Preface

The Dominican Republic after 5 Years

It had been 5 years since I was last in the Dominican Republic. My last trip brought me to Puerto Plata and Santo Domingo. In the years that followed, I would read about various changes in the Dominican Republic, but for the most part things seemed the same. Major closures were the High Caribbean Disco in Sosua and the Remington Palace in Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo also had a bunch of closures of the smaller P4P places in the Gazcue district and a few elsewhere, I think, Lapsus, the places on Avenida Pasteur and others elsewhere continued on. I had some reservations about returning, primarily the hassles of dealing with touts and taxi drivers, but for the most part I was looking forward to the trip. My vacation didn't disappoint. Hopefully the chronicles of my adventure will prove both informative and entertaining.

Florida: FLL to MIA

Due to some ticket juggling I had to do, I found myself having to fly into Fort Lauderdale. My international flight was out of Miami, so I had to figure out how to get there and back. I did a lot of research and it seemed the only options were taxi, rental car, private shuttle, or Tri-Rail. Taxi service was $100+ according to quotes I found on the web. I didn't want to hassle with finding quotes and companies that provided one way rentals. Private shuttles were $80+. Tri-Rail was $4, so Tri-Rail it was.

From FLL, I used the Tri-Rail shuttle to get to the Tri-Rail station. The shuttle is easy to spot and runs frequently. The Tri-Rail runs every 30 minutes to an hour depending on the time of day. I bought a paper ticket for $3.75 from a guy in a booth and boarded the train for a ride that was approximately 40 minutes. From the MIA station, I caught the Tri-Rail shuttle to the MIA airport.

I couldn't find a booth when I rode the train the other way after my trip, so I had to use the machine. The train was only a couple minutes away from leaving, they do not sell tickets on the train and had notices posted about strict ticket enforcement, so I missed the first train and had to wait an hour. They didn't check tickets on the first trip, but an officer did on the trip back.

Puerto Rico

I spent a couple days in Puerto Rico. I didn't do any hobbying there, the scene is practically nonexistent as far as I know, plus I don't think we can discuss PR here even if it was. It was a nice short visit, the only drawback being that the gorgeous women there were making me anxious for the next part of my trip. A Guess employeee in San Juan made my jaw drop, and it's not often I can't say that about any place.

I stayed at a hostel in San Juan called the Posado San Francisco. It was a nice place in the center of the night festivities. I got there by bus from the airport using the hostel's instructions. I walked to the outside of the terminal where I caught the bus to Isla Verde. From there I had to get out and wait for the T5 bus to take it to the end of the line at the old city terminal. The hostel was a few blocks walk away. Cost for the buses was $1.50 USD total.

I did a lot of unplanned shopping, particularly at that Guess store, but also went to quite a few souvenir shops. I also lusted over a lot of the ladies walking by on the street, probably with more frequency than anywhere else in the world I've been, and I've been to many places.

I didn't spend enough time in PR to do much sightseeing. I wasn't all that impressed with the two forts I visited, nor were some of the other notable buildings very interesting.

They had set up tables and stands for food and drink along a major pedestrian walkway at night. The food was good but the portions were small for the prices they were charging. At least the eye candy was plentiful.

I had an early evening flight the last day for Santo Domingo because I thought I might want to spend some additional time my last day sightseeing and shopping, but I had enough and decided to attempt the 1pm flight instead. To catch it I had to take a cab, $21 USD for the trip, but it was worth it. It was really hot that day and the bus rides would have been uncomfortable and time consuming, plus I ended up with additional time to settle in Santo Domingo.

Vladimir
vladrasputin@hotmail.com

Vlad, I've found your reports on central/south america to typically be the most helpful on the web. Thanks for your efforts and happy holidays!

Vladimir: Welcome back to posting trip reports. You reports are well organized especially for the fact that you also carve out pieces to be posted in the discussion areas. So very helpful. Nice that you also include photos.

If you want to avoid the hassle of Tri-Rail and such, plus the expense of taxi's etc, there is a cheap parking alternative right across the Car Rental Center at the Sheraton Hotel (former Wyndham). They offer discounted parking from as low as $5.50 a day for outdoor parking (prepaid) via their website www.cheapairportparking.org

They offer 24X7 shuttle service and it takes just a few minutes from the Hotel to the actual Airport terminal.