We stayed at the Melia from June 15th-22nd for our "weddingmoon."  We had a group of 28 people travel with us to the Melia for the event.  I've broken my review down into specific categories so that it will be easier to navigate.

Our wedding:

Beautiful! Gorgeous! Stunning!  I cannot say enough good things about the wedding.  Evelyn was our wedding coordinator.  She was very difficult to get in touch with and get answers from leading up to the wedding.  At times, her assistant, Angelica, was much more responsive.  However, once we arrived at the Melia, Evelyn was wonderful to work with and had everything for the wedding exactly as we wanted it. 

We had our wedding in the garden gazebo- just absolutely stunning!  The thing I like about the garden gazebo is that it is HUGE.  They were able to fit our entire party under the gazebo for the wedding.  It was nice because it shielded our guest from the glaring sun (and the five minute rain that happened prior to the wedding).  They also have a beach gazebo (which I felt was just okay looking and not worth the upgrade price) and a beach location for ceremonies as well (each of those require an upgrade charge) and they cannot guarantee those locations to be private because they are on the beach.

We did a "symbolic ceremony" and the Melia free wedding package.  That included a champagne toast after which was very lovely.

We did not have our reception at the Melia, we instead had our reception on La Barcaza Wedding Boat, so I cannot comment on a reception at Melia.

The resort:

Is huge.  But that can be a good thing and bad thing when you are traveling with 28 people.  There are trains that run from the Tropical to the Caribe side lobby.  If you want transportation on the Caribe side, there are always golf carts passing by that will more than happily give you a lift.

There are peacocks everywhere and flamingos.  Some of the water areas have a slight stench to them, but what do you expect with stagnant water in 100+ degree heat.  It isn't that bad.

The restaurants:

There are a ton of restaurants here.  We ate at the American Grill (best service out of all of them, this is also where we had our "Welcome Dinner" the night before the wedding), the Mexican restaurant (Hacienda, great Mexican food), the Thai restaurant (Pagoda, it was okay but I was a little tipsy that night and didn't feel up to eating much, so that could be why I didn't enjoy it as much too), the Japanese (Hokkiado, it was okay but not what we are used to having as far as habachi goes), the seafood restaurant (Capri, food was good, service a little slow), the Gabi (this is the Royal Service restaurant- we ate there for dinner twice, lunch almost everyday and breakfast everyday- we found the food here to be wonderful with a pretty good selection.  Breakfast and lunch got a little repetitive, but we didn't mind.)

The snack bar at the Gabi pool has the BEST grilled chicken I have ever had in my life.  My husband really enjoyed the tortilla chips/salsa/cheese and hamburgers and hot dogs.  They also have really good baked plantains that taste like healthy potato chips.

We also ate breakfast once at the Market Place and found their fruit selection and overall selection to be larger than the Gabi's. 

We tried the Turey and Agora grills once as well.  They are the buffets and have a decent selection of food.  While the food in the buffets may not be a gourmet selection, we thought for lunch it wasn't bad at all.

The bars:

Are awesome!  I don't have one complaint about any of the bars here.  Ramon at the Gabi bar is the best bartender on property.  He makes the best bloody mary's and caipirinhas.  The Banana Mama is also a great beach drink and was my husband's favorite.  The beer is Presidente and Presidente light, my husband doesn't even drink beer and liked it.  The Gabi bar does have premium alcohol but most of the drinks tasted the same no matter what place you got it from (especially the mixed drinks).

The staff:

The staff at Melia are very friendly and most will go out of their way to help you.  I think the major issues here are 1. the language barrier (which is really no one's fault) and 2. lack of consistent training of staff.  As far as the language barrier, try to learn some basic Spanish before you go or get one of those pocket-sized "Spanish for Dummies" books to help you along.  My husband works at the five-star resort in the US, and it was apparent there is not a specific protocol for the staff to follow.  The butler and maid service were all of the radar as far as attentiveness, special treatment (i.e. towel animals and flowers in your room), etc.  I think the main reason for that is probably because it is a third world country for the most part and many of the workers there are local people who probably do not receive much training.  It still did not affect our trip one bit if we had flowers in our room or not, but everyone is different in the attentiveness they expect.

The beach:

The sand is white and soft.  There are no shells.  The water is a beautiful aqua, not completely see-through but gorgeous.  My only complaint about the beach was the seaweed, but again, nothing anyone can do about mother nature.  It didn't interfere with anything, there was just a lot of it on the shoreline.

Entertainment:

There is a casino (which we didn't use) and nightly shows (which we never went too).  We did go to the disco once but it was loud and all they did was play salsa music, so we didn't stay long.  My cousin went to the disco the night before though, and said it was a blast.

Every Wednesday night they hold a beach party on the beach by the Agora Grill.  GO!  This was one of the most fun nights the entire week.  It was absolutely a blast!

Activities:

The windsailing is a $35 lesson for your whole stay and then you can use them daily for free.  The kayaks are also free.  We didn't find this out until the day before we left, so we never got to use them, but my sister and cousins used them and had a lot of fun.

There is also a guy that comes to the Tropical pool almost daily with fresh coconuts that he will cut open for you with a machete so that you can drink the coconut milk (not a fan of the milk, though).  We were actually walking the property one morning around 7:30am and he was up in the tree picking his batch for the day.  He talked to us a little and then came down and cut two open for us right there.

There are no reefs around the beach to snorkel, to get to a reef you have to do a speedboat tour to another part of the island.  We were so busy we never got around to doing this.

Spa:

I had two spa services while we were there and they were exceptional.  I had a body wrap and 80 minute massage.  There are two spas- The Caribe which is smaller and The Tropical which is larger and is where the fitness center is held.  Both have steam, sauna and jacuzzi which are free to use as is the fitness center.

Royal Service:

Half of our party upgraded and the other half didn't.  Most of the people that had Royal Service felt it was worth the extra money.  You get another pool to use, an additional restaurant/bar, snack bar, and beach bar.  You also get a separate check-in lobby that has two computers to use and free Ethernet access in your room if you bring your computer.  We were very happy we splurged for the upgrade.  However a few of our guests did not upgrade until they got there and they got a better deal.

Overall the Melia is a gorgeous property and Punta Cana is just a stunning island!  It is probably one of the most beautiful resorts in Punta Cana from what I've heard from other people.  They do a terrific jobs with weddings, and us, as well as all of our guests, were nothing but thrilled with our stay.