TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

I was at Nickelodeon Punta Cana recently and I couldn't enjoy the new slides, I hope to be able to come back this year and do it. As I saw on their official website, they are already open and it was as the staff told me it would be in July. Special greetings to Anyi from the towel rack, Jorge, Ronald the boss, Felix our star waiter, Andres the master chef and the entire Team Nick team...it was fabulous and we will be back there soon.

This past week we stayed at the Nickelodeon Resort in Punta Cana, DR. To be honest as an experienced traveler I thought I had done my due diligence in trying to learn as much as I could about the hotel so I could have the right expectations. Little did I know that much of the information found was either misleading or not even available. Positive: 1. The hotel room: It was neat, clean, themed and big. We were assigned a room at building 2 that had a limited view to the ocean (which is a plus, as I did not ask for an ocean view room), near the Fresco Grill and swim up bar. 2. The beach: The beach if very pretty, clean (there is a special truck that cleans up the beach every morning, to make sure there is no seaweed around). The water is just the right temperature and clean. Bear in mind that the sea is very rough, so just be careful. 3. Photo Spots: there are many photo spots for you to take nice pictures. Characters on walls, places within the resort, etc. 4. Transportation (Golf Carts): The resort is basically 2 properties connected by an underground bridge. So, walking from one side (the beach for instance) to the other (Aqua Nick) is a long walk. The resort offers a “shuttle service” that uses golf carts that go around the property from 9:00am until 8:00pm (from what I experienced) every 15mins, there are “bus stops” along the main road where you can sit and wait for the next cart to pick you up. 5. No lines: There were no lines or long wait times for drinks or food or even at the restaurants. You don’t have to wait to enter or to be served. 6. Aqua Nick: The water park for kids is very well themed and equipped to cater the needs of kids I would say 4 – 15. There is a newer section of the waterpark, right after the “in construction building”, Its an area more designed for older kids, but still a smaller pool with splash zone for the little ones. Needs Improvement: 1. Check-in: When we first got to the hotel (around 12:30pm), we were welcomed by personnel who take your bags and give you a piece of paper to hold (so you can get them back), you enter the lobby and are received by a sea of people. The “green slushy” is offered to some and not all (not us for instance), there are a bunch of empty glasses around (from those who drank it) and then you have to wait in line to be greeted and told you can have lunch and that the room would be ready by 3:00pm (I must clarify that even though I looked everywhere and asked via email the “early check in” option is just not there. I mean don’t get me wrong thank you for letting me eat right as I get in, but I wanted to change, leave my stuff in the room, be comfortable (and I was not expecting it for free, most resorts have an early check in fee, which I was willing to pay). At 3:00pm we go back ask for the room, and got the response that the room wasn’t ready yet, they tell us to come back in 30mins…make the line again, 3:45pm the room is not ready yet…at 4:00pm we go back the room is still not ready, my husband says we’ve been waiting so they (with a terrible attitude) change us from one room to another (to one that was assigned to someone who was coming in later that day). 2. Entertainment: The entertainment is lacking (almost to a point where other than the customs so you can take pictures with the characters, there isn’t much there). The planned activities are communicated through a very loud speaker with entertainment personnel yelling (and mispronouncing) the names of the characters. 3. Show Lounge (Theater): The show lounge where they do the “shows” is very small, if you don’t get there at least 30mins before the presentations, you either must stand up or even stay outside due to the limited capacity. 4. Character Pop Up/Photo Opportunities: The character Pop-Up opportunities happen 3-4 times per day. I think there is room for improvement as there is no “nice background” used to take the pictures, they chose the most boring places of the resort instead of making sure to have a nice background/backdrop (like the nick signs for instance). In the case of the SpongeBob characters, there is an unused area where there is a SpongeBob background that is not been used for those photos for instance. 5. Lazy River: Even though there is a lazy river in the “Aqua Nick” water park area, the river has no current, so either you walk, or swim cause otherwise the floaty won’t move at all. The whole thing about a lazy river is for you to get on the floaty and just let the river take you around and around. Well, this one doesn’t move at all, not sure if it’s a design flaw, or if something was damaged, but there was no fun to be there if you where just going to remain still. 6. Customer Service: As a Latino myself I feel I was expecting warm service. Well, that’s not what I saw/experienced. Everyone (expect for the one driver (not sure if his name was David or Michael) was in a MOOD every day, all day…saying “good morning” or even “hello” was almost like asking them for much. Everyone looked unhappy, tired, stressed out and were not welcoming. I am so used to feeling like I don’t have “enough” cash to tip my servers when on a cruise or other trips, well this time around I felt I had no need to tip anyone other than the golf cart driver. There is a lot of improvement in this area in terms of training the staff and “working for a tip” as well. The human factor is missing. 