Iberostar Selection Coral Bavaro - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

787 reviews

• 

  Great stay, beach, food, and staff.

  Check in—We arrived at the hotel 3 hours before check in, so we knew our room would not be ready when we arrived. We arrived at the Selection hotel (main lobby) and was asked by the bellhop what hotel we stated the Coral hotel. We were told to stand by the Coral hotel sign and someone will come and pick us up to take us to check in at the Coral lobby. We waited for about 10 minutes before the golf cart came to retrieve us and our bags. The bellhop, golf cart driver, and check in lady were very nice. When we arrived we waited for another 15 minutes because a family of five was checking in and there was only 1 person to check you in. When it was our turn we were greeted with a pleasant smile and was told our room was not ready, but we can check in, go have lunch, and they will let us know when the room was ready. After we checked in, they kept our bags, and we met our concierge personnel, Alberto who was exceptional throughout our stay! He called for a golf cart and they took us to El Faro, buffet lunch. Food—We went to the lunch buffet (El Faro) when we arrived which included an array of food options including snow crab legs, lobster claws, steaks, salads, fruit, pork chops, salmon, burgers, and lots more. I was pleasantly surprised and excited, because I love seafood. The staff in the restaurant were very welcoming. For dinner, I made my own reservation on the Iberostar app for Brave the steakhouse. Brave was good and my family enjoyed it, but nothing to write home about. The Japanese and Italian restaurants, Alberto arranged for us. The Japanese restaurant, Kabuki was good but definitely not enough food if you don’t eat sushi. The hibachi itself is really a small hibachi bowl with about 4 pieces of chicken , shrimp, and steak with rice. For those of you who likes yum yum sauce—there is none not the salad with ginger dressing. It is a set menu and everyone gets the same dishes. My husband and son don’t eat sushi and the soup and hibachi bowl was not enough. The Italian restaurant, Il Forno Italian Restaurant was the best out of all 3. The food was hot and delicious and the dessert was the best dessert we had all week long. The Gala night at the buffet at the selection was amazing that including grilled lobster tails, chicken, pork, steaks, beef, fresh pizza, salad, desserts galore including different chocolate flavored desserts, and lots more food options. The food that night was excellent. We ate breakfast daily at El Faro, which was pretty much the same each day. I had made to order omelet each day. Lunch was pretty much the same as well. The room service and beach menu is limited and was just okay. The buffet food was always lukewarm and never hot except for the made to order food. I did not try the Mexican restaurant or other restaurants at the sister properties. Room—My room was on the top floor of a building that was located near the pool, beach, and El Faro restaurant. The room itself was basic and nothing spectacular. The maid service was everyday and the ladies were very nice and accommodating. The beach and pool— There are 2 pools on the Coral side both are small but nice. Be of the pools is literally steps from the beach. The beach is nice and like other reviewers there is seaweed but staff does a good job cleaning it up. The huts on the beach were plentiful and enough for everyone. However, I’m not sure if they are cleaned everyday or not. I sprayed my hut everyday with Lysol. Locals constantly come by asking you to purchase any and everything. It can be annoying to many, but it is typically in the Caribbean. There are lifeguards on the properties; however, they are not actually on the beach but under trees facing the guests and pool areas. So I wasn’t sure if they would help rescue anyone in the ocean or if they were there to oversee those in the non deep pools. Check out— Very easy process. Go to office or call from your room to check out and request a golf cart to pick you up and your luggage to take you to the selection lobby to be picked up for airport transfers. Overall—Iberostar property is massive with all of the properties together next to Riu properties. For the most part the staff is always smiling and friendly. I didn’t encounter any staff that wasn’t friendly to me and my family or the group we were with. You are approached about attending a membership presentation, but it is typical when visiting most Caribbean resorts. Although, the resort is all inclusive and you will not find any tip jars anywhere, I recommend that you do. These employees work so hard and very long hours and are very appreciative of the tips. I give the resort at the coral level a 4.5 star due to rooms and luke warm food.

  Mar 29, 2025
• 

  Not bad

  Over all not bad. Iberostar Selection Bavaro Coral is a lovely hotel. And the site is beautiful. But is this a five star resort? Rooms are comfortable but need upgrading (fabric soiled or fading). Room service is uneven. We could not find a bottle opener. Bottles in fridge require one. Some days you get a face cloth but not on others. Shell fish is not always properly cooked and beware of lobster! Overcooked or undercooked. And one last thing : although Dominicains are lovely friendly people, they are loud! Staff streaming from one side of the dining room to the other.

