We decided to go to Punta Cana for our honeymoon, and this was our first trip to pay almost entirely with credit card points. A few years before we even got engaged, I got the Capital One Venture card and started racking up miles. Then as soon as we got engaged, I got the Chase United Explorer card. I referred Ryan and that got me a 10,000 miles bonus. Since I already had well over 100,000 points on my Venture card, we put as many wedding purchases as we could on the United card to quickly rack up points.
What we ended up getting was 7 nights for the 2 of us for about 111,000 miles plus paying just under $500 for taxes/fees and we were just a few points shy of using just points for the entire stay. Then we used our United points and it cost us about 70,000 points for each one-way first-class flight plus about $100 each flight for taxes/fees.
Luxury Ambar at Bahia Principe review
Bahia Principe is a huge resort with multiple smaller hotels, which was similar to our experience at Moon Palace in Mexico. We chose to stay at Luxury Ambar because it was adults only, and after experiencing an NYE dinner next to a toddler having a meltdown at Panama Jack in Mexico, we knew that we definitely wanted adults only for our honeymoon. We went in April 2021, so there was still some COVID restrictions and limitations. But this was definitely a favorite trip of ours!
The rooms at Luxury Ambar
We splurged for our room, and it was worth it for the week! We booked a Junior Suite Deluxe Swim Up room that was recently renovated. I tried contacting them through email to ask about upgrading to a honeymoon suite and their honeymoon package and unfortunately never received a response. Then I tried calling them and was told that I could only do that once we got there. This was actually really disappointing because not only was it poor customer service for a 5-star hotel, it also stressed us out about availability for rooms. What ended up happening was once we checked in, I asked if we could upgrade our room for our honeymoon. They did have a nicer room available, but the couple in that room wouldn't be checking out until 10pm! So what happened was we had one room for half of a day and then that night we switched rooms. For context, we had to get up at 4am the morning after our wedding to make our flight, so we were actually asleep by the time they rang us that our new room was ready. We were eventually upgraded to a Junior Suite Deluxe Corner Swim Up room. Because of the wait (or because we mentioned it was our honeymoon?), we were given a bottle of champagne and a box of chocolates, which both were great.
I will say that the staff was great with our rooms. We were encouraged to make ourselves at home in our temporary room, and we always had our luggage moved from room to room for us. Both rooms had recently been renovated and looked great. Our new room had a tub, which our first one only had a shower, and the tub was in the living room (similar to Moon Palace) where you could overlook the pool as you bathed. The swim-up pool was great and because we had a corner room, our portion of the pool was much bigger! It was a little weird sharing a pool with other people, but we loved having a private pool. Our room was actually RIGHT near the pool and the beach so it took us no time at all to make it to the beach. I loved this because we had easy access to use our room for the bathroom or to grab items. Definitely a highlight of the room was the Bahia Principe hotel app! We could request additional cleanings of our room or fridge restocks and room service all through the app, which was a great experience.
The only downside was that our room just so happened to be right near a little golf cart stop and a restaurant, so we did hear a lot of noise from that. Oh, and I will say that the hallways echo VERY loudly and there is absolutely no one monitoring noise, so bring earplugs if you plan to be asleep before 1am because people are definitely still loud until late at night.
Eating at Luxury Ambar
The room service had great options for dinner, but after one morning of their breakfast room service we decided the buffet was a better choice. The buffet Palmyra in the lobby had a lot more breakfast options than the room service list, so we ended up having breakfast here all other mornings of our trip. We also ate lunch here almost every day, but we did try the Portifino restaurant near the pool for lunch which was great, and one day we found burgers and hot dogs on the beach, which were also pretty good. We didn't realize it before we arrived, but almost all restaurants require a reservation for dinner. Once we found this out, we made reservations where we could, but the restaurant choices and times were pretty limited, so we ended up only getting to try 3 restaurants. The easiest way to make restaurant reservations is through their app. Now we know that if we go back, we'll book reservations once we're 5 days out from our trip.
We ate at their Limbo restaurant twice, and twice we were unimpressed. The food was fine, but the service was just terrible. Both times we were seated quickly, and then just abandoned. I'm talking, wow it's been so long since someone came to our table I'm going to start a timer just to see how long it takes until someone comes back to our table. I understand that they were understaffed because of COVID, but it was really frustrating sitting there and watching people who were seated after us be able to order before us, and watching people who ordered after us receive their food before us. Both times we left before our desert even arrived because at that point it had been well over an hour and we were just frustrated with the restaurant staff.
