on the small little things that you might not like.  Look at the big picture.  Sit back and relax.  Enjoy your vacation and enjoy your stay at Iberostar Dominicana!  We know our family will be back in the future!

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