  Mar 16, 2025
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  Mid February- Family of Four

  Family of four with two kids (5 & 3). We had TRULY the best time. We started every day at the main pool because the zero entry pool was best for our kids. Lunch we had every day at the coral buffet. And then we would nap the kids on the lounge chairs at one of the quieter coral-only pools in the afternoon. Lastly, finishing each day with dinner and a walk around the resort. Food: You can eat every meal at the coral buffet restaurant. Truly, don’t even bother with anything else. We did the Mexican one night, it was okay, and the Italian another night, again just okay. The meals we enjoyed every time were at the Coral buffet. Breakfast and lunch every day was absolutely outstanding; rotating each day with the most amazing selection of foods. Our favorite dinner was the Dominican night at this same restaurant. Incredible. Rooms were great, nothing wildly amazing or wildly bad. Standard rooms with restocked mini bars. The bathroom sink was really high so we called and requested a kids foot stool and they brought one right away. Beach was fantastic, water was great, hotel grounds were beautiful, staff (especially at the Coral area) were welcoming. No one ever expected a tip. Sometimes I gave one, sometimes not, more so just when I remembered to bring some bills with me. But it was never an issue. If you’re looking for a great quality, low fuss, luxurious vacation then I couldn’t recommend this resort more. ONLY con, as I’m sure others have said, was the person selling a ‘members breakfast’ was really pushy about it. But I had read enough on here to know I was not interested and I just politely but firmly said we are not interested and they never mentioned it to us again.

  Mar 13, 2025
• 

  Relaxing beautiful resort

  Enjoyable relaxing visit. We stayed at this resort for 10 nights, late January into early March, my husband and I, and another couple. Overall, we enjoyed our stay. Room was good - comfortable king bed, mini-fridge stocked with beverages (beer and pop). Plenty of storage in closet and drawers. Safe was of a good size. Bathroom was okay, but would have preferred 2 smaller sinks instead of the one very wide one. Only complaint would be that it took 3 days to get umbrellas and it did rain almost every day, although only sprinkles for most part. We felt that the upgrade was worth it, as we had access to 2 extra pools and 2 restaurants in addition to access to the pools at the adjoining resorts (except for JOIA). We ended up eating mostly at the coral buffet for breakfast and lunch. Although not that large, this buffet had a very good selection of food, with different items each day, so didn’t get boring. Some of our favourites were the pizza, fried chicken, and the desserts. ice cream was really good too. For dinner, we ate at a variety of restaurants throughout the whole resort complex. Reservations needed to be made for 3 of the restaurants - Italian, steakhouse and Japanese. Our favourites were: La Sibila (French) in the Dominicana resort, Salt & Soul (seafood) in coral level and El Faro (international) in the coral level. On our last night, we tried the buffet El Tapatio in the Bavarian suites area, and were pleasantly surprised by the quality of food there. With all this good food, we all put on a few pounds of course.. The beach was beautiful, sandy all the way into the water, no rocks at all, but it did tend to be a bit windy most days. So no need for water shoes. You could walk in both directions for quite a way. It was fun bouncing in the waves, but not ideal for children. Not sure if it was the time of year, but it did get quite windy some days. We did tend to put towels down to reserve loungers with palapas before breakfast, as on the first full day there, we couldn’t find any, of course this tends to be a common problem at many all inclusive resorts these days. One thing we appreciated was not being limited to one towel per person, and the towel hut was right there on the beach, and close to the infinity pool. We liked the 2 pools in the coral section, the infinity one right on the beach and the more squarish one nestled among some of the coral buildings further back. The water temperature was perfect for cooling off, and swimming laps. As coral level guests, we were able to use the spa water areas for a one-time visit with a reservation made ahead of time. We enjoyed this too - there were a few whirlpools, an outdoor pool, steam room and sauna. Massages were way too expensive though.. Golf carts were easy to get if you just went up to the small coral lobby. We preferred to walk most r the time, but we did get rides a couple of times when needed to get somewhere fast. No real complaints from us, but since we like to try different resorts, doubt that we would return.

  Feb 23, 2025
• 

  Multiple Stolen items from our hotel room

  Where to start… My biggest, most upsetting thing about this vacation happened after we left and returned home. Within 1-2 days I noticed that a pair of sunglasses, $100 USD was missing from my wallet and also $60 worth of antibiotics that we purchased had been taken from our hotel during our stay. I’ve sent 2 messages about this and have had NO response back! Food was not that great (buffets) but the restaurants were better. Our TV did not work well in our room and was never fixed. Some of the toilets DID NOT have toilet seats on. There was also not any music playing by the pools and when we asked about it they said they would look into it, but never heard anything back. There also was not many entertainment/activities during the day. Especially for teens. Multiple water bottle & ice stations not working. Also, we were supposed to get resort coupons upon registration but we did not receive anything. The same thing for getting a private dinner with an upgraded wine selection. Last but not least we were really pressured to go to the “breakfast meeting” and listen to your talk about the time share even after saying no multiple times. I’m just totally disgusted that we were violated like this! Absolutely disgusting! I will NEVER come back and come to one of your hotels EVER!

  Feb 11, 2025