Puerta Plata
 

Back in November, my wife found a great deal on a 7 day all-inclusive package at the Iberostar resort in Puerta Plata that included air-fare on Air Transat.

Flight down was on thursday morning red-eye flight which is common since there is limited flgihts a week direct from Vancouver. Not a knock at AT, but I got food posioning from the food that was offered on their flight.

Too keep it short and sweet, things I liked about the Iberostar resort. Close to the airport, about 20 minutes away. Nice sized pool, close to a nice sandy beach. Rooms are big and spacious. Usually in suite mini fridge with pop, water, and beer. All you can eat buffet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. All you can drink drinks that are not watered down. Lastly, friendly people.
Things I did not like. Food in the buffet sucked. Breakfast was basically the same food everyday, sometimes they re-cooked the left over food from dinner from the previous night. Lunch and dinner selection was very limited. Buffet hours and snack bar hours were too short. There was nothing to eat after 10 pm, so if you had an early dinner, you are SOL if you get the munchies at 11 pm. No access to the swiming pools between 7 pm and 7 am.

While in Puerta Plata, we did 2 excursions that I would highly recommend.

1) Jasmine health and wellness spa.
Hour long body massage from head to toe. Then you were given a choice of facial, manicure, pedicure, or back massage. 5 course lunch was included.
Owner is from Ottawa, and the staff are people from the area. Lots of good reviews online about this place, and if not for the monster truck safarri, I would have said it was the best day of my holidays.

2) Monster Truck safarri.
What more do I have to say. 8x8 Ford monster truck taking us into the woods to see some of the smaller villages. The day we went was right after a rain storm so there was lots of mud and the trucks actually drove through the rivers where the water ran past the tires. The safarri includes all you can drink bottled water/pop/beer. Catered lunch.

I know that the difference in wealth in the Dominican is quite huge, but in the villages you can see people walking barefoot, and next to them is someone with clean clothes, Nike sneakers, and a cell phone. The kids are use to begging, and in fact can be quite agressive, more so than the pan handlers in downtown Vancouver. Lots of people brought things to donate to the local schools and to give to the kids. Pencils, paper, school supplies are a good idea. Candy is not as they do not have good dental hygene.

Personally, we did not notice any prosittution, but online reviews have said otherwise.

Tap water is not pureified, so best is to drink/brush your teeth with bottled water.

Electricity is 110V, which is a little bit less than in North America, but they use 2 different plugs. The lobby of the hotel and the airport uses the standard 3 prong plugs, while the rooms used a 2 round prong plug.

Our flgiht back was delayed 6 hours due to rain. The airport is very small and aged. No internet, and not a lot of seating so it was quite stressful for the first 6 hours of our wait. We asked for food vouchers, but we were not given any though other airlines did. YMMV.

Great little review. I was down in Punta Cana in the summer. How much were your tickets?

I think it was $1200 per person for airfare and 7 nights at the all inclusive resort.

Any pics?

How much was the Jasmine health and wellness spa? and the monster truck safarri?

My boyfriend and I went to Puerto Plata a few years ago. Those tours, like the monster truck safarri and jeep safarris are great! They pick you up at your hotel, give you lunch, and drinks (including rum and beer) on the tour.

My suggestion, don't book these tours through your hotel. It's expensive... almost $100 US per person. My boyfriend and I made that mistake for our first tour. We booked it with a lady at the hotel and it cost us like $180 for both of us. After that trip we wanted to go on more. We found this guy at the mall and bargined with him... he gave us 3 tours for $99 US per person. So the price that we paid for the first tour, we got to go on 3 different tours booking with the mall guy.

They are the same kind of trips that the hotel offers. You can choose which 3 you want, so it's not like a pre-packaged thing. We chose: (1) Jeep safarri which takes you through the countryside. You get to grind coffee, cocoa, see cigars being made and best of all... you go waterfall jumping! (2) dune buggy (3) paradise island which is a sand dune in the middle of the ocean and you go snorkling.