Dreams Royal Beach Punta Cana - All Inclusive

My family of 6 (me, hubby and our 17, 19, 20 and 23 year old children) just returned from our first trip to Dreams Royal Beach. This is by far our favourite all inclusive resort that we have been to. I’ll start with the PROS…. Words cannot describe how beautiful, lush and tropical this resort is. The lighting is spectacular at night. Day and night - it is STUNNING! The drink service was a solid 10 out of 10. The drink servers come to you and actually bring back what you ordered in a timely manner. We got served while sitting on the beach - swimming in the river pool - directly at our swim up room in the old section - and at ANY chair throughout the resort. The swim up pool bar closest to the beach also had EXCELLENT bartenders who serve everyone…from the loud and entitled guests to the quiet polite guests who usually get overlooked at an all inclusive resort. You will never be frustrated here and we LOVED that! I credit that to the great service of the workers. The other bars were equally awesome but we didn’t use them much because of the service closest to the beach. Good job STAFF/FAMILY! I also LOVE that you book a room with either a king size bed or a room with 2 double beds and you actually get the bed configuration that you want! This is PRICELESS. Thank you management for using common sense! We had 3 Deluxe Swim Up PREFERRED Club rooms in the old section and this was the best decision we made. The poolside patio and lawn offered a good combination of shade and sun and the surrounding gardens are mature and unimaginably BREATHTAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL. The pools are lit up at night and the turquoise water is GORGEOUS! You really feel like you are in a tropical jungle. These rooms are also closest to the beach and most restaurants, which, in my opinion, is the best location. We were in building 4 - located on the left side of the resort when you are facing the beach. We LOVED this section. Our boys, in my opinion, had the best room location. Room 4140. They were closest to the lobby and had the most privacy across the river pool. No Bali beds or chairs are across from this room. They had the most privacy on their patio…with mature flowers and greenery surrounding them. The steps to get into the pool are also directly in front of this room giving them easy access. This room is perfect for people with limited mobility because of the stairs. This room has 2 double beds but the rooms on either side (4138 and 4142 were also in a great location with king size beds.) Me and my husband were in room 4146 with a king size bed. The Preferred Club Bali beds are across the pool from this room…so you do have people relaxing across from you but this didn’t bother us at all. The river widens a bit here so it never felt crowded. We had a submerged seat/ledge to access the pool or we could walk along the edge to our son’s room to use the stairs. Our patio bathtub was only visible by our neighbours to the left (if they were sitting on their lawn) but we created a privacy curtain with our chairs and towels. My husband and I always enjoy using an outside tub and I was worried that everyone would see us but this was not the case here. The tub was big enough for 2 people. Our girls were closer to the beach in room 4156. This room has 2 double beds and is beside the public bridge and walkway that crosses over the river pool…about half way down the pool to the beach. No chairs or beds are across the pool from this room but the privacy is limited because of the location. The pool is also narrow in front of this room. They loved it regardless because of the easy access to the public walkways. However, the pool in front had no easy access…it just dropped down to the depth of the pool. Our girls are young and fit so they could still climb in and out but most guests who stay in this room will have to walk a bit in front of their neighbours room to access the seat/ledge or farther down to access the stairs. These swim up rooms are not true swim ups in that the lawn area beside the pool is sometimes used as a walkway by other guests staying in these rooms. The drink servers also walk along here taking orders and picking up empty glasses. This was not a problem at all but just be aware of that. We loved the social aspect of this pool and enjoyed meeting many wonderful guests throughout the river pool. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a lazy river because it is self propelled…the currents are gentle and don’t push you along like a tradition lazy river and we loved that. Guests with common sense knew that the ledge and grassy areas in front of the swim up rooms were for the guests paying for the upgraded swim up rooms and they didn’t use those areas. There is plenty of space around the pool that is public space for all guests. The old section rooms are a bit dated and don’t have fans in the bathroom but have fully enclosed bathrooms which our kids really appreciate. If you are elderly or have limited mobility, you may want a room on the right side of the resort (facing the beach) because you don’t have to walk over bridges and narrow and sometimes wet pathways to access the restaurants. However the swim up rooms on this side had narrower lawns, less sun and less space in my opinion. Our butler/personal concierge EMMANUEL was awesome! He spoke very good English and was able to help us get what we needed or wanted. His philosophy is “If you are happy, I am happy” and he was very good at his job. We are a very easy going family so we didn’t need him very often but I truly appreciated him when I needed help. He arranged our late checkout without me having to do anything or worry about it at all. He took care of those things that usually I have to do for our family. This mamma bear was truly relaxed this entire vacation because of EMMANUEL. Thank you sir! Overall, the staff here are really fantastic. Friendly staff with smiling faces and they are eager to please. It just felt good to be around them. The customer service here is top notch. Yes, there are always exceptions... The food here was good. Not excellent but good. The a la carte restaurants were our favourites. I don’t know why the Mexican Restaurant, Tres Colores, isn’t rated higher by guests because it was our favourite. We went there for dinners 4 times! They also offer the seafood menu from Oceana while they are closed for renovations…so lots of great food to choose from. We did both the hibachi table and regular menu at the Asian restaurant, Fusion. Both menus were very good. We ate breakfast one morning at Seaside Grill and enjoyed it…but stuck with the World Cafe Buffet for every other breakfast just