Hotel Arena in Barishal Sadar, Barisal

Samio
We stayed 03/13/18 - 03/22/18. The food was not so good ... we tried the buffet and most of the breads and sweet rolls were hard and dry. The beef tasted funky and the salad bar? Well who puts pink dressing (I'm guessing it was mayonnaise with ketchup) on their salad? The Italian food was hardly Italian - it was flavorless. I was so excited to try the International restaurant to have grilled lobster with garlic butter - it was overcooked, and rubbery for $22US AND the waiter didn't even bother to take it out of the shell for me! Even in other countries I've traveled, the waiter took the lobster out of the shell so I could enjoy my meal without getting my hands dirty and greasy. No drawn butter or garlic ... It tasted like a bbq grill! The best food we ate was at the Bucanero for Mexican food. It was much better, except the enchiladas which were made with flour tortillas and mushy. The drinks were always great, wait staff (except snooty waiter at the seafood restaurant) and housekeeping great. We loved our excursions which we bought on site. We were only approached once by a timeshare person and said no thanks. The spa was wonderful! Had the best 80 min spa experience with sugar scrub - ask for Ana! Will we go back? Probably not. As with most vacations you have people from different countries - some very rude, some nice. My advice, hire cooks that can actually cook Italian, Mexican and know when to not overcook seafood.

Rony
I apologize that I am leaving this review so late as we travelled in July 2017. We received an amazingly low price for this resort and it didn't take long to figure out why. While the resort and beach were beautiful, the food and alcohol were atrocious. I've stayed at many all inclusive resorts all over Mexico, Jamaica and Punta Cana and I've never been excited to leave one until this one. I struggled to find anything to eat; the alcohol was so watered down I gave up trying to find something to drink and drank water; the only choice of beer was served warm; we opted to pay the extra charge and eat at the restaurant on the premium side - what a joke and waste of money. The appetizers and desserts were the same as the buffet and main course was so flavored with the taste of the grill it was inedible. We were stalked by another guest who I believe was from Russia who would follow us through out the resort, when we were on the beach he would select a chair near us and glare at us the entire time. He approached us and made a "gun" with his finger and thumb and "shot" us, he was relentless. Check in was horrid - after waiting an eternity we were given our room card, bracelet and towel card with no explanation of where anything was or what our room location was. The key to our room stopped working on 3 separate occasions and it took numerous trips to the front desk to have someone come to fix it and then we were basically accused of tampering with the lock. There is no swim up bar at the pool and the servers at the bar near the pool acted as though they were being inconvenienced when I requested ice and water. I would never stay at this resort again or recommend it to anyone.

Sadiqur Rahman
“NICE STAY. SIMPLE, CLEAN AND RELAXING.” 25 mins from airport. bring US$ better than CDN. Friendly staff at desk and around resort. If you want a room that is central to resort, building 3 is perfect ( near pool and ocean). Beach is beautiful and you can walk for awhile. Room is simple but clean. Note no elevators.. Rental of safety box US 2$ day. WIFI free but only accessible in lobby. Resort well maintained. Buffet was good. Enough variety to satisfy. Restaurant a la carte was good as well and no reservation required in advance! Night entertainment not really energetic. Its really a quite resort to chill. Alot of Eastern Europeans, French Cdns, Russians, nice crowd. Temperature was great all week 29-32c day and 24c night. Vendors on sight are real salesmen and just say no and they will leave you alone. Souvenir boutiques on beach ( left side after ocean blue hotel). prices ok just negotiate. Worth the money for the quality.Write your Reviews

limu
The Reason i fell in love with Dominican Republic” The VIK Hotel Arena Blanca was the first holiday i went on to the Dominican republic with my partner and we fell in love with the resort. When we first initially went in 2014 the rooms was dated there was renovation work going on to new rooms downstairs however that did not bother us too much we went to Dominican republic again in February last year ( 2017) but visited another resort ( Hotel Riu Republica) and actually walked along the beachfront ( which took a while ) and found Vik Arena and visited a few familiar faces such as ANDY the guy who set up all our excursions when we have visited DR. Overall the Hotel is nice, it is small and compact and everything is within 2 minutes walking distance, the restaurants are nice and serve a nice variety of different foods. less