Zel Punta Cana

Super friendly staff and great resort, i had a great time and look forward to coming again. Only thing needed is a sports bar

Rooms are very large, well maintained, and include a spacious balcony. The pool walk-out rooms feel very private, especially with the long lazy river-style pools. The buffet at breakfast and supper is good, but not great. The selection is smaller, which reflects the resort’s size (about 190 rooms). Overall, the food is good. The beach is one of the nicest we’ve seen—little to no seaweed, white sand, great depth, and perfect for long walks. The Zel beach area is spacious, and the beach grill is very nice. However, there are not enough lounge chairs or shade umbrellas, and some are broken and need to be cleaned up or replaced. There are frequent “chair wars,” with guests competing for limited spots. Many guests are forced to lay towels directly on the sand in full sun—an easy fix for the resort. Bali beds are available on the beach for $100 USD, while they are free at the pool. À la carte dining is very good. However, the touchscreen system for dinner reservations is frustrating. We couldn’t get the reservation we wanted until we texted the concierge. QR code menus are also inconvenient—the app is slow to navigate and makes it difficult to review options. Paper menus would be much better. The walk to the beach is about 10 minutes (approximately 0.7 km) in full sun, while the shuttle ride is under 5 minutes. Golf carts run very frequently. Overall, it’s a nice, quiet, small resort with beautiful, lush grounds and relaxing lazy river pools—great for walking around. There are also plenty of tennis and pickleball courts. The staff are very good overall, with some exceptional team members: Rosemarie (reception), Oscar (beach waiter), Baby (beach restaurant server), Mary (breakfast buffet), Gregory (Volcan restaurant), and the very “happy chappy” at Nokyo restaurant, sorry his name escapes me.

We had such a wonderful experience at Zel All-Inclusive Punta Cana! This was a family trip with my mom and my daughter, and it turned out to be one of the best hotels we’ve ever stayed at. Check-in was quick, and the staff was very friendly and welcoming. The beach and pool were both amazing, very clean, and well maintained. We got to participate in a few, like candle making, tote painting, Dominican Night, and our favorite bingo night! A special thank you to Yunior, who helped us during check-in. He went above and beyond by making our dinner reservations and checking in on us to make sure we had everything we needed. Overall, this is a fantastic place to stay. From the food, to the amenities, to the incredible staff, everything exceeded our expectations. Highly recommend for families or anyone looking for a relaxing and fun getaway!

Zel Punta Cana is great. Service is amazing and very attentive. The hotel rooms are very spacious. The food has all been amazing. Definitely need to give yourself Enough time to check out each restaurant. There’s service on the beach with servers who bring you any drink you want! Ricardo at the beach is very attentive and very friendly. Jose is great too, helped us with our bags! Everyone has been super helpful and nice. Highly recommend this place and hope to return soon!

Overall a very nice property. Rooms are very spacious...we had 2 bedroom master suite for ourselves and 2 teenage boys. Food could get quite repetitive. Only 3 al la carte restaurants... sushi was our favourite. The buffet was fine but could get pretty boring near the end of the week. Taco restaurant for lunch was great. We were only able to get dinner reservations for 4/7 nights so do this as soon as you arrive. Rooms were cleaned and towels restocked daily. Fridge and snacks restocked daily. The beach is very nice, but not right on the resort. It's a nice walk to the beach or you can take a golf cart. Unfortunately there are very few chairs and even less umbrellas so you either get there early or sit in the beach bar chairs and wait like a vulture for a chair. Sort of annoying if you spend the time to go to the beach and there are no chairs. More beach chairs or someone removing towels off unused chairs would be nice. There are limited places to get drinks...one main bar with the swim up bar on the opposite side, a bar at the Tacorini restaurant, and a bar in the steak house/asian restaurant that is open at night. Oh yes, also a bar called Vogel or something that was only open on 1 night that we were there...very strange hours. The "coffee bar" was just a small station to the side of the check in/lobby area. Although the coffee was great there was not much else to pick from...aside from a small tray with a couple croissants or cinnamon buns in it. Not much entertainment if that is your thing. Perhaps the most disappointing was the lack of service. This place seems very understaffed. 2 mornings I did not have anyone come by to offer coffee at breakfast. We sat pool side for at least 4-5 hours each day and in total only saw a waiter 3 times...not 3 times a day... 3 times all week. The main bar only has 2 people working to serve almost the entire resort. At night we would sit by the main bar before dinner...not once did a waiter/waitress come by....always had to go line up at the bar for a drink. (1st world problem I know however this is not my experience at most other 5 star resorts). This is a smaller resort however it seemed like an inadequate amount of staff. One morning there were a pile of bottles and glasses poolside that were not removed/picked up by staff all day. Lastly, the tennis at the Nadal centre is quite expensive. It was close to $60 CAD just to play for an hour. Padel ball was closer to $85CAD as we had to rent rackets as well. I feel that use of the court should be included as part of your "all inclusive" vacation... at least for so many hours a week or during off peak times. There is a free court you can use at an adjacent Melia property however the court is not in great condition and there is an extremely loud industrial fan humming right beside it. We stayed at Paradisus Palma Real last year...Rooms very similar, same ownership. It was in my opinion much better...more food offerings, lounges where you could grab snacks and with self serve coffee machines. Closer to the beach and nightly entertainment. So not a bad resort, but with more staff this could be a much better experience. We enjoyed our stay but would not repeat coming here.