My husband and I stayed at the resort from 5/11-5/18. Overall our trip went pretty well-I found the previous reviews very helpful in making decisions for our trip, so I know this is long but I wanted to help others. I'll try to categorize my comments:

Resort: the resort was beautiful. We stayed in the Romance Suite and we feel that it was well worth the money-very nice suite and the outdoor shower area was used everyday. The staff keep the rooms very clean and the grounds are very beautifully kept as well. Also this suite is the closest to the beach (it is not on the beach) and there is a lot of walking for those who do not stay in these suites. Also on epeice of advice BRING MOSQUITO REPELLENT-we did and that saved us from having bites-we saw many people with their lower legs covered in bug bites-the paths to the restaurants are narrow and surrounded by foliage so I guess this is where everyone is getting bit.

Beach: this area needs help!-I read the reviews before we left and took the advice of bringing our own BEACH TOWELS and INSULATED MUGS for drinks. I was VERY GLAD we did!. We had to get up at 5:00 am to get a hut on the beach and by that time already half of them were reserved with towels. We only did that on the days we were going to spend the entire day on the beach (not taking excursions) so that others would get a chance. I noticed several huts that had towels reserving the hut but I did not see people in the hut until late in the afternoon-meanwhile people were looking for somewhere to sit.

Bars: My husband and I were not happy to see that the pool bar and beach bars close early-we like to spend the entire day on the beach to feel like we have fully enjoyed vacation and we could not get drinks due to the bars being closed for the last 2 hours of sunlight

Food:we tried several of the a la carte restaurants and ate at the buffet several times. We are from the Midwest so the food was very different from what we are used to but overall we could always find something we liked. One complaint my husband had was that there is no food on or near the beach- we have stayed at other resorts where they would have grilled items (shrimp, chicken, burgers) and fries available everyday for an afternoon snack on the beach. This would be fantastic-since the only place to get food is in a restaurant that is quite a distance and clothes are required to enter. We did not feel like losing time on the beach to get dressed to eat and then hike back to the beach so on our beach days we did not eat lunch.

Excursions: We used the Apple Agent to book our excursions. We enjoyed the Zipline Tour and Outback Safari and would highly recommend these-We had Sammy on the Outback Safari and he was THE BEST! We also took the shopping tour. A word of advice-the agent told us that since it was 1/2 day tour that we could schedule that and the Zipline tour on the same day and we did. Their was a mother&daughter in our group on the shopping tour who held up the group twice for at least 15minutes past the scheduled leave time so my husband and I had to have our guide arrange for separate transportation back to our resort so that we would not miss the zip line tour. This made us angry because we had to miss the last stop of our shopping tour in order to get back in time. DO NOT SCHEDULE 2 TOURS BACK TO BACK. The last tour we took was the Santo Domingo Trip. This trip picks u up at 6:30am and we did not return until 7:30pm-it was a very long day, we were the first to be picked up and the last to be dropped off so we also visited many of the other resorts on the island(which got old), During this trip our guide seemed distracted and actually left my husband and I and 1 other tourist at the Hard Rock Cafe-we were the last 3 people in line paying for items and he decided that he would take the rest of the group and continue on without telling us-we had to ask an employee of the Hard Rock to help us find our group-they were at the cathedral and already half way through the tour there by the time we were able to catch up to them. We would not recommend going on this tour-it would be to your advantage to see if you could hire a guide for yourself to take you to see la romana and santo domingo-then you might actually see more and not wait on the group all of the time.

ALSO we found that there were very few people who spoke English on our resort-we did not meet English speaking people until we were there for 2 full days. The staff know a little English so if you are not fluent in Spanish you might need an English to Spanish Pocket Guide. Most of the tourists are speaking French, German and Spanish. We did not mind this but it did take some getting used to!

Spa: we had massages at the spa and they were fantastic-definitely worth the price
OVERALL-Great, fun trip-happy that we went!

My fiance and I had the privilege to stay at the Palladium for five nights/six days..and the only complaint I have overall is the size of the resort. Considering it's actually three resorts in one, and the availibility of the tram was always there, this is hardly a complaint at all.

