Sunscape Coco Punta Cana

We came to the Sunscape Coco Punta Cana , a family resort in Cabeza de Toro , in Punta Cana.

We wanted to film this hotel because it’s pretty well known. We’ve seen it a lot on forums, on the internet and in searches by families who want to come to Punta Cana with kids.

That said, the ratings online weren’t the best. It sits at around a 7 or a bit over 7, and on top of that it’s a 4-star hotel, not a 5-star .

So we came with a clear idea: to check what the real difference is between a 4-star hotel and the 5-star resorts we’ve been visiting in Punta Cana that cost the same.

The problem is that, in our case, we paid more than at other 5-star hotels we liked a lot more.

And that’s probably because the hotel is very famous with families, it has high occupancy and, when it fills up, they can put the prices up because they know they’ll sell it.

So in this review we’re going to tell you what the Sunscape Coco Punta Cana is like, all the good, all the bad and why we think so many families come here even though, honestly, we wouldn’t recommend it except in very specific cases.

Let’s start with the check-in, because the experience didn’t start well from right there.

The process was slow and pretty confusing.

One of the rooms wasn’t ready at 15:00, even though that was the official check-in time. They gave it to us at around 15:40.

And when we got to the room, the door was open and there was a cleaner nearby, so it felt like they’d finished it in a hurry because we were already there waiting.

With the other room, they straight up gave us a room that already had people in it.

So they had to change it.

And that sums up pretty well what we felt at this hotel: a lot of confusion, poor organization and constant mistakes.

At reception, with the odd exception, the staff came across as pretty stern, lost and not much good at solving things.

It was not a good first impression.

The Sunscape Coco is a big family resort with a huge number of rooms.

It’s one of those hotels where, if occupancy is high, you really notice it.

There are a lot of people, a lot of kids, a lot of pools, a lot going on and a general feeling that the hotel is running a bit behind what it needs to manage.

And I think this is where the big problem is.

If you have a hotel with a huge number of rooms and thousands of guests, you need very good management, plenty of staff, well-organized restaurants and fast processes.

If not, what happened to us happens: confusing check-in, badly assigned rooms, saturated restaurants, overwhelmed staff and a feeling of neglect.

Now let’s go with the room.

The room needs a facelift.

It has old furniture, old doors that don’t close smoothly, worn details and a general feeling of a room that’s past its years.

To close some doors you have to slam them, and that alone gives you an idea of the maintenance.

It’s not that the room is tiny. In fact, it’s a decent size.

The bed is comfortable, you get two different pillows, a pretty big terrace and the bathroom is functional.

But it is not a welcoming room.

It’s a big room, old and not well looked after.

It doesn’t give you that “great, I’m on vacation in the Caribbean” feeling.

It gives you more the feeling of being in a room that has been running for many years and needs a refurbishment.

Something that caught our attention is that we booked the same room type and they gave us different rooms.

One seemed more family-oriented, with a sofa, a bathtub and a shower. It’s probably meant for families with kids, because having a bathtub can be useful for bathing the little ones.

The other was more compact, more couple-focused, with the bathroom more built into the room and a slightly smaller terrace.

We don’t know exactly what the criterion is for assigning them, but booking the same thing, the experience was different.

And this also adds to that feeling of not much clarity.

In one of the rooms the phone didn’t work.

There was no shower gel either, only shampoo.

And instead of coffee they left a lot of sugar sachets, but no coffee at all.

So you could make yourself sugar water, but not a coffee.

We told reception and they said they were writing it down and would send someone.

But they never restocked it.

And we were already expecting that, because it’s the classic “yes, yes, we’ll send it right over” that then never happens.

In the other room the phone did work, but that was almost worse, because they called us at 23:45 at night to tell us we supposedly hadn’t paid for the booking.

The booking was paid.

We had paid for both rooms at once.

And even if there had been a real problem, I don’t think it’s normal to wake a guest up almost at midnight to tell them that.

That gets talked about the next day at reception.

These are details that, one after another, keep pulling you out of the experience.

The bed is fine.

It’s not spectacular, but it’s comfortable. The pillows are a bit chunky for my taste, but they’re not bad.

The bathroom, in our experience, was functional but very inconsistent.

In one room it was pretty good. In the other, basic products like gel or conditioner were missing.

The bathroom doors and units feel old, and in general it doesn’t feel like a modern or especially well-kept bathroom.

On cleanliness, I wouldn’t say everything was dirty, but we found details like potato chips on the terrace.

And if there are potato chips on the terrace floor, it means that area hasn’t been cleaned properly.

