Hotel Catalonia Royal Bavaro

The general location was very good, therefore 4 suns and not less. It was very close to the airport (15 minutes' drive), which was very pleasant after a long flight. Nevertheless, we hardly noticed anything of the air traffic.
The Catalonia was rather remote at the Bavaro coast. On the beach to the left, there was absolutely nothing...and you could go on hours-long strolls...there was a little fishing village about 20 minutes to the left, which was ideal for shopping. In the hotel, everything was very expensive... (lip balm for 8 USD, sunscreen for 25 USD, etc...).

The beach by the Royal wasn't particularly clean, there were many cigarette butts and older dirts pieces in the sand and not removed... The beach in the normal Catalonia Bavaro seemed to be cleaner, in our opinion...
The direct beach area by the water was mostly full of pine needles and seaweed which was however removed several times a day.
The water was very flat and not suitable for swimming at all... The entire swimming area was unfortunately never deeper than to the hips or the belly. Moreover, the entire area was overgrown with seaweed... ugh...
If you wanted to swim, you had to go far out...with a canoe or a sailboat at best...

The service was very good. The staff was always helpful and friendly.
A drawback was that the communication with the cleaning staff was hopeless without Spanish language skills... But we still got everything we needed...
Another drawback was the cleanliness in the room... Admittedly, we're both a little fussy, but what we saw here when we arrived was still a bit heavy... Totally dirty closets full of crumbs, sticky and dirty fittings and towel holders, dirty bedsheets...
During the holiday, we had hardy any problems anymore we couldn't fix ourselves (thanks to generous tips???). Just the towels weren't always complete, which wouldn't have been bad if they had just changed the towels on the floor...but they often also took away fresh towels and didn't replace them...
There were always fresh beach towels available in the room, and if not, you could get them from the maid in the morning...

Complaints were always handled in a friendly way...but sometimes in an undertone... But we were generally satisfied, even though the minutes in the Dominican sometimes lasted till the following day... *lol*

Pictures/Videos to hotel review (Click picture to enlarge!)

There was a real abundance of restaurants and bars.
The only drawback was that you had to go to the normal Catalonia if you wanted to have a buffet. There, it wasn't as quiet as in the Royal, of course, and the quality wasn't as good either. The restaurants in the Royal area were all very good. The quality was excellent, and the atmosphere was very nice and relaxed. The new tapas restaurant in the new area especially deserves to be highlighted. Very high quality and a good atmosphere.
The specialty restaurants in the "normal area" didn't have to be reserved by guests of the Royal, except for the Japanese "Mikado" restaurant, and were quite good... But we always received a rather short shrift... It helped to say that we wanted to allow ourself plenty of time, then we could at least stay for 45 minutes *lol*

Since there was no entertainment program offered in the Royal (thank goodness), I'm just going to talk about the pool area and the sports offer here:
The pool was very nice and beautifully arranged. The new pool was super, it wasn't as shapely and as big as the main pool but big enough for swimming and equipped with great double pool chairs with awnings. On the whole, all chairs, including the ones on the beach, were very high-quality and comfortable. There were a few which were in need of replacement, but we didn't find really broken ones.

Apart from a small gym, there was no sport offered directly in the Royal, and you had to go to the normal Catalonia for it... However, the small gym of the Royal right next to the spa had good equipment. It was absolutely enough for "full body workout".
The "normal" Catalonia also provided canoeing, catamaran sailing, snorkeling, etc...
Beach volleyball was available too...

The junior suites were alreay a bit older, and you just noticed the age... Dented lamp shades, etc. just weren't replaced. I've already mentioned the cleanliness in detail... I think a tip of one dollar a day was very helpful...
Besides, there was everything necessary available, a safe, a mini bar, a flat screen TV, a suite inside as well as seats and a hammock on the big balcony.
The bathroom was nicely big, and the shower looked nice with the wooden floor, but you just shouldn't have thought about hygiene here.
However, we didn't like that there was no possibility to listen to the radio or a CD. There was no clock radio (no alarm clock at all)...
But we found it great that we could get a DVD player for a deposit of 20 USD... And the deposit of 10 USD per movie wasn't bad either... But there wasn't a single movie with a German sound track...

Thanks to WLAN which was basically always available, the cell phone with Skype was definitely worth it... For the next holiday, we'll probably bring a netbook which would have fit in the safe without any problems. Unfortuantely, the safe was a bit small, and things bigger than 15 inches would certainly not have fit in.