7. “Abandoned areas”: There are a lot of areas that are either “abandoned” or unused that have no labeling as to what they are/were/will be. It doesn’t give a high-end resort vibe. 8. Food Alternatives/Allergy: Aside from the dairy and egg allergy we have, we are on a full plant-based diet. The hotel (thankfully) offers a variety of vegetables and grains, which allowed for us to eat comfortably. That aside, there was no option of breads, desserts or complete meals that were plant-based. The labels on the food are also not clear, and in some cases, there are not even labels stating what the meal is or what it contains. Negative: 1. “Personal Concierge”: this resort is part of a resort chain called “Karisma Hotels”. When I first booked the trip, I received emails from a person that was assigned to me as my “personal concierge”, who helped me coordinate my transportation from the airport to the hotel and took advantage of the connection to offer me additional services, such as the: spa, personal slime, character breakfast, special celebrations, etc. (so far, all fair game). Little did I know that once I got to the hotel I was going to be “assigned” another “personal concierge”, this time this person offered himself to guide us through the hotel, asked if we needed anything and offered additional services (same as the ones from the previous email conversation). He offered the option of the character breakfast at a $69 rate instead of the standard $389 rate that was offered to me via email (and while I was doing the initial booking), he asked me for my “WhatsApp” (which I naively shared) and said he would be in touch about scheduling this for Friday (we got in Wednesday). I explained we had not booked it originally because of the high price as well as due to food allergy/preferences me and my family had. He offered to check on alternative options and that the price for the 3 of us would only be $69 instead of the $389. I did not think of asking him why, but after like 15mins of walking around me and my husband realized there had to be a “catch”. The guy “found us” while we were walking around the hotel and asked: “Do you guys want to come into my office that has air conditioning and we can talk about the character breakfast”, to which we responded: “no, we are good, we are going to walk around and just let me know about the food options”. He then said to meet right after breakfast the next day (which honestly, we didn’t want to do, as we had caught ahead of the “game”). So, we literally snuck out of the restaurant and went to the beach. At 9:00am he sends me a message (which I didn’t see until the afternoon when we got back to the room), he called 3 times to the room (I disconnected the phone after the 3rd one) asking if we had confirmation that we were going to be doing the character breakfast. After a lot of back and forth of messages and him calling (sorry millennial here, I don’t answer phone calls unless I have to), he asked me what we wanted to have for breakfast (I was on vacation, didn’t want to think of what to eat the next meal honestly), I gave him a couple of options, but needed confirmation that they needed to be done carefully due to our dietary restrictions and that the price was the $69 and not the $389. He called again (this is around 3:00pm), I asked my husband to take care of it (he had a 3 min conversation)…and here comes the fun part (the catch)..he said he could hold the price only if we took the “property tour”, which meant (for those who have not yet been approached by the “time share/hotel clubs” sharks) that you needed to waste at least half a day of your vacation to go and look at another hotel owned by the same hotel chain, so they can try to sell you a “vacation package”. My husband said no, and that’s where the story ends…as of that moment we were dead to the hotel staff. No more phone calls, no more texts, no more “taking care of anything you need”. Honestly a relief, but at the same time a terrible experience. 2. The music: I am so glad the vacation is over now, because I feel I am no longer being forced into listening to the same 5-7 songs over and over and over (not an exaggeration, I can list some of the songs here: Ariana Grande – Thank you Next, Meghan Trainor – Mother, Nicky Youre, dazy – Sunroof). I swear I have many more downloads in my youtube music list than the 7 songs I listened to… on repeat all day every day for 5 days. 3. Store Prices: I was in shock to learn the prices of anything and everything at the stores here. I mean a Sandy plush (small one) $45, ear drops (of course, caught an ear infection): $30, a t-shirt $60, Tennis shoes (price depends on size), avg $150…. Just crazy prices and that’s why unlike at Disney you don’t see people buying like one would if the prices were more realistic. In a nutshell, I don’t recommend staying at the hotel, until they make the necessary changes to improve the experience (specially given the fact that they advertise this place as a 5-star hotel). Do not drink any water (even filtered) unless it comes from a bottle (trust me, I did pay the consequences on day 1). Honestly, it’s a shame that they use the Nickelodeon brand, and you don’t really feel that “special” experience.