So the room does the job for sleeping, but it’s not a strong point of the hotel.

Now let’s go with the best thing about the Sunscape Coco: the pools.

And this is probably the reason so many families come here.

The hotel has a lot of pools. From what we saw, about eight different water areas.

There are pools with taller slides, pools for small children, areas with mini slides for the littlest ones, longer river-style pools, pools in front of the rooms, splash zones and a pretty big, lively main pool.

There’s also more of a lane or corridor pool area, which looks designed for swimming or moving from one side to the other.

The main pool is the liveliest one.

It has music, a lot of people, activities, a volleyball net, games with inflatables and Ninja Warrior-style challenges for kids.

In that sense, for families with kids, the pools really are fun.

That said, the pool bar was packed almost the whole time , so ordering anything can get tiring.

But if we’re looking for the strong point of the hotel, it’s probably the pools.

The facilities for kids are pretty good.

And here I do understand why so many families look at this hotel.

You get pools with slides, splash zones, slides for small children, a main pool with games, activities, a pretty complete mini club and a zone for teenagers.

The mini club has several areas, a cinema, a theater, a PlayStation area and spaces for activities.

For teenagers there’s also a separate PlayStation area, a pool table, ping pong, music and activities.

There’s also a pretty cool outdoor playground.

So if you come with kids, they’ll probably have a good time.

The problem is that a hotel is not just pools and a mini club.

The food, the service, the organization, the beach and the overall experience matter too.

And that’s where this hotel failed us quite badly.

Now let’s go with one of the most negative points: the à-la-carte restaurants.

In our experience, it was practically impossible to have dinner at them.

The hotel has a huge number of rooms and, in summer season, it was very full.

That means there can be thousands of people trying to have dinner, move around the resort and book or get into restaurants.

And if you don’t manage that very well, what happened to us happens.

We went to the Mexican restaurant at around 19:55.

They gave us the usual buzzer to wait for a table.

At 21:35 we still hadn’t got in.

In the end we gave the buzzer back and went to the buffet, because we weren’t going to carry on waiting.

Something similar happened to Víctor. They gave him a table a bit earlier, but then he waited more than 30 minutes for the starters and they never came.

So he ended up at the buffet too.

Between waiting for a table, sitting down, waiting for the starters and being served, you could need two and a half hours to have dinner.

And that makes no sense.

The most incomprehensible thing is that there were à-la-carte restaurants closed.

If you have the hotel full, enormous lines and guests waiting an hour and a half to have dinner, you can’t have restaurants closed.

We also saw a pay-extra restaurant practically empty.

And this is where the management fails.

If you have thousands of guests and the included restaurants are saturated, open more included restaurants.

It makes no sense to keep two restaurants closed while the rest are collapsing.

We can’t say whether the à-la-carte restaurants are good or bad because, quite simply, we couldn’t have dinner at them.

And that is already a serious problem.

Since we couldn’t have dinner à la carte, we ended up at the buffet.

Breakfast surprised us slightly for the better, but probably because we were coming off such a bad experience with everything else.

It has crêpes, pancakes, omelettes made to order and enough options to have a decent breakfast.

It’s not a spectacular breakfast, but it does the job.

The buffet dinner, on the other hand, we did not like.

It struck us as quite a battle, with weak quality, standard variety and products below what we’ve seen at 5-star resorts in Punta Cana , even at some that cost us less than this one.

And here’s the big problem: this hotel was not cheap.

For what it offers, on value for money it did not seem like a good option to us.

We didn’t try the lunch buffet because we only stayed one night and, honestly, after trying breakfast and dinner, we preferred to eat at the next hotel.

We normally try to test everything, but with this short stay and the experience we had, we think breakfast and dinner were enough to get a pretty clear idea.

The beach was another of the weakest points.

The hotel is in Cabeza de Toro, an area where sargassum can have quite an effect.

And during our stay there was a huge amount of sargassum.

But a huge amount.

It wasn’t just seeing it on the beach or in the water. In some areas of the resort you could notice the smell of the piled-up seaweed.

It’s that strong smell of dead seaweed, of organic matter rotting, that hits you all at once when you walk near the beach.

The hotel has barriers to try to hold back the sargassum and you can see they work to clean it, but the water looked brownish, probably from micro-pieces of seaweed that filter through and stay in the water.

It was not a beach that made you want to swim.

Now, we should qualify this.

We’ve seen videos of the beach in good season, without sargassum, and it looks pretty nice.

The area has natural shade, sun loungers, spaces to sit and soccer and volleyball goals.

So in winter, or in months with less sargassum, the experience probably improves quite a bit.

