I have a friend, Kay, who lives in Canada and we have been friends for 57 years! We decided it was time we had a holiday together (we have seen each other a lot over the years but always with our families in tow). We decided it was time for a “girls only” break so we decided to meet up in the Dominican Republic for a 2 week sunshine break.
My flight was a BA direct flight from Gatwick. 8.5 hours. When I arrived Kay had already landed and was waiting for me. My first tip would be to make sure you have a transfer arranged. Upon arrival at Punta Cana there was a melee of taxi drivers, all vying for our custom. Luckily our booked transfer with Diamond Tours wasn’t too hard to find (we also used them for the return transfer and I would highly recommend them). We had booked an Airbnb (Apt C3, Residential Costa Bavaro Gardens in Avenida Estados Unidos. We weren’t disappointed. It was a 2 bedroomed, 2 bathrooms flat with a balcony overlooking the pool. There were security guards on the entrance to the complex and it felt very secure. Most of the flats are lived in by local people so there were very few tourists and many days we were the only people around the pool. The only drawback was that the flat was not in “the heart of Punta Cana” as advertised. It was a long walk from the beach and there were only two mini marts and one restaurant nearby. (That restaurant was called Da Renato and was owned by Mamma Ana and her daughter, two Italian women who looked like they could have been part of the Corleone family! The food was excellent and they had live music some nights so it became our favourite haunt. (Despite their scary appearance the owners were lovely and friendly). We solved the problem of the flat not being in the heart of the town by setting up an UBER account and using them to get everywhere. (My grandsons would have been very impressed as I am not normally very tech minded!) UBER was very cheap and very well organised and we always knew the registration number of the car and the drivers name and the cost before the car arrived.
We had 14 wonderfully glorious days whilst in the Dominican Republic. We had two night time thunder storms but generally the temperature was about 27 degrees. Being an island there is always a breeze which was lovely but also meant we didn’t always realise how strong the sun was. Good sunscreen is vital! Most of the people were really friendly but very few spoke English (even in the hospitality trade which we found quite surprising). We had heard bad reports of tourist’s safety in the Dominican Republic but we had no problems at all. (But then at 76 years old we weren’t ever out too late!)
We booked some trips. Unfortunately we found all of them very disorganised. Each trip seemed to involve being picked up, taken to a service station and then waiting around for our allotted coach. We spent a lot of time in Punta Cana’s local service stations! Tourism in Dominican Republic has only been popular for about 20 years so they obviously still need to iron out a few quirks. We took Ubers to many local beaches. Bibijagua was one of our favourites, in fact, the Dominican Republic has some of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen (and I have seen very many over the years!) Bibijagua was white sands, palm trees and turquoise waters. There were beach traders but they never hassled us. However a lot of the beaches are by huge private hotels and they do not take kindly to you using their sun loungers. Bibijagua was one of the public beaches as was Los Corolas Beach (we met a man who recommended the Villa Blanca Beach Club on this beach. They didn’t charge for sun loungers and had a bar and small restaurant where we spent a lovely day.) Another beach we visited was Macao Beach. This is a beach used by many local people and we went on a Sunday so it was full of families having picnics and enjoying music from their boom boxes! It was a noisy lively beach but very beautiful and I do believe we might have been the only tourists amongst all the locals. (I rather think we were ripped off a bit here on the cost of the sun loungers but it was worth it just for the novelty of people watching!)
Trips we took further afield were to the Cabezo de Toro area where we took a glass bottomed boat out to a raft and from there did a Scuba Doo ride (you sit on a scooter contraption under the water with a diving helmet on your head and a scuba diver drags you around the reef to see the fish! Rather odd but fun!). We also went to Saona Island. A very badly organised trip! Saona is an idyllic deserted island….if only! The thousands of tourists pouring off boats detract from that a little! It took us over 3.5 hours to get there and we only had 1.5 hours on the island. A buffet lunch was included which was nice and the island is beautiful with clear turquoise waters. The speed boat ride to the island was very jarring to our 76 year old bodies! However the catamaran ride back was calm and pleasant. We also had a day trip to the capital, Santo Domingo. Once we had found the right coach at the requisite petrol station, the trip was a joy. We had a mini bus full of tourists from Chili and a driver who spoke no English! However the journey was full of loud Hispanic laughter and conversation (unfortunately we had no idea what was being said but everyone was very caring and friendly to us treating us rather like slightly dim older relatives!) In Santo Domingo an English speaking guide joined us and the tour was superb with visits to The Caves of the Eyes, The Lighthouse (where Christopher Columbus is buried ,Dominicans are not big fans of Columbus!), the Royal Palace, The Malecom and we walked through the colonial part of the city. It was all very impressive.
So, in conclusion I would highly recommend the Dominican Republic. It has the best beaches and some of the friendliest people but you might want to brush up on your Spanish before you go!
