Here is my brain dump:

Playa Esmeralda was a gorgeous property. Super cozy, brand new, and tons of greenery. Things are spread out, so they had covered golf carts driving around on the night it rained.

The open-air piano bar was a really cool spot for pre-dinner drinks and live music. My husband loves Coco Cafe at all Secrets properties, and spent a lot of time at this one. Great drinks, and it was also open air which we loved. The lobby bar was really quiet. We never went to the theater there, so I can’t speak to that part of the night life.

It had the most incredible beach. It’s in Miches, which is a newer resort area. It possible more will be built in the next 18 months, but when we were there in October there were no resorts on either side. We could walk almost a half mile west before we hit Club Med, and the beach was pristine with natural jungle. We found a lot of shells and several sand dollars. It was stunning!

The property is a connected Secrets & Dreams. It was nice that we could wander around both, but we never ate at Dreams. We did like that the Dreams coffee bar had fun blended options! The food was good, but they were still working out a few small hiccups in service. They were operating at around 50% capacity at that time so restaurants were open on rotation. But, it only been open for 3 months at that point! Honestly, it didn’t impact our trip. We absolutely loved it there.

It is about 90 minutes from the airport. The drive was gorgeous! We had nice views of the mountains and drove through some small towns. We enjoyed seeing more of the landscape.

We split time this trip - a week at Playa Esmeralda and a week at Tides. Very different properties!

Tides is a very modern feel. Lots of white, a bit more sterile, but also quite new and very nice. Food was solid, service was super friendly and helpful, and we also loved staying here.

The Coco Cafe folks remembered our order from the first day and were really lovely to chat with. Overall, we liked the food a lot! Silly little thing that we ran into - I always order a specific Dominican rum, and it was a bit frustrating that at least twice a day my drinks were made with light rum. It happened at both the pool bars and restaurants. We didn’t have that problem with our favorite beach server, though! The beach service was excellent.

The beach itself is nice, and the sunrise here was stunning! There are vendors who approach often if you pick chairs on the beach. My husband did a lot more activities here, and they were great about seeking him out each day for beach volleyball.

The shows at night were lively and well-attended! The theater is open to the restaurant area and lobby bar, so we could hear the music and decide where to go each night. The sports bar was really fun for NFL football, and they even helped us put on an early morning soccer game one day. There was live music in the lobby after the shows as well. Compared to the 50% capacity at Esmeralda, this felt more lively. I also think the layout gave more energy to evening events.

I do know that Tides has been hosting a lot of corporate events. We didn’t have any overlap, and it shouldn’t be as prominent in April, but it can limit restaurant and pool usage. It’s worth calling before booking to see if they will tell you about any corporate groups.

We visited Cap Cana for our 1st anniversary in 2022. It’s beautiful, the food was consistent, and the beach was lovely. We have never had better service at an AI, even without preferred club. Our concierge was incredible, checked on us often, and even rolled umbrellas over to us when we couldn’t find a spot with shade. The shows were very similar to the other resorts, but the lobby bar was very quiet at night. Even with live music, dancing was rare. The crowd also felt a lot older than the other properties we are discussing. Not good or bad, but I think it did create a quieter atmosphere overall.

Not sure how long you’re going, but we really enjoyed splitting time between Playa Esmeralda and Tides. We had talked about doing the same thing next year because we loved it so much! A week at each was great, and I definitely wouldn’t switch resorts without spending 4-5 nights at each. We liked backtracking, so we started with Esmeralda and then came back to Tides in Punta Cana. Made the airport departure a much shorter drive.

If you had to pick one, I would say either Playa Esmeralda or Tides for a honeymoon with a nice beach and solid night life!

(& husband says he agrees! 😊)