Club Med Village Punta Cana

This was probably the most customer focused company we have ever travelled with. Absolutely no problems throughout the whole holiday, which meant we could just relax, take in the scenery & enjoy ourselves!
We went for just a week & if we could have, we would have stayed for two. This was the first Clubmed holiday we have been on & the facilities & standard of accommodation are outstanding.
The 'village' is just that, with it's own mini roads/walkways & hundreds of workers, gardeners & cleaners attending to every inch of the grounds. Nothing was out of place & all of the facilities & activities were available, even in the low season. These included windsurfing, kayaking, sailing, snorkelling, gym, aerobics, aqua-aerobics, cardio-Thai-boxing, yoga, patanque, volleyball, archery, circus school, tennis, dance lessons, kids club, two restaurants, snack bar, pool bar, nightclub, laundry facilities, massage parlour, water polo, fishing & probably some we didn’t see!
All of the staff were amazing. Picked from various parts of the world & selected for their expertise in their chosen field. Able to speak at least two languages, Spanish & French although we found that nearly all could speak English, (they wear a badge with their name plus a flag for each language). Not bad for a French owned company! All the staff had personalities too, all very friendly & genuine from the guys on the beach to the cleaners, waiters, chefs & reception. I think everyone on reception could speak four languages as a minimum requirement.
When we arrived, we were taken, by 'stretched golf-cart' to the reception area, where we were given a welcome cocktail & then driven to our room. Great stuff!
The rooms were great too, huge & with a living room area, TV, air conditioning, massive double bed, separate toilet & a shower room. The rooms were cleaned everyday to a very high standard, clean sheets & towels too. The room is powered by your key card, although the air-con stays on regardless.
The restaurants & dining areas were immaculate & absolutely huge! There were only about 250 guests while we were there, in the height of the season this goes up to 1600, so the restaurants have to accommodate everyone! The staff eat at the same time as everyone else & they have to mingle with guests & ask to sit with you while eating. We found this was fine, as most the time we sat with the guys from the watersports, where we spent most of our time! The only occasion we thought this was a little annoying was when we were sat with other guests, who could not speak English, in which case we just sat in silence. This only happened once as I asked to be sat on a different table each time afterwards, with no problems.
The food on offer was the most vast I’ve ever seen. Everything delicious. There were themed nights, Dominican, Italian, Caribbean, Oriental & so on. When you walk in, you are greeted by a friendly waiter/waitress who shows you to a table. Their only other job is to collect plates once you’ve finished, as it's all help-yourself! The choice of dishes was so fantastic, you have to walk around the 50+ choices & decide what you want before taking a plate! There are exotic dishes, although for children & the less adventurous there’s always chicken nuggets, burgers, chips, sausages etc. The chefs are also selected from around the globe & are all highly skilled at what they do.
The snack bar was also very good, serving croissants, burgers, hot dogs, nachos etc, cooked on the spot for you, although we never used it because we’d eaten so well at lunch & breakfast!
The snorkelling was good, we did the trip twice. It wasn’t quite as scenic as Maldives, but hey, you try snorkelling in Bognor...!
The sea was like getting into a luke warm bath, crystal clear. There is a small shipwreck about 500m from the beach. We were told that this landed itself in about 1972, then a hurricane brought it closer to the beach & split it in half. Very unusual but makes for excellent scenery from the beach, & particularly from the Hispaniola restaurant.
We tried all the watersports, sailing, windsurfing & kayaking. You have a lesson for each one before you are allowed to just turn up & go. There is a speedboat, manned all day, just in case you drift off too far! This makes you feel very safe.
I would definitely recommend going here in the low season, as I can imagine it would be mayhem trying to arrange to do watersports & other activities with over 1600 people here. Plus, although its their wet season, we only had 10 minutes of light drizzle, which cleared up with some fantastic sunshine. The rest of the week was very hot & sunny!
Would I go back? Well, I think that’s obviously a yes! Most definitely. I would not have changed a thing, fantastic holiday!