Daily we had to access a map in order to find restaurants, and read up on when food was being offered and when. We didn't have a chance to eat everywhere, but where we did it, the food was exceptional, restaurants clean, staff timely (with the exception of the royal gourmet restaurant) and pleasant.

Check in was quick and efficient, lobby staff very friendly and helpful with any questions we had. All the staff tried to help whenever we needed something or needed directions..never felt like we were putting them out.

The room we booked in the royal suites was very large, very clean, and had an awesome view of the bar/pool area. You could see the ocean from our balcony..absolutely gorgeous!
Cleaned daily by 2pm, mini bar stocked daily..we did leave a couple bucks to tip for appreciation, and always received flower art by the jacuzzi...very nice job everyday we were there.

No bugs inside rooms or outside!!!

Drinks were always delicious. Bar staff pretty friendly overall, always smiling. There was a group of people there who requested they play their country cd for them and they did..Mostly you hear the spanish music though, and can't help but fall in love with it. We purchased the cd they play throughout the resort for ten bucks from one of the guys on the animation team on the beach.

Beach was beautiful, sand pristine and very clean..active members of the animation team busy daily..volleyball going on, lots of fun water activities to just kick back and watch.. there are alot of topless woman present..you just kind of get used to it.

Yeah, we did get yelled at for stealing somebody's chairs that they had "reserved since 6am, everybody does it!! You have too!!" we were told. Mind you it was 6 at night and we watched for over an hr and nobody sat in the chairs!!! Crazy.

Palladium is really a great place to go if you want to ensure a wonderful vacation for yourself. Had originally booked with Edenh Arena but after following the iffy reviews decided to change. So glad we did, because we had a fabulous, relaxing vacation with absolutely no problems or surprises.

Read many reviews before we went and all were good, when we arrived there was no disappointment the resort is fantastic for us any way! The landscape gardens give much privacy for the size of this and the neighbouring hotels you hardly saw anyone.the food was great, the buffets catered for all tastes. we went to 3 Ala Carte restaurants again the food was good. The language is mainly Spanish and with what little we knew and a bit of sign language we managed. The pool areas again good although we stayed at the one in our resort and the beach takes your breath away crystal azure blue water and white soft sand, we took on board the comments on the sunbed situation and could not believe at 7am its like watching a trail of ants to and from the beach with towels, when we did go down to the beach for day all beds under the umbrellas where taken but we where happy with a palm tree and just moved round with the sun same round the pool, the funniest thing I saw was a guy at 1am putting his family towels on sun beds, if thats all you have to worry about on holiday get a life. We went to the Michael Jackson show in the theatre as recommended fantastic, and the train round the complex is fun too. All in all a great time was had and would go back tomorrow, I can highly recommend this hotel its a million times better than the sandals place we stayed last year and £2,300 cheaper!!!.

We went to celebrate our 10nd wedding anniversary and got a fruit basket and a bottle of rum (which my wife dropped on our return :-( ) Next to the hot tub were towels folded in shapes of animals ! And a few red flowers everyday !
Rooms were tidy, and so were the restaurants and everything else. Lots of different languages, some nosier than others.
We only didn't know what reception was ours since there are several hotels on the resort. Upside is you could visit any of the restaurants and pools ! One bigger than the other but always nice buffet, with a different theme everyday : Mexican, Italian, Domincan, ... next to the usuals stuff. As expected the fruit was delicious ! And then the à la carte restos. We did the spanish and the oriental and both were nice. The oriental even had chopsticks...
Sunbeds at the pool was'n't a real problem... At the beach : only if you wanted some shades. Then you had to get up at 5.30 - 6.00 !!
And if you see Henry at the reception of the Bavaro asking to make a photoshoot : say hi from Wim and Kathy from Belgium ! The photoshoot was almost 'professional' ! The only bad thing was we couldn't pay the pictures with visa and didn't bring a lot of cash with us.
My wife also enjoyed the massage on the beach. Again there had to walk to the mainbuilding of the spa to pay with visa and was recalculated into pesos, so will pay more then expected since that has to be converted to euros again.
At 1 pool there were more activities, but again: you could choose which pool, so didn't bother us.
It was a nice experience with some smaller problems but as a whole, defenitely worth it !!