We stayed at the hotel from 6/21/2024 to 6/28/2024. We were a big group, 23 people between adults and kids. We thought we would have an amazing time but it was the opposite. I recommend to everyone that do not waste your time and money on this resort, every picture that you see on the internet is fake, the resort is not the same as the pictures show but the people who work there, especially staff at the Kid’s Club, and representatives at every department are fake too. My kid suffered a fractured with dislocation in his left pinkie while playing, under Nick’s club staff supervision. The staff weren’t doing their job because they allowed several kids to slide at the same time. My kid was referred to the hospital and nobody in the resort had the decency or the kindness to instructed us on how to obtain a taxi(yes because the hotel doesn’t want to provide transportation even when their staff was responsible for the accident). Also nobody in the staff, not even the Prestige staff, that by the way: Prestige is a company that we are members and paid an expensive membership that in our opinion now is worthless. Well nobody offered to guide us or to assist my wife at the hospital because we were in a foreign country and I had to stay with our other kid. But I think that is how they use to treat their guests, and that is why I will never return to this hotel and probably I will never return to Punta Cana. Hotel: the resort needs maintenance, everything is in bad shape. They blame all the bad service a que there were many members and we are short of staff. Rooms: need an upgrade (you can see the pictures), we found broken doors, in the bathrooms, closet, even the back door had the handle broken. Also the minibar service you need to be alert is you want or need it to be restocked everyday. Room service took more than an hour and several calls for them to bring you anything because most of the time you call and they don’t answer. they served you water when you sit on the table and that’s it, you need to request more water and you got the water when you finished your meal and were about to leave the restaurant. The lines to enter the restaurant at breakfast and dinner are insane we sometimes had to wait 20-25 minutes even when we were in separate small groups of 4 people. They run out of dishes, glasses, teapots and spoons easily. Specialty restaurants sometimes run out of food even when the restaurant menu is limited (just 2 or 3 items in each category, appetizers, entrees, salads and desserts) - Water park: This is the place were the kids club is located. They have a gift store that is really expensive. They are working to include a few big slices but the ones they have right now are for kids. The characters encounters were limited, we were 7 days and we only saw 3 or 4 characters. The most concerning issue in the water park was the surface, they painted the floor and made it super slippery, we slipped several times and the kids in our group suffered several falls, even the water park staff were complaining about how slippery was the surface. The last 2 days they run out of some liquors (Tequila) and they started advising guest about the shortness of some cocktails 2 hours before the closure of the park. - Pool: The resort just has 2 pools (one next to the other), pools are dirty and in bad shape, han perdido casi todo el plaste. They closed one of the pools in several occasions due to accidents (you can see in one of the pictures). Pool bar usually run out of cocktails (they said the Tequila to prepare Margaritas, the “Piña Colada mix) - The Ice cream shop: They have an excellent service, good coffee and the ice cream was delicious but like almost every place they run out of water every night. - Arcade and bar: same history with the cocktails and liquors, they run out of them. Most of the arcade machines were broken, at nights the music is really loud, only good thing is that the arcade (or at least the machines that left working) are free to play. To be honest the resort doesn’t not worth the price they charge you.

