Do not stay at this Hotel or the Merengue next door absolutely disgusting for a Rui Hotel ,watered drinks an terrible food and old tired rooms would not even rate it as a 3 star

Hmmm, having Haiti as a neighbour, I was wondering how fudged up a place it might be.
Also Hurricane season.

The Country is a great place to go , Haiti is not a problem ,it is Riu Hotels that are the problem ,they have changed from a luxury hotel chain to a budget one without telling the public, the South of the Island is a better option , a bit more up market

I'd be bored out of my brains on a 17 night all inclusive! Decent deal though.

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This article was a few years back. As far as I am aware it's still just as bad.

All trips to this hotel have been cancelled by Thomson. My neighbour had to go and choose somewhere else for their October holiday. Just thought I'd mention this in case you book and then have to change it.

Iberostar Costa Dorada is the best hotel, a little more expensive but worth it

We went there last year (November) - same resort (Riu Bachata). Whilst its not what I'd call 5 star we had a good time, the pool was good, friendly staff. Buffet was decent, a good variety, but got a bit samey. However there are rotating restaurant nights (with limited availability) each night - that offer better quality food - Italian, Steakhouse & Caribbean IIRC, (The Italian one was our favourite, but the steakhouse one was also good - although that's the most popular, so need to queue up about 30mins before to guarantee a table)

Rooms were decent.
There is free wifi in the reception & public areas (they give you login details for the free wifi at reception).
The wifi in the rooms you have to pay extra for, but we noticed after you sign into the public wifi it offered a free day's worth of wifi in the rooms if you fill in a form, including your email. (Slightly tricky as I think one of the fields was mislabeled/spanish, but got there in the end. It will email you new login details for the room wifi) That free day's worth of wifi never seemed to expire the entire time we were there (2 weeks), so used it for netflix etc (Having netflix is a god-send after a while). I did turn off the wifi whenever not using it, so don't know if that made a difference. You can only use it on one device at once though, and to change devices you need to "sign out" first. (had to guess the url of the logout page, I think it was the same as the signin page but with /logout or /signout or something)

(the free wifi doesnt have the single-device restriction, but the room wifi, once signed up was quicker+ more reliable)

Overall a very good trip - the day excursions are expensive, but you'll appreciate getting out and about so budget for spending a good chunk on these!
If you need to buy anything at any of the shops be prepared to haggle. They'll start out at some ridiculous price. I found you needed to counter them around 10% of that, and usually ended up paying about 1/3 of their starting price, which would be roughly equivalent to what you'd expect to pay in a UK beach shop, or maybe slightly more. Be prepared to walk away. You can haggle in the resort shop next to reception, but you'll probably get a better result walking round the corner to one of the shops just outside the lobby. The cheapest prices however are in the supermarket in town, which is part of the city-tour excursion, or you can get a taxi. It sells souvenirs at reasonable prices (along with anything else you want), so try and resist the urge to buy from the resort shops, where you'll be ripped off!

So overall - not perfect, but was a very good trip, and recommended!