Excursion d'une journée à Saint-Domingue au départ de Punta Cana

Excellent guide but trip was cut short due due to light conditions. Therefore much curtailed and didn’t experience Montans Redonda at all! Los Haitises was simply amazing though.

I have traveled to 40 countries including India, Thailand, Cambodia and Bali, and this was one of the worst tours I’ve ever taken. It was totally disorganized and is 100% not worth if you don’t speak Spanish. 1. The trip started with them saying someone would contact me with the time they would arrive- but no one did so I was ready at 7am just in case. When no one came I called. First they said 8:10 then 8:30 then 8:40 and in the end they picked me up at 9am. 2. There are many bus transfers - 3 just before the first site we visited. And all the transfers are conducted in Spanish so you won’t know where you are going or how long it will take. 3. Buses are the small transfer buses- not a big bus except for when you get to Santo Domingo. So you are smushed against other passengers (shoulder to shoulder) the entire 3hrs to Santo Domingo. 4. During the transfers the driver was blasting reggetone. I have no problem with music but it was so loud it hurt my ears and would go on and off the entire ride so it wasn’t something you could just get used to being in the background. 5. Because most travelers are Spanish speaking the guides don’t make any effort to explain in English. Just a few sentences - meanwhile he’ll speak in Spanish for 5 minutes straight. Also for one tour the guide was so far away you can’t hear anything. There was a nice couple on my tour that tried to explain things to me, but it was too much for them -understandably. I even asked the tour guides to speak in English multiple times and they continued speaking in Spanish- save a few words or sentences here and there. It was especially problematic when the guides were telling us what to/not do- and I was worried I would miss something and we would just get left wherever we were. 6. There is no single tour guide to take you through the trip from start to finish. For some of the trip there’s a guy on the bus that facilitates taking you from site to site- then you get whatever guide the site uses. Most of the time it was a Spanish speaking person only- only one place had a guide that barely spoke broken English. 7.One couple was also separated for the entire trip because the “guide” put too many people on the bus. The couple kindly offered to split and go to the other bus because the “guide” assured them that we were all going to the same place- but we weren’t. They went in an entirely different order. So we only saw him again for lunch and at the end of the trip. 8. The only good thing about the trip was meeting the couple and the only other English speaker - and he had also traveled a lot and agreed that this tour felt like total chaos. 9. At the end of the day when we got back to Punta Cana (around 7:30pm) we had transferred to another bus to go back to the hotel. The guy driving the bus tried to drop me off at the wrong hotel- he kept saying it was my hotel but it wasn’t. Luckily I was able to push him to find the correct hotel, but he didn’t move until I told him my hotel was close by in the little Spanish I knew. 10. The trip is a total of 11 hrs door to door- not 8hrs like they say in the description. (13hrs if you count the 2hrs I wasted waiting while they changed the times on me). Would not recommend. Honestly I feel like I should get a refund.

My husband and I really enjoyed this full day tour of Santo Domingo! We felt like we saw the major parts of the city that were accompanied with history lessons at each site, that we would have not received going without this tour group. We even received a full, authentic lunch, which was not expected since they said they only provide snacks. It was great to experience the local culture! Definitely recommend from that standpoint! Unfortunately, we were gone for 14 hours due to our tour bus getting a flat tire on the way back to Punta Cana. There was not a backup plan with the tour company and we spent over an hour on the side of the road, in San Pedro at a repair shop, before our driver put us back on the bus (without being fixed) and drove another hour before we could get on a new bus for the last 1 hour 30 minutes of the drive. The tour itself was great but the company not having a backup plan for emergencies like this was unfortunate. We had at least 20+ people on the tour (including an infant) and it would have been nice to have a contingency plan, especially since it was a holiday and many repair shops were closed.

The trip is worth the money and was very thorough! A few things that I didn’t like was transportation did not have access to do pick up /drop off to my resort lobby- getting to security gate was not always easy or waiting outside gate was not preferred since I was solo. There were a few bus transfers that I didn’t expect. The biggest problem was it was primarily a walking tour, which is not advertised. We walked without know how long or what’s next (maybe it was me due to not being Spanish speaking). Stopped at 3 souvenirs shops and a lot of stopping and talking (in Spanish) in the hot sun. Also limited English spoken by the guide, I think I got 10% of what the other tourists received who were Spanish speaking. Too much walking and under-communicating what is next. Total trip time depart to return was 12+ hours. It’s a “no” for me; BUT I think it’s a great excursion and worth the price if you know upfront about these issues and can make an informed decision. Loved the drive to Santo Domingo!

This tour is a great way to explore Santo Domingo for the day. The lunch at the local restaurant during the tour had very great food and I enjoyed getting to walk through the streets of Santo Domingo and see historical sites.

Punta cana is a real paradise on earth, with its beaches and white sands and turquoise waters, it is the ideal place to relax and enjoy the sun.

The pick up was a little weird. The driver would not come to our hotel because he didn’t want to go through the gate. Then we met up with our bus on the side of the road. However after this point the trip was amazing!

The tour is advertised as starting from Punta Cana. And your hotel will be in the list of pickup places. However, if you’re not in the right part of Punta Cana you will receive a text asking for more money for pickup. Obviously that happened onn on fe you’ve paid and the day before your tour, so you can’t cancel and have no choice but to pay or lose everything.

I was the only English speaker on the trip. It would have been nice to know that head of time, but they accommodated me being a monoglot. Beautiful scenery, great history, nice people.

We were supposed to be picked up at our hotel instead the driver sent someone to pick us up and had them meet us on the side of the highway with no explanation. The tour was not what we paid for it was one of the lesser trips that was offered. The tour guide, Pedro, was very nice and made the outing very enjoyable.