Zel Punta Cana

This was an amazing couples trip! I want to give a big warm shoutout to Rosemary, she is a such a wonderful and pleasant person who helped us with everything we needed. She works as the resorts concierge, she’s always in high spirits. The food at the buffet is amazing and always healthy. The food at the restaurants is okay, nothing special. The buffet is way better. The staff here is all around awesome, you can tell they try their best to accommodate you. The pools are clean and spacious, the gym is great, and the lounge areas are comfortable. The shuttle to the beach is easy and constantly back and forth. The only issue I had was the harassment at the beach. 3rd party companies that claim to work for the hotel are beyond annoying and constantly come around trying to sell you. Other than that this is a nice resort and great place to stay

This is our 9th time back in beautiful Punta Cana. We had a wonderful stay at Zel Punta Cana. The resort itself is beautiful, clean, and thoughtfully designed, but what truly made the experience exceptional was the staff. Everyone was warm, attentive, and genuinely welcoming. A special shoutout to Alexis, who was absolutely amazing and went above and beyond to make our stay memorable. From start to finish, the service was outstanding. We would definitely return and highly recommend this resort to anyone looking for a relaxing, high-quality experience in Punta Cana.

Where to begin… I’ll start with the good. The grounds are beautiful, the resort is very pretty and the rooms are huge and modern. Every room, even the most basic is an upgrade compared to a standard hotel room. Even the most basic room has a whirlpool on the balcony. We stayed in the Zel Master Suite, which had a jacuzzi inside and whirlpool outside. It’s got 2 sections, living room and dining room and the 2nd section is a large washroom and bedroom area along with a huge balcony. The restaurants were great. Service was the best here. We went to the steakhouse and teppanyaki twice as the food was delicious and good service. Our 2nd time at the steakhouse they didn’t have a drink at the bar there and the server went to the buffet to get it, as they don’t have the slushie machine. She could have easily said sorry we aren’t able to make it, but decided to go run and grab it from the buffet bar. Then when it was time for dessert their coffee maker was no longer working and again instead of telling us it couldn’t be done, she went to the buffet bar to get the espresso. This is definitely above and beyond and much appreciated. We would have completely understood if it was unavailable and they couldn’t provide it. As for teppanyaki, the chefs both times made sure to create an exceptional experience and interacted with all the guests at the table. The okay. Food at the buffet was okay. Not the best I have had at an all inclusive, but there was always something to eat. The steakhouse restaurant is the most popular, very good food, would highly suggest the restaurants for dinners so you have more of a variety! Teppanyaki was very tasty as well, however small portions, everyone from our table ended up at the buffet after dinner. Beach club had the freshest food for lunch, Philly cheesesteak sandwich was so tender! The beach. Also okay. It’s about a 4 minute golf cart ride away. You need to go to the lobby to get to the beach. The carts come every 2-5 minutes. Now there aren’t that many chairs, so sometimes you won’t get one if you aren’t there early enough. The hotel has 195 rooms, but there isn’t anywhere near that many beach chairs. Apparently the hotel was at high capacity (based on how full the buffet was, I wouldn’t have guessed this)… The water is okay, not the clearest. First couple days there was a lot of seaweed, and last couple days there was a lot of debris. The water was not clear, you could not look down and see your feet. Room service is a hit and miss. Sometimes it’s fresh, sometimes it’s cold. Sometimes it’s 30 minutes, sometimes it’s an hour and you don’t get half of what you ordered. Very limited options. It is NOT 24 hours. They will take orders till 11pm, and after 10 it’s a late night menu. Language barrier. One thing I will note is they have a lot of staff that do not speak English, like at all. Not even basic English. Buffet when you ask them what something is, one of them tried asking my husband if he spoke Spanish to translate, he did not. The resort lists that they speak English, Spanish, and French. I would say it’s mainly Spanish with some speaking English. The bad… the service is just not at all what you would expect from a 5 star hotel. A lot of the staff seem very miserable and unhappy to be there. Would like to specifically point out the cleaning and buffet. Most times when going to the buffet we didn’t even get acknowledged by the staff and had to go to the bar there to get water and drinks. I would say 2/3 times at the buffet we did not get acknowledged or received service. Sometimes they’d bring us water and then never come back to bring more water or ask if we need a drink. We opted not to get cleaning done daily, instead every other day, but for 3 days in a row we chose to leave the green light on for room cleaning, and no one came to clean (more on this below). I will say there are a handful of attentive staff at the buffet that were good, but 95% of them didn’t even do their jobs, like bringing water or even greeting you. Pizza guy was amazing, he was definitely a stand out for service! Cleaning service… horrible. When we arrived at 6:30pm (over 3 hours after check in time) we got assigned a room that was not cleaned. There was what looked like pubic or facial hair by the sink, towels piled up and just dirty. The bell boy acted fast (not his fault, or his department) and called and we got assigned a new room. This one was cleaner, minus the wad of hair left in the shower. A couple days later when cleaning did our room, that hair was STILL there. Bed was super roughly made. No cute design on the bed or anything, isn’t a big deal, it’s just part of the experience when you go to the Caribbean and get really good service! They gave us at least one dirty towel (my husband and I were debating if it was blood or faecal matter). Then for 3 days we had the clean our room sign up since morning and when we would leave to go to the beach, pool or buffet, no cleaning. One of the times I saw the cart on our floor, they didn’t come to our room by the time we were back several hours later. The day before we left in the morning we ran out of toilet paper, and again left the clean room sign on, did not have it cleaned. It was 2:30pm when we got back and still no toilet paper. Had to call guest services 3 times to get fresh towels and toilet paper, as this is part of cleaning. Then at 4:30pm when I believe one of the bell boys had to bring us these amenities the cleaning lady was at the room across from ours (same place her cart was the day before when we left the room but she didn’t clean) then she decided to ask in from of the gentleman if we want room cleaned… the green light had been on ALL day. I’m guessing she didn’t want to get in trouble. Seemed like cleaning staff just don’t want to do their jobs. Very disappointing. Please note each time we left the room with a green light to clean the room we left a tip, including the one time they actually cleaned. I would also like to note that upon arrival they asked if we were celebrating anything, and we said we were on our baby moon and they did absolutely nothing with this information. I’m not sure why they’d ask this if they weren’t going to do a little something special. When my husband and I went on our honeymoon the first hotel we stayed at provided a little gift basket, another one did rose petals. Just overall not the greatest experience here. Personally, I would not go back. We appreciated the few staff that did put in the effort, as that made the stay a little bit more enjoyable. Both my husband and I agree, this is not a resort we would come to again, and it most certainly was not a 5 star experience.

