Full-Day Santo Domingo City Tour from Punta Cana

Excursion was cancelled w/o notification (no calls, mails). Some one came to inform us at pick up time (7:10 am).

we thoroughly enjoyed this tour. Tour guide communicated well in both languages and we felt engaged in all activities. Unfortunately, we missed some of the fine points over looking the ocean which was mostly due to time strained.

Very good trip. English speaking guide. Only down side is the bus seat leg space was too cramped up and the bus transfer was late in the morning with too many stops. Rest of the trip was great.

I'll start by saying it's not neecssarily the fault of the tour guide nor the driver themselves; they were simply doing their job. Our biggest peeve from this tour was communication, that there was no transparency in the communication. The day of our tour, on the bus already on the way to Santo Domingo, we were told that because of the "election" that 4 of the attractions are "closed" and cannot be visited. This could have been communicated clearly, on Viator or on any of their listing to be the case for this day, but none of it was there. So, we couldn't head back if we wanted to or get a refund on the spot, as the bus is already in motion on the highway. We didn't get to see: The Columbus Lighthouse, Royal Palace, Military Forstress, and Columbus Palace. Pretty much more than half of the promised itinerary. They also took us to the Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance, where all the texts on the walls were in Spanish, so we relied heavily on our tour guide. Instead of explaining to us what each room is representing, he pretty much speed-walked through the entire museum "hmmm this is all very interesting" *keeps walking non-stop*. That was a waste of time. Because after that, we walked a long time in the hot sun to the bus to go back to Punta Cana. Another con was that they took us to a souvenir shop which was obviously a commission based shop, as everything in the store was absurdly overprices (USD7 for a shotglass lol). We asked to roam around ourselves, and the souvenir shop next door had more reasonable pricing. Some pros: good lunch, funny-ish tour guide, Nacho. All in all, would not take the tour again, but others may have different experience than we did. Luckily, because we booked via Viator, we got to request partial refund, as the price we paid definitely did not match the value we got out of the tour itself.

It has been 40 years since my last visit and I was amazed and disappointed at the immense change the Capitol city had taken, traffic, garbage, dilapidated housing, slums, over-populated. However once we entered the old city and toured the various venues it was great!!.

Santo Domingo is the oldest city in the western hemisphere and was founded in 1502. You will be able to visit all the old city and the house that Columbus built. It is about a 2 1/2 hour ride from Punta Cana but it is well worth the time if you enjoy historical places. The old churches are amazing and the local tour guides are very sharp. You will be provided headphones for all the walking tour and the trip will be about 2 miles of walking. Definite trip for your itinerary.

The biggest problem with educational type tours is understanding the speaker. Even speaking English it was hard to understand the guide. We enjoyed all the locations and the meal. I felt too much time was spent at the church and the shopping area we were taken to was just a very over-priced souvenir shop.

Most of the itinerary listed on the tour such as sightseeing was simply just riding on the bus, also alot of the time was taken up by picking up other tourists transferring from one bus/shuttle to another.

If you are staying in Punta Cana for all your stay in DR its a great trip to see something different and a historic capital. It also gives you an opportunity to see the countryside along the 3 hour trip there.

We left Punta Cana at 7am and arrived back at 7pm. the guide had arranged for two rest stops in the am and one in the pm, which was great! the tour involved the inner city and historical area where Columbus would have landed and the house where family lived later. That was educational. This is a walking tour. We had a fabulous buffet lunch in a restaurant. one stop at a cathredral a play about pirates which could have been skipped, and a shopping hour at the end. It was enjoyable. We had one downpour of rain and they hurried and got umbrellas for us! The 2nd guide in the museum was very repetitive in his speech and I would have preferred the first one to keep going. It was a successful day and we enjoyed it, and learned a lot!