because of the variety and the air conditioning. We ate at the Preferred Club On A Roll in the new section for 2 of our lunches and it was some of the best food we had at the resort. Unfortunately, it takes a bit more effort to get over there, so we chose to eat at the buffet for most lunches. Our kids also enjoyed Tides beachfront grill and room service. The World Cafe buffet has room for improvement but overall we always found something to eat. It is the smallest buffet restaurants that we have been to but it was still good but often crowded. There was no constant directional flow. Sometimes people went left and sometimes they went right. I often felt like I was in the way or going the wrong way at times. I was hoping for more prawns and shrimp but only saw shrimp in some of their dishes. As usual, the service by the staff made up for the shortcomings. We loved to see the singing juice lady every morning! The beach itself is stunningly beautiful. Palm trees and white soft sand screams PARADISE. Lots of seating in and out of the sun. However, the ocean view is UGLY. Sorry….but the netting/floating barriers out in the water to stop the flow of sargassum is awful. There is no sugar coating it. If I was getting married here on the beach, I would be disappointed with the view. But I know that this is not the fault of the resort. The netting keeps the beach itself looking gorgeous…so I can’t take points away for working with what they’ve got to deal with. Luckily the resort itself is a tropical paradise and looks gorgeous. November swimming season was not that bad. There was a few pieces of sargassum here and there and the water is quite cloudy and stirred up. But no need for water shoes here. The ocean floor was sandy and perfect for swimming and playing in the waves. We got a complimentary 2 story cabana for the day and it was heavenly. Our Personal Concierge, Emmanuel, was able to get it for us because our rooms were not ready until almost 5 pm on check-in day and he wanted to make it right. Thank you Emmanuel! Our server J.D. (Juan) was the best! He kept us well hydrated and fed throughout the day. It is a nice upgrade if you can afford it. We also got front row seats to a beautiful bride walking down the sandy aisle to her groom. Okay…maybe we felt a little intrusive but that didn’t stop me from taking pictures because it was cool to witness this very public event. I just wish that Speedo boy would have backed off a bit…the poor bride and groom must have just loved him in their photos! There are lots of weddings at this resort and it looks like they are well taken care of by the staff. Did I mention how stunningly GORGEOUS that this resort is? Truly breathtaking. I suggest upgrading to preferred club. The best seating around the river pool in the old section is Preferred. And the new Preferred Section is an entirely different area that you can utilize. The best perk for us was our Personal Concierge, Emmanuel. If we had any problems, concerns, requests or questions, we always knew that we had him specifically to reach out to. He answered our text messages immediately. I asked him what hours he works and he said that we can reach out to him anytime. He gave us peace of mind for the entire trip and to me that is PRICELESS. If you are a parent of young children, you will truly appreciate the support. You can just sit back and relax and let the staff do all those little things that are nice to take a vacation from. Our children are fully grown and as adults we appreciated that someone who speaks the local language had our backs. New Preffered Section vs. The Old Preffered Section…. We loved the old section because it was close to the beach and restaurants and the grounds are more established and tropical. But it was nice to have the option to wander over to the new section for a change of scenery. If you like peace and quiet and an upgraded room experience, the new section is for you. If you want to be near the action in a more tropical environment, the old section is for you. I struggled with this decision because the swimout rooms are AMAZING in the new section but we all agreed that the old section was best for our family. The Waterpark was fun! Towel kiosks are throughout the resort and no limits or towel cards needed...hurray! Thank you management. A few areas for improvement…. On the day of arrival, we were up since 1:30 am and arrived to the resort just after 1 pm. We were taken to the ON A ROLL restaurant and had an amazing meal with outstanding service and then we waited and waited. Our rooms were not ready until almost 5 pm. We were just the unlucky guests, I guess. But it was kind of a disappointing start. Luckily, our butler Emmanuel softened the blow by getting us the cabana for one day. All is well but other guests may have not been so gracious. It would also be nice to have an air conditioned space open 24 hours with pool tables, a bar, a snack bar and other forms of entertainment. The sports bar was only opened in the evening and it was very busy and crowded. There also isn't a pool dedicated to sports. As a result, if you want to throw a ball around or play volleyball, you only had the river pool to do that in. During our stay that was fine because the pools weren't busy. But it has the potential to be crowded and chaotic. Also, I booked and paid for round trip airport transfers with Amstar prior to our trip. I received an email with confirmation and pickup times. They were at the airport when we landed and the ride went perfectly. However, when we arrived at the resort, a note from Amstar was placed under our door in our room requesting me to confirm our shuttle time back to the airport….along with a brochure for excursions. I quickly recognized that this was going to be a sales pitch and avoided the dark blue salespeople like the plague. We had no interest in purchasing any excursions and our confirmed pickup time was already emailed to me…so big mistake - I didn’t go and see them. At checkout, our transportation was not there. The bellhop at the Preferred Club Lobby was a HUGE help and contacted them for me. Our driver was over a half an hour late and we missed our VIP airport service because we were late. It was a bad way to end the trip. I have never had a transportation company make it mandatory to attend a sales pitch to get the service that we paid for, so I do not recommend Amstar for private airport services. Normally I wouldn’t have included this in the resort review but Dreams Royal Beach has this specific company working at the resort. Overall, our trip was AMAZING and we would recommend this resort to anyone. Thanks for hanging in there…I like to give lots of details to those who care. Happy travels!