We just returned from yet another trip to Punta Cana, which turned out to be a really sensible place to head to, as we missed the recent massive snowfall in Ottawa. This time we boarded a dreaded charter flight from Montreal (Transat), and sat in our tight seats (but exit row!) for a few hours, made it to Punta Cana mostly on time (around 2pm on March 8th, 2008). We'd booked at the Gran Bahia Principe in the "Club Royal Golden" area, which is supposedly close to the beach and has "VIP amenities". When we reached our bus at the airport to go to the hotel we were surprised to find that we were already checked in, and that we'd been "upgraded" to the Ambar section/hotel, which is adults only. I guess they were fully booked with lots of families and were moving the childless to Ambar.

All in all, it was a great vacation -- the weather is great, beach was as always among the most beautiful I have seen. Since Ambar is a new hotel, I will provide some facts from my perspective to help you if you are thinking about staying there or at the Bahia in general.

The Good

• Ambar is very quiet. It caters to an older crowd. This may be a good thing for you.
• The rooms are nice and include a nice 4 poster bed, LCD TV, mini-bar stocked daily with beer, sodas, and a 50ml bottle of J&B, Absolute and Bacardi Limon.
• The grounds are extremely well kept.
• The food is mostly good, but very "heavy"...and the cooks have a hard time not burning eggs :-)