I had to wait to write this review, so that it would not come off as a bitter one. This will be detailed review...get your popcorn Positive: Friendly staff. Room was spacious and clean. Grounds were clean. My son enjoyed the character breakfast. The medical doctor was very personable Negative: 1) This company advertises they had an autism concierge, which was a plus for picking this resort. I emailed that department (given by the representative a month before arrival) to get more information on the services provided. Ask if they had something in place (like a wrist band so that staff knows this is a person with autism in case they were found wandering). No response. I followed up about 1 week before arrival. No response. Upon check in, I asked the front desk. They pointed me to the concierge desk. I asked the person there and was told "oh, it's nothing special, just let them know when you go the water park". In short, don't let them fool you. There's absolutely nothing that's done special for this population. 2) Washrags. Bring your own. We had three people in our room and they would only supply up with 2 wash rags, 2 hand towels and 4 body towels. I had to go down multiple times and ask for more hand towels and was always told the the front desk didn't have any stored and we had to wait until the morning. Once, the front desk person suggested that I use a body towel to shower. Not sure about you all...but a body towel is too bulky to adequately clean you, It was hot and we were coming from an all day excursions... we just wanted to clean our bodies and rest. 3) Safety. I reported the door to our second room wasn't closing all the way. The door slammed shut (like it's suppose to-I sent a video to the concierge ), but I was able to push it open with one finger. Maintenance came the next day. What made this a bigger issue, was the attempt to insult my intelligence. The maintenance guy came and looked at the door.... wiggled the door handle...and took his screwdriver and wiggled it in the door jam. He looked at me and said it was all fixed. For the sake of argument...I said okay. I informed (and sent a second video) to the concierge showing the door was never fixed. My concern was that a person would not know they needed to pull the door tightly, as one would think the door was secured because the door slammed, yet didn't catch. I informed them this was a safety issue as anyone could come and push the door open with little effort. At checkout, they claimed they would take the room off the market until it's fixed. 4) Medical: My son fell ill and I requested to have the front desk to call a cab and assist me to get him to an urgent care/emergency room, as I knew he'd been antibiotics and possible chest x-ray. I was told I had to see the resort medical provider (which I had to pay upfront). He would then refer us out if needed (which would have been another fee). So, if you fall ill, be prepared to pay upfront (an later reimbursed with insurance) for medical services with the possibility of more costs if you have to go out. 5) Possible Food Contamination: We were a family of 9 (had 4 rooms in total) 4 of the 10 experienced GI issues. Two had issues lasting more than 3 days...and one of them went as long as 4 days (continued once we got home). We knew not to (and didn't) drink the water from tap, so that wasn't the issue. However, I did get a nice video of a bird enjoying the buffet. I was able to capture the bird eating from the indoor breakfast buffet. The video clip I have is 44 second long and doesn't capture the time before and after the video. There was no one there managing the buffet. Suggest maybe the resort place food coverings over the food or have a couple people managing the buffet, especially when you know you have birds flying indoor. That being said, we didn't visit that buffet again and I am thinking, this is probably why so many in our group were sick. They were all ones who frequent that buffet during our stay. 6) Water- you would think it was liquid gold. The fridge was stocked at request vs them doing it routinely with cleaning. I requested water with room service on two different occasions and never received. It was really hot and water being stocked in the rooms should be a must. Suggest bring water bottles so you can fill up at the Ice Cream shop or restaurants before going to your room. 7) When I booked the reservations, I specifically asked if there were places for adults to go. I was told yes...there were a lot of activities for 21+. LIES AGAIN. There was one Club/Bar area on site. But at 11p/ midnight, people had their kids running around! I made the foolish mistake of thinking this would be similar to Disney, where there were adult activities...... i was wrong. 8) Beach and pools closed around 6p. So, if you do an excursion or you're one can't tolerate the heat during the day hours, you will never be able to enjoy the pool or beach. If you have children older than 10, they'd probably not enjoy this resort. My group was bored and I met other parents who complained of the same thing. We had greater expectations as this is something my son wanted to do for years. Suggestion for those in the US: Disclaimer- I've never been here, but I discovered (2 weeks before this trip) that there is a Nickelodeon Universe Theme Park in NJ. They have character appearances and an indoor water park. There seems to something for everyone and if you want to go to the beach...visit NJ shore. I think you can get the same experience at a much cheaper price. My family of 9 spent a LOT of money and the experience just wasn't worth it.

I traveled to this resort for my daughter's 6th birthday. The grounds were beautiful. We did the character breakfast which my daughter loved. We had a swim up suite and really enjoyed the pool attached. However, wall socket on the side of the bed was hanging off, the telephone screen was broken which didn't display the directory, the slide in door to the bathroom was broken and could not close. The two out of three carpets were filthy. Luckily, we met a very nice man upon arrival name Jay who we spoke to and was able to get the carpets removed and replaced. I would definitely compare room service to cafeteria food in a shelter. It was as if they just threw the food together on a plate. To top it off the delivery was about an hour and half. I'd give the overall food grade a 2.5 out of 5. We actually travelled off the resort one night and had a lovely dinner. To be a children friendly resort there are no stepping stools in the room bathroom for sink purposes (brushing teeth and washing hands), and the resort has NO utensils for children. Children have to use adult place settings (forks and spoon). Also, there are NO child friendly cups. Even one night at dinner the waitress filled a 10 oz glass cup to the very top with water to give to my 6 year old. Thank goodness I travel with her plastic cup which comes with a lid and straw.