Overview of our Experience

These resorts are actually very close together. The Barcelo is the first major resort on Bavaro beach when coming from the airport and the Melia complex is the third. We were able to beach walk between the two in about 15 minutes so the airport transfer and beach differences are minimal. 

Ultimately, we had a fantastic time at both resorts and enjoyed our time thoroughly across the board. However, there was a clear winner for our family which may help inform your decision. 

I'll go into further details underneath the chart. Keep in mind that both resorts are somewhere between an 3-3.5 or maybe 4 star resort so you cannot expect a high level of service or quality from either. 

Here are some details in a side-by-side comparison: 

Important Considerations

Here are some factors that may make the decision easier for you: 

If you have small children who can't handles waves but want to go in the ocean: Barcelo  although seaweed can be a problem some months so check that report first

If you like snorkeling: Barcelo or a 15 min walk to their swim area means you can actually view sea turtles right off shore. Although there wasn't much else to see and the weather needs to cooperate…

If you have elementary age kids who have lots of energy and you're worried they'll be bored: Melia Caribe's Fun Republic has an included indoor playgroud, giant swing, high ropes course and 2 18-hole mini golf courses as well as a kid-themed show every night. Its open Wed-Sun each week and has food and beer, wine and some select beverages all included similar to the resort. 

If your kids are stuck on the Ontario school nutrition break schedule and are picky eaters: At the Barcelo, we struggled with restaurants being closed 10:30-12:30 and 3:30-6:30 which lined up almost exactly with when my kids generally eat their school and after school snacks. If frequent small snacks are how your kids function, the Barcelo is a huge headache and I would avoid. 

Detailed Review

Price: 

The Barcelo is one of the cheapest reputable AIs in the area and the service matches that. If there are other name brands, including the Melia, (eg. Iberostar, Grand Palladium, Hyatt (incl. Dreams), Royalton, Rui) for the same price you will get more value for your money at the others. However, this is a very clean and fairly well-maintained resort for the price and we always felt safe (just watch for loose pool tiles). I found sometimes it was showing up in searches as a very expensive resort (comparable to a Dreams or Royalton) and for those prices you would be very disappointed. 

The Melia should only be slightly more expensive than the Barcelo but as mentioned above, Fun Republic would actually have me booking this resort over some higher end ones if you have kids in the right age range. The biggest challenge was the constant pushing of “The Level” premium upgrade and so many restaurant, drinks (Aperol Spritz?!) and pool options not being included without it. But with kids, being second class citizens is pretty much expected and many of those options were closed to the kids anyway. 

Resort Size and Accessibility

If accessibility is a concern, I probably wouldn't book either of these resorts. They are both fairly large, have infrequent and unreliable shuttle systems and nothing is all that close. The Barcelo is bigger, but since the entire adult-only side was off limits, it wasn't as crazy as it first appears. The biggest problem is that the sports bar with food 24hrs is no where near the rooms/pool/beach. The Melia lobby is an entire mangrove garden away from most rooms and the beach but we only went up to the lobby for dinner/after dinner entertainment so it wasn't as inconvenient as it sounds. 

In this category they were fairly tied. 

Rooms

We upgraded to a two bedroom suite at the Barcelo which was awesome. It was clean but we did have problems with housekeeping not coming, the fridge not being restocked and it being up 3 flights of stairs without an elevator. 

The Melia says they can fit 5 in a room but DO NOT DO THIS. There is a single bed with a second tucked under that pulls out which were fairly comfortable (although the ones in my parents' room had much thinner mattresses so that may be inconsistent). We asked to have the sofa bed made up but it was not only disgusting and super uncomfortable, it also interfered with the second single bed so you'd need two people sleeping on a not-quite-double sofa bed that had stains and a super thin mattress. We were lucky my parents had another room with the extra kid beds or we would have had a really rough time with sleeping arrangements. 

In this category there was a slight edge for the Barcelo. 

Pool/Beach

The Barcelo had an amazing calm beach where we could snorkel right off shore and sometimes see some sea turtles. it doesn't have that wide of a sandy area so getting a chair could be tricky and there is very little shade so we brought our own fold-up umbrellas. The pool had more shade and was fairly clean and very large but there's nothing going on there except a drinking contest in the afternoon so we didn't spend much time there. There aren't very many bars so there was often long lines to get drinks. 

The Melia beach is enormously wide although there weren't quite enough chairs there either. There are a few more waves and it gets deeper faster so we spent less time in the water there. The pool was huge, clean and had some fun activities. There was also food not far away that you could bring back to your pool chairs which was a huge winner for our family. There was always a bar somewhere not too far that didn't have much of a line. 

As beautiful as the Barcelo pool and beach were, the inconveniences made the Melia the winner in this category. 

Entertainment

The Barcelo nighttime shows were excellent, however they started at 10pm so we didn't make it to all of them. There is very little to do otherwise. They do have some games available but this resort felt not very kid friendly in the entertainment area. There are two free splash pads for babies and for young kids that were both pretty good. Pirate Island is a paid upgrade and is not worth the cost. We had it included and spent about an hour there using 4 small slides and a small wave pool. Both kid areas were very clean and not busy at all so that was a great escape after the crowded chaos. I'd say the entertainment is either fully adult-only or good for very young children. It's missing the 8-16 demographic

Melia had quite a few daytime activities and Fun republic meant that evenings were eventful. There was also a pretty decent splash pad/mini waterpark with a barefoot restaurant onsite. 

We were only able to go to Fun Republic for 2 days because of our short stay (closed Mon/Tues) but we easily spent hours there. The shows there were at 7 or 8pm and were Disney and Superhero themed, good for young kids. The main shows were packed with people, not as much of a production as Barcelo but decent and at 9pm which helped. 

Overall, Melia won with our aged kids by a landslide. 

Food

Here's where we really noticed a difference. The Barcelo's food was inconvenient and often bland/cold/stale. Their buffet was enormous and did have decent variety but because there was only the one buffet (they call it two, but it's just one giant one with two mostly mirror-image sides) we ate the same things most days. We did have pretty good steak at Hoya 19 dinner as well as the Steakhouse. The Mexican was quite good as well but portions were tiny and service was extremely slow. It seemed like dinner reservations were only available very late in the day (9pm) which was something other guests complained about as well. We ended up having dinner at the buffet before dinner! I also got food poisoning (I think from the fruit) for 2 days of our trip so that was really miserable. As mentioned above, that buffet closes for long periods of time so we found ourselves spending a good portion of the afternoon trying to force the kids to eat enough to not be hungry until 6:30 or having to buy $12US pringles cans. They did love the soft ice cream stations though! 

There also isn't drink service anywhere but in the restaurants at the Barcelo. Even in the buffet we generally got our own drinks aside from sometimes coffee and water. Poolside there isn't anyone coming around taking orders. This really is what makes it a 3 star though so it was to be expected. 

Melia's buffet down by the beach was tiny, but there was also a snack station that had fries and often chicken nuggets and nachos that you could bring back to your beach chairs on paper plates. Even though there was less variety and sometimes long lines in the beach buffet at breakfast, the food quality was better so we were always able to find something tasty. There also was some limited poolside drink service. We didn't make any dinner reservations but enjoyed the themed buffets. There was sometimes long lines to get into the dinner buffet but it seemed to move fairly quickly. 

While Melia's options were limited and sometimes had long lines, the food was significantly more convenient and higher quality. 

Overall Winner: Melia Caribe

Because of the ages of our kids, the food situation, as well as the entertainment, meant our stay at the Melia was much more fun/relaxing for our family. With really little kids, especially ones that aren't eating the food, I'd maybe lean towards the Barcelo because of the calm water.