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Mentioned to some friends we were planning a trip for next Jan. somewhere Caribbean. They offered to share a timeshare Dominican Republic, Punta Cana. Any tips, thoughts, advice?

I've never been there, but, ironically, about two hours ago, I talked to a guy I work with who just came back from there.
He said the beaches are some of the most beautiful he's ever seen, and the hotel they stayed at was really nice with an inexpensive but nice tiki bar and restaurant.
He also said he saw lots of bad places between the airport and hotel he was staying at, but the tourist industry there is really starting to pick up, so, hopefully that will change too.
Sorry that's all I can tell you-I'm sure some of the others here can offer much more insight.
Good luck and have fun. (And tell us all about it when you get back).

the company trip for the top employees is there this year.. made it the last two years, so we'll see if this is my year again

Punta Cana does not have the best diving/snorkling but the beaches are great for walking/relaxing.....

Was there in Punta Cana in July. It was a great place.... If you can speak some Spanish. Thank god we could, otherwise, things might have been more difficult. And dont get turned off by bad hotel ratings... The DR isnt exactly the "American" idea of the Caribbean. Punta Cana especially is the place where the well- to- do Dominicans go on vacation. It is catered more towards Dominicans and Europeans. There were a few other Americans there, but not many.
Otherwise, it is great. The food was good, but dont drink the milk after noon, and only use ice if its in an alcoholic drink. The beaches were fantasitc, and the fishing, scuba diving, and snorkeling were cheap and great. Many of the hotels are all inclusive, with free kayak and catamaran rentals. The rooms were thoroughly cleaned every day of our weeklong stay. And the weather was great. Not too hot. Bring cash for tipping and be sure to mention anything about baseball...especially the Red Sox. The workers there love that kind of stuff.

The Hotel was called the Barcelo Barvaro Palace.

My dad won a trip there and he and my mom, who are in their 70's
went there and loved it.

our friends own a cigar shop so there are some local cigar manufacturers he wants to visit related to business. I think this is one of the reasons he chose this area. We will be in an all inclusive that is getting a 41/2 star rating out of 5 on the time share site. When I get the name I'll post it. We have never been to the Caribbean before and are interested in beach, snorkel, rum and if there's any historical buildings to walk around.

OceanCityGirl wrote:our friends own a cigar shop so there are some local cigar manufacturers he wants to visit related to business. I think this is one of the reasons he chose this area. We will be in an all inclusive that is getting a 41/2 star rating out of 5 on the time share site. When I get the name I'll post it. We have never been to the Caribbean before and are interested in beach, snorkel, rum and if there's any historical buildings to walk around.

I was gonna mention that some of the best damned cigars in the world can be had there.

It's a lovely place. I've been there twice.
There is not much in the way of a town, just Cortecito, a place with a couple of grocery stores, some small hotels (where we stayed once and liked it) and a whole bunch of tourist-trap market stalls... which can be fun, but kind of harassing. There are a bunch of stalls on the beach, too, in the space between hotels. The hotels are varied in size and price.
It's the hurricane coast, so that does mess up the diving and snorkeling, but real keeners can take a daytrip to the south side of the island, where the reefs are more protected. The beaches at Punta Cana are lovely, and people spend the day walking back and forth, as well as swimming....
One of the great products of the DR is RUM.

We have been there twice, the beaches are absolutely gorgeous, the resorts are nice, mostly all inclusive. You can take a trip to La Romana which is an up and coming area. Also Santa Domingo is a nice city there. Spanish does help, we printed a spanish-english commonly used words list and that helped us out.

The roads are not very developed there. We did a few tours, an ATV and a safari. I agree with others not much diving and snorkeling there.

Cigars, oh yes. Baseball is very big there, and they will trade for baseball memorabilia in their shops, etc. They wanted my husbands baseball cap and would have given him anything in their store. He didn't take them up on that.

Hope that helps, have fun

docandjeanie wrote:... Baseball is very big there, and they will trade for baseball memorabilia in their shops, etc. They wanted my husbands baseball cap and would have given him anything in their store. He didn't take them up on that.

Hope that helps, have fun

We went to the Juan Dolio beach area back in 2000 during Thanksgiving Weekend. Even though it was an all inclusive resort we brought a few baseballs and gave them to the workers, they loved them. As Red Sox fans we had baseball hats on and the talk would usually turn to Pedro Martinez as he was on the Sox at the time. At the beach you were supposed to give a room number to sign out towels, but they never asked for our room number. Later on we found out why when we got a look at the towel sign in sheet. They would sign us in as either Pedro, Boston, or Red Sox. They even offerd to take us to a "winter ball" game.

jimsig wrote:

docandjeanie wrote:... Baseball is very big there, and they will trade for baseball memorabilia in their shops, etc. They wanted my husbands baseball cap and would have given him anything in their store. He didn't take them up on that.

Hope that helps, have fun

We went to the Juan Dolio beach area back in 2000 during Thanksgiving Weekend. Even though it was an all inclusive resort we brought a few baseballs and gave them to the workers, they loved them. As Red Sox fans we had baseball hats on and the talk would usually turn to Pedro Martinez as he was on the Sox at the time. At the beach you were supposed to give a room number to sign out towels, but they never asked for our room number. Later on we found out why when we got a look at the towel sign in sheet. They would sign us in as either Pedro, Boston, or Red Sox. They even offerd to take us to a "winter ball" game.

Yes, that sounds familiar. They would have given him anything in the store for that hat, it was a Phillies championship hat and he didn't want to part with it. They talked of Pedro and Sammy Sosa a lot, they would bring up stories about them, stats, and how proud they were to have these guys in the big leagues. They offered to take us to a game, as well, we were only there for a few days, and didn't really have the time to go, so we did not. We wished that we had some more baseball memorabilia with us as they would have certainly appreciated it.

So, if you go, do bring them some baseballs, caps, t-shirts, etc. You will make their day

my $.02? I love Punta Cana. woo-hoo

i'm really getting excited about this trip and now it's a year away. Yikes. But I love to plan and am going to tune up my Spanish.