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Tags: Club Med Hotels / Ixtapa Hotels / All-Inclusive Hotels / Mexico Hotels / Family-Friendly Hotels / → All Tags

Club Med in Ixtapa Gets a New Look That Families Love

Where: PLAYA QUIETA 40 880, Ixtapa, Mexico

Anyone who stayed at an old-style Club Med will have more than a few bad things to say about it, especially when they get to the part about the tiny rooms with two twin beds that couldn't be pushed together.

Renovations have been rolling across the whole chain however, and last fall the Club Med Ixtapa Pacific in Mexico shut down for months so the place could be completely transformed.

Workers literally took sledgehammers to the concrete walls and the concrete platforms those twin beds were resting upon. Some $20 million later, it's an impressive transformation.

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Tags: Hotel Deals / Mexico Hotels / Expedia / All-Inclusive Hotels / Labor Day Hotels / → All Tags

Labor Day Hotels :: Half-Off in Mexico and the Caribbean Through Expedia

Those crazy folks in the advertising world are rolling out their back-to-school and end of summer specials -- don't they know summer is still in full swing?

Expedia is taking advantage of the apparent change of seasons by reminding us that there are still great summer deals to be had -- all-inclusive resorts in Mexico, and the Dominican Republic, no less.

Book four nights or more at AI resorts and get the whole schmear at half off. (Hence Expedia's tag of "Half Off Summer Sale.") Throw in the airfare and you've got a relatively inexpensive vacation.

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Tags: Bad Rate / Dominican Republic Hotel Reviews / All-Inclusive Hotels / → All Tags

Bad Rate :: Luxury Pretention in the D.R. at Paradisus Palma Real

Where: Playa de Bavaro, Higuey, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

[Ed. Note: This is the Bad Rate in our Good Rate/Bad Rate feature. This screenshot was taken was on January 9, 2007 and is subject to change. Enjoy.]

If you want to go upscale, there are several all-inclusives in the Punta Cana area of the Dominican Republic where the food is a notch up, the liquor is not bottom shelf, and the staffers are fluent in English. Then there are those who just charge more and put a nice sheen on things. You can spend $158 per night for a couple at this week's Good Rate--Allegro Punta Cana--or pay $525 a night for a garden view room at Paradisus Palma Real.

The complaints on TripAdvisor are more entertaining than the typical ones your read for this kind of hotel (musty rooms, clueless staffers who can't fix problems, and ho-hum food).

The rooms have a "master switch" that turns all power off...and I mean ALL of it; lights, fans, clocks, etc. So, whatever you do, do not flip the middle light switch next to the bed or you will spend the next two hours trying to figure out what went wrong.

Butlers barely speak english and are basically a waste- -they stand there and jabber away about the property but they don't do anything and you need to keep tipping them.

My 11 year old turned on the bathtub jets and it shot water across my whole room, soaking down my bed. Don't do that.

The other negative comments mostly revolve around indifferent service, ocean-front rooms that get downgraded on a whim, and a major language barrier. If you're going to deal with these problems--common in this region--then go get a place where you're not paying a premium for supposedly better service.