Had a great time. Resort is beautifully kept. All the Staff was great. Performances were professional. Will definitely return.

What I liked: The lounge chairs and day beds by the pool are beautiful and comfortable, and the beach lounge chairs are equally great. The golf carts running between the resort and the beach are constant and very convenient, and the valet staff were consistently kind and helpful. Drink service on the beach was excellent. I also want to specifically mention Leticia at Volcan restaurant—her service was outstanding, and that meal was genuinely enjoyable. What I didn’t like: The food was extremely disappointing, especially for anyone who doesn’t eat meat or dairy. There were very few options, and what was available was overcooked and poorly seasoned. Service was even worse than the food—beach restaurant service was painfully slow, and at the dinner restaurants many menu items were unavailable. Guests are not informed ahead of time that reservations are required, and once on-site there were no reservations available, which forced us to eat off-property to avoid the buffet multiple times a day. Staff often responded with a flat “no” to requests without offering alternatives, and overall hospitality felt lacking. It was frustrating that food cannot be ordered to lounge chairs, often costing an hour of sun time waiting for service. Pool drink service was essentially nonexistent. The beach day beds require a $65 fee, but there is no signage—being asked to move after settling in unless you pay felt tacky and uncomfortable. Overall: While the resort is visually appealing with great beach access and comfortable lounging, poor food quality, disorganized dining, and unfriendly service made the stay disappointing.