Finest Punta Cana

I would recommend this resort to anyone with young children. There is so much for them to do. The resort is clean and beautifully decorated. The staff and attentive and friendly. The food was excellent. My children (5 and 7) loved swimming and jumping on the blue blob. They did this essentially all day.

We booked our stay directly through the resort, and paid in full. Our disappointment upon arrival was unfortunately immediate, as we were informed the room we had reserved was not available ("maintenance") and we could only be placed in a significantly downgraded room (no ocean view, no private pool). This we could have gotten over, until we were informed that we would not be reimbursed for the cost difference between the two rooms - we were expected to pay for an experience we did not receive. They offered only a credit, but we have no intentions of returning to a resort that cannot manage bookings made 6+ months in advance. It has been a month since our stay concluded, and Finest/Excellence customer service department has been entirely unresponsive to my open claim. I am providing two stars for the review because the overall resort was as-advertised, clean and accommodating. The staff outside of the reservation management were friendly and welcoming.

This is our fourth time visiting the Finest Punta Cana, and it has been a disappointment so far. Our attempt to speak with a manager has been unsuccessful. 1. My parents (separate reservation) booked a Finest Club Jr. Suite and were put on the Excellence side in a jr. suite. That is not what they reserved and they are a far walk from us (not easy with bad knees!). My sons (ages 13 and 16) can’t go to their grandparents’ room or swim in the pools near their room because kids aren’t allowed there. No offers for compensation or apologies, just lies about it being an upgrade and saying that the kids can go over there to visit and swim (they can’t). My mother called the finest club reception twice and was hung up on twice. 2. We booked two rooms for our family of 4 with two teens. We requested one room with a king bed and one room with two double beds. At check in we were told we got those room types. When we went to the rooms we saw that both rooms had two double beds. We went back to the Finest Club check in and they told us that the beds could be pushed together to make one big bed. We did not think that would work based on the room configuration, lights, and switches. They said “people like it like that.” Housekeeping moved our beds together and we will not be able to sleep in the beds that way or use the phone, plugs, or light switches. There is also a bare light bulb right by where the pillows and our heads would go. I will attach photos of his housekeeping left our room. No apologies, no compensation, no one we can talk to who can fix this. I wish they would admit that mistakes have been made rather than lying. We were really looking forward to our trip and now are feeling let down by our experience so far. I asked to speak with a higher level manager and was told that he/she was no there today and we’d need an appointment to talk with someone tomorrow. This is not what we have expected from an Excellence Collection resort.

One of our friends referred us the Finest. We are impressed with the facility, the atmosphere and the staff.

PLEASE take the time to read this – it’s 2 minutes of your life, but it could save you a week of headache and a lot of money. Our stay at Excellence Punta Cana was incredibly disappointing and honestly one of the worst travel experiences we’ve had. This resort is far from a five-star experience. The biggest issue was the food. We are not big drinkers, which is exactly why we chose this resort based on its strong food reviews—but it was consistently terrible. At the Market buffet, much of the food looked like it had been sitting out for far too long or reused from previous meals—dry, unappetizing, and honestly hard to trust. After a couple of attempts, we stopped eating there altogether because nothing looked appealing. I barely ate anything for a week and came home 5 pounds lighter. The coffee bar sandwiches were another example, hard bread with the thinnest slice of meat and cheese imaginable. It was honestly laughable. If you go, try one—you’ll immediately understand. Even the restaurants were a letdown. For a resort that markets itself as high-end, the food quality and execution were nowhere near that level. It was just so bad! It really felt like the chefs need proper training, as meals were consistently underwhelming and poorly prepared. We also paid extra for the Finest Club, which turned out to be a complete waste. There was no monitoring of access—guests who clearly had not paid for the upgrade were using the same areas freely. There was nothing “exclusive” about it, and it felt like we paid for absolutely nothing. Things got significantly worse when my son became very ill early in the trip. At 3am, we had to call a doctor to the room because he had severe vomiting and was in distress. He was diagnosed with a stomach illness and then developed an ear infection with pus. It was a stressful and scary situation to deal with while being away from home. Just when we thought things couldn’t get worse, I became extremely sick myself later in the trip. On the night before our flight home, I had severe vomiting and liquid diarrhea. It was exhausting, overwhelming, and honestly frightening—I was genuinely worried I wouldn’t be able to make it onto the plane the next day. On top of that, I developed a rash up my leg that was diagnosed as folliculitis, caused by dirty pool water. At other resorts, you can clearly smell the chlorine, which at least gives some confidence that the pools are being treated. Here, there was barely any smell at all, and it really made me question how well the water was being maintained. We booked this trip to relax and recharge after a long winter, and instead it turned into a stressful, frustrating, and unhealthy experience. Between the really terrible food, the lack of quality control, getting sick, and feeling like we wasted money on upgrades, we left feeling completely let down. The whole week was just so bad and we have been really looking forward to the trip. I would strongly recommend saving your money and choosing a different resort. No one should have to go through the kind of experience we had.