The Dominican Republic is absolutely brilliant.
I’ve been there three times in recent(ish) years and enjoyed all three trips:
1999 – Flew with Monarch Airlines from London Gatwick to Puerto Plata on an Airbus A300. The hotel was the 3* Fun Royale/Fun Tropicale and as with just about every package holiday hotel in the country, was all-inclusive.
2000 – Flew with JMC Air from London Gatwick to Puerto Plata on a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30. This time we stayed at the top notch Riu Merengue hotel in Bahia Maimon. This was a 4* hotel in the brochure but the Riu company rate it as a 5*. Best holiday I had over there.
2001 – Flew with Britannia Airways from London Gatwick to La Romana on a Boeing 767-300 (yeay!). We stayed for three weeks at the Amhsa Marina Casa Del Mar hotel in Bayahibe. This was good and was a 4* hotel. Again, like the rest, it was all-inclusive.
The flights are about 8 hours outbound to the main airports which are Santo Domingo (the capital – south) and Puerto Plata (north). The Puerto Plata airport is quite modern, yet only handles a small selection of flights from Europe with charter flights and from the USA with flights from American Airlines etc.
La Romana is a nice airport, yet very small and extremely boring. With just two main departure gates, it becomes very busy when more than 600 passengers queue to get onto one of two planes. The terminal is wooden, one storey high and is home to just a handful of check-in desks. One duty free shop and a cafeteria and a block of seats is what is in the departures area. Arrivals is small, empty and hot. But the airport itself is set in beautiful surroundings, amongst fields growing tropical flowers and trees.
It turns out that the hotel I stayed at in 2001 was actually destroyed by a hurricane 2 years before we stayed there. In 2000 we had 3 days of our holiday ruined by a hurricane which was supposedly coming.
But it’s a great place, you’ll love it.
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