"We stayed at the Occidental the week of April 12th. We booked through Transat Holidays here in Canada, so we had the Premium Package, available through them. With the Premium package, we had an upgraded room in a special building reserved for the Transat Premium guests. The room was very spacious with a king bed, large bathroom, seating area, balcony overlooking the smaller pool and a desk area. It also had robes, slippers and a stocked mini bar, fruit platter upon arrival and a bottle of rum. We had nightly turn down service where they replaced your beach towels with fresh ones for the next days use. Upon check in at the private desk, we were also given our 5 pre-booked dinner reservations for the week. The hotel was very large, and just beautiful. The lobby was huge, and had several seating areas as well as a bar that was open until 1am. There is nightly entertainment in the lobby bar area after the theatre show. The buffet restaurant is located just at the end of the lobby, and is fully enclosed. At breakfast you could get made to order omelettes, crepes, eggs and pancakes, as well as the usual breakfast fare (and some unusual breakfast fare). There was also a smoothie bar with different offerings of veggies and fruit daily. I’m a tea drinker, but my boyfriend is a coffee man, and he was very disappointed with the coffee, which was instant. Very unexpected in a county that produces wonderful coffee. They are very efficient at clearing tables and keeping up with the flow of people. The main pool area is quite large and makes up a large portion of the grounds outside the main building. The pool has a swim up bar with a snack bar and walk up bar above. There are plenty of chairs around the pool, but you have to get up early to claim the ones under the palapas. They are not as plentiful and get scooped up fast, especially in the hot sunny weather that we had all week. There is a second smaller pool in front of the building we were in (#24) and also the Royal Club pool located closer to the beach. Two things of note about the pool. First, there is no drink service around the pool. This is a first for me at an all inclusive, anywhere. So, if you want to drink, bring a big, big take-out mug with you so you don’t have to hike it to the bar too often. Secondly, there are no bathrooms at the pools. If you are lounging at the small pool, you can either go to your room, or go down to the beach restaurant. If you are at the large pool, you can go to your room, the lobby, the upstairs bathrooms at the Vacation Club or the ones we discovered on our last day (since there are no signs whatsoever anywhere to direct you to a bathroom) outside the theatre, past the bar. The lack of bathrooms closer to the pool was unimpressive, to say the least. The beach was beautiful. Clean white sand and again, plenty of chairs. There is a fenced off area just for Premium club members. There were about 10 palapas in this area and if you wanted one, you literally had to be down there no later than 6am or you were out of luck. This was the same for the ones on the main beach area. There was a roped off swimming area and an area for watersports. You could do non-motorized water sports at your leisure. And, if you offer the catamaran guy a beer, he’ll waive the $10 insurance fee! If you plan on trying out the windsurfing, bring a pair of rubberized water shoes with you. The board was as slippery as a greased pig according to my boyfriend! The water was perfect for swimming. The photographers came around daily with either the monkey, the snake, the iguana, the macaws or the lovely ladies to tempt you. The pictures were fabulous, and were $12 each, and could be purchased in the lobby the following day. The food was alright. Buffet fare was typical. The Brazilian restaurant was interesting. They bring out your food on giant swords, that were prepared over an open flame. So, your “meat sword” comes to the table and the server slides off however much food you would like onto your plate. The choices are chicken, pork, sausages and beef, as well as grilled vegetables. The sausage was ok, the chicken and pork were cooked to death unfortunately. The beef and the vegetables were excellent!! The vegetables were tender crisp and sweet from the slight charring and the beef was melt in your mouth fabulousness! The beef was the last thing to come out when we ate there, so my suggestion to anyone who likes beef is to pass on the chicken and the pork and load up on the veggies and the beef. This dinner also includes a salad bar, rice and potatoes. The Oriental was pretty good. The best part was the banana bag for dessert, which was banana, chocolate and walnuts baked in phyllo. Yummy! The Italian was just ok. The antipasto was good, as was the soup of the evening, which was cream of carrot that night. The pasta was good, but nothing spectacular. The Mexican was pretty good. I had the fajitas, and they were full of nice tender beef and peppers. The tortilla soup was also good. There was also a small pizzeria and a taco stand upstairs. Both are open all night until 6:30am for those late night munchies! The pizzas are individually made to order and are amazing!! A definite must have at least a few times during your stay. The tacos were not bad. They were soft tortillas that appeared to be handmade with grilled meat or vegetables. The salsa that accompanied was good and spicy! There is internet available at the resort. There are 3 terminals in the lobby, and the price is $7 USD for 30 minutes, to be used all at once. There is also wi-fi in the lobby for those who have their laptops and it is $25 for 24 hours. The 24 hours, I’m told, does not have to be used consecutively. You will likely have an information session the morning after your arrival if you booked through a tour company. I would highly recommend that you take one hour out of your vacation to attend. The information is truly valuable, and it could save you a lot of headaches (not to mention stomach aches!) on your vacation. There are safes in the room, but they are an extra cost ($25?) . We decided not to incur the extra cost, and kept all of our valuables locked in our suitcases. We had the good locks that require a combination to open, as opposed to those that have that all purpose flimsy little key. Whether or not this is right for you, I won’t speculate, but it worked fine for us, and we had no problems with our housekeeping staff. There are some people milling about the resort that will approach you and try to get you to come with them to an “information session”. They are selling timeshares and you are better off telling them that you had it already or are leaving that day. They are quite relentless and will keep you occupied trying to convince you to attend. They are usually outside the main buffet in the lobby wearing white uniforms. It’s best just to avoid them if you are not interested in time shares. Overall, we did like the resort. It was clean, the people were friendly, and the amenities were very nice. I would definitely recommend it. I would have to say though, that given the choice, I would return to the Catalonia Bavaro which we stayed at last year. I have posted my review of that resort as well. "

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