But in summer, in our experience, I wouldn’t come to this hotel for the beach.

If your idea is to come to the Caribbean, swim in turquoise water and spend all day on the beach, this would not be the hotel I’d choose.

The staff was one of the weakest points.

The general feeling was one of neglect and little professionalism.

I don’t mean that everybody is unpleasant, but we did see a lot of people overwhelmed, not much good at solving things or with little appetite for giving excellent service.

I also think there aren’t enough staff.

The hotel was very full and it felt like they couldn’t keep up.

And when a big family hotel is full and there aren’t enough staff, everything starts to fail: check-in, rooms, restaurants, waiting times, restocking, service at the bars and the overall experience.

The entertainment team did seem somewhat better to us.

We saw some shows, activities and games, and there you could see more energy and more willingness.

But the hotel’s general service struck us as one of the worst we’ve seen in Punta Cana.

The entertainment is fun, especially for families.

They do games in the pool, activities with inflatables, family shows, evening performances, activities for kids and things for teenagers.

I wouldn’t say the entertainment is spectacular, but it does the job pretty well for this type of hotel.

The problem is that the entertainment doesn’t make up for the rest of the failures.

You can have good activities, but if you then can’t have dinner à la carte, the room has faults, the beach smells bad and the staff doesn’t respond well, the overall experience drops a lot.

For adults, the hotel has some interesting things.

There’s an open-air spa with a jacuzzi, saunas and a quiet area.

It’s not a spectacular offering, but it can be fine for switching off for a while.

It also has a 24-hour gym that struck us as one of the best things in the hotel.

It’s good-looking, it’s pretty well equipped and it’s probably one of the best-kept facilities.

But beyond that, I don’t see big reasons to come here as an adult without kids.

If you’re coming as a couple, I think there are far better options in Punta Cana.

Let’s go with the scores point by point.

• Cleanliness: 8.5 — In general it wasn’t bad, but we found details like potato chips on the terrace, which shows not everything gets cleaned properly.
• Bed and pillows: 8 — The bed is comfortable and the pillows aren’t bad, though a bit thick for our taste.
• Bathroom: 8 — Functional, but with old details and basic products missing in one of the rooms.
• Room size: 8 — Fine both for a couple and for a family, but it doesn’t feel especially welcoming.
• Breakfast: 7.5 — Does the job, with crêpes, pancakes and omelettes made to order, but without standing out much.
• Buffet dinner: 7 — A battle, weak quality and below many 5-star resorts we’ve tried.
• All-inclusive: 6.5 — Fine on the basics, but well below other hotels on organization, food and service.
• Pools: 8.5 — The strong point of the hotel. Lots of pools, slides and areas for kids.
• Facilities for kids: 8.5 — Very good for families: mini club, teen club, PlayStation, slides, pools and activities.
• Facilities for adults: 7 — Very good gym and a pleasant spa, but not much else worth noting.
• Beach: 5 — In sargassum season it was very bad: strong smell, brown water and not much to invite you in. In good season it would probably go up quite a bit.
• Staff: 4 — Neglect, little professionalism, mistakes and not enough staff. The most worrying point.
• Negative extra — À-la-carte restaurants: 0 — We’re not rating the food because we couldn’t have dinner. But the management was very bad: enormous waits, closed restaurants and a frustrating experience.

The average score comes out at roughly a 6.7.

We wouldn’t recommend it, unless you find a very good deal.

If this hotel costs you quite a bit less than other similar resorts, for example around $100 less per night , then you could consider it.

The kids will probably have a good time, because the pools, the slides and the children’s facilities are good.

The room is acceptable for sleeping, breakfast does the job and there are some areas that can work for families.

But if the price difference with other hotels is small, $40, $50 or $60 a night, we’d pick another hotel without thinking twice.

There are far better options in Punta Cana on value for money, food, service, beach and overall experience.

You also have to take the season into account.

In winter, without sargassum, the beach probably improves quite a bit.

But in summer, with the beach the way we saw it, it loses a huge amount.

So our summary would be this:

If you find it very cheap and you’re coming mainly for the pools and the kids, you could consider it.

But if you’re looking for a good resort experience in Punta Cana, we’d look at other options first.

Sometimes we come to hotels with low expectations and they surprise us for the better, like what happened to us with the Catalonia Royal Bávaro.

And other times we come to well-known hotels, with plenty of demand, and they disappoint us. In this case, Sunscape Coco has been one of those hotels.

Now we’re off to the next hotel: Hyatt Zilara, one of the best-rated hotels in the Caribbean.

Let’s see whether it really lives up to it.