We also ate at their Portofino restaurant twice, and had a much better experience. They had a great Italian food selection and I loved their wine options. We were happy to come back for our second reservation and loved this restaurant. On our last night, we had reservations at Tequila at Beach House Las Olas. This was a little frustrating at first because it is in the same building as the Fish Market restaurant, and we thought we had reservations at the upstairs restaurant, then found out that was a "privilege club" only restaurant, then found out that Tequila is actually not part of Luxury Ambar but is actually part of the Grand Bavaro hotel. This meant that it wasn't adults-only, which was fine by us for one night, but just very confusing to find. We loved the Tex-Mex food options because we're from Texas, the views were great because you were right on the beach (I suggest getting an early reservation so you can ask to be out on the patio, and they had some AMAZING margaritas. But, it was a confusing restaurant because they brought us a variety of appetizers that we didn't even order, then no one came for a good 20 minutes and we weren't sure if our entrée would be brought out of if we could actually order. After flagging down a waiter, we found out that we could order our entrée. The food was still great, but the waiting to order was something that we were starting to get tired of after our experience with Limbo. The frustration with slow staff definitely made it feel like a 2- or 3-star resort.
What to do at Luxury Ambar
I don't know if it was because of limited capacity due to COVID, or the fact that we where at the Luxury Ambar side, but the beach was amazing! We never had to rush to get a chair on the beach and we could always find a set of loungers, even mid day. A lot of their loungers were set up under little grass thatched cabanas, and there were lots of little drink tables available. I loved that about our stay. We didn't see too many staff out on the beach to take drink orders, and the beach bar was on the opposite side of the beach as our room, so we ended up taking multiple trips to the pool bar to get a drink. We did hop into the pool one afternoon and it was a lot of fun. There was always a DJ and it was great being so close to the pool bar. As for the actual ocean, it was beautiful and very warm, but for our April trip there was a lot of sea grass floating around that was hard to avoid.
Before our trip, I had found GetMyBoat and had booked a boat through Bebe's Tours, which I highly recommend. I wanted to surprise Ryan with this so I didn't get his help and ended up booking a 32 foot boat, which was way too big for and (and kinda pricey for 2 people since it cost $600), but we had so much fun. They asked us if we wanted a boat with a sail or slide, and we obviously picked a slide. We had a huge boat with a captain, bartender, and like a cruise director all to ourselves. We had homemade mamajuana and beer with really great chips and salsa. We went snorkeling and went off the slide a few times, and then when we got bored with that we asked them to take us to the next stop which was a natural sand bar and we spent the rest of our time just relaxing and drinking. It was a perfect start to our trip! We decided to go early in the morning so we wouldn't get seasick from drinking all day and so we could enjoy our trip before the sun got too hot.
There was also a lot of activity options that the hotel would refer you to. There was a little scuba shack over by the beach bar where we signed up for parasailing, which I always love to do.
Then, we went to the activities office in the lobby and signed up for a helicopter tour. We chose the Sanoa Island tour because it was a better deal than just an hour-long helicopter tour. The island was okay, but we weren't really there long enough to do anything and although we were told this came with unlimited drinks, the only option was to buy drinks. But, their paella was delicious and the helicopter views were amazing.
We also got all-day tickets to the nearby Scape Park and we highly highly recommend you fit that into your trip! You are gone from 8-5 that day, but there is so much to do at the Scape Park! We absolutely loved that experience. If you go, bring your own little locker lock to save money because the lockers are free, you just have to buy a lock. And bring cash for lunch and drinks. Everyone there had a waterproof phone pouch which I ended up buying even though my iPhone is waterproof, because its just easier to wear your phone as a necklace with all of the activities going on.
Our boat tour, helicopter tour, and Scape Park tour all had drivers who picked us up at the Aquamarine hotel, which was super convenient and very safe. The resort itself also had a whole mini village that we toured but was mostly all closed because of COVID, and it even had a ropes course and mini golf, but again, COVID ruined these. Although it was our honeymoon, we ended up doing a lot on this trip and loved it.
Overall thoughts on Luxury Ambar
Our room, the swim-up pool, and the beach were our favorite parts of this hotel. The late-night noise and long waits at restaurants kinda ruined the experience for us. We definitely would do the Bebe boat tour and Scape Park again, but I can't say we'd stay there again. It wasn't so bad that we would recommend against staying or that we wouldn't ever stay there again, but it also wasn't so great that it would prevent us from wanting to try another resort.
