Dominican, Punta Cana Vacation

I recently travelled to the Dominican Republic for my stepbrother's wedding to his amazing fiance.

The wedding and celebration was held at the Excellence Punta Cana. The hotel was so nice and even as I went alone I felt very welcomed when I arrived. The only 2 issues I had with the hotel were the fact that there was only 1 way to cross over the massive pool or you had to walk all the way around. Doesn't sound like too much of an issue unless you need towels or want to go to the beach. The other issue was the fact that my room was right outside where the damn ice machine was and at 6:30am EVERY DAY the staff would come with metal bowls and fill them up for the buffets. Are you kidding me??????? And it would happen again at 7:30am, it was like I couldn't catch a break.

So aside from those minor issues, the only other thing that kind of bothered me was how far out the resort was. It wasn't close to anything so any tour was linger due to at least an hour of drive time.

I had debated renting a car before I left. The round-trip land transfers can be fairly expensive if you want a private ride, shared rides can be way cheaper but of course they take longer due to the number of drop offs that are in the car with you. So I decided to do some research on car rentals and looking into if it was safe to drive. I didn't end up going with a rental car but I wish I had. If you have ever driven in another country and feel comfortable doing so I would say go for it and Rent-A-Car. People's concerns that I found while researching the internet where that there were no rules of the road, no speed limits were enforced, the police are corrupt, Rose weren't necessarily good, not driving at night due to animals getting in the road and so forth.

So why don't we start simple. The roads are actually fairly good as long as you keep to the major roads or highways I didn't encounter any small back roads so I can't really comment on their conditions. The only police that I actually saw were extremely early in the morning on my way back to the airport which is about 3:30 they were usually at intersections with their lights on. The reports about the police being corrupt would say something along the lines that if you get pulled over they could put you in jail for any number of reasons but it didn't look like there were enough police around to pull people over.

As for the rules of the road and speed limits..... This is where things get NUTS! The people of the Dominican drive like absolute lunatics! Some of them are on little motorbikes, summering cars or trucks and also in different work vehicles. These guys are gals Drive really fast and weave in and out of the lanes sometimes coming really close to the oncoming vehicles or the people they pass. As a passenger it was scary as shit!! Yet as a driver on my own I think I would have been okay. I would have minded my own speed,& business, yet also be on the defense that someone may pass me. I noticed that when they do go to pass one another it's usually preceded by a honk of the horn. I wouldn't have driven at night, only during the daylight hours and on major roads. I believe that I probably would have been okay and could have seen a lot more that the country had to offer.

Santo Domingo was just about three hours from Art Hotel if you went on a tour since they had to stop for a pee break (ugh)...who wants to take 6 hours of their day driving to and from and having to make a stop to pee??? I once did a bus tour and it was great, but this time it was not what I was looking for.

There were quite a few other tours that were somewhat local but they cost a little bit too much money to do. If I had a car I probably could have cut the cost a little bit even though gas is somewhat expensive because I could have split it with other people that wanted to go with me, and the timing would have been shorter since we would stop only if we needed to. I love to drive and see the country for more than just a resort, and I also know that I have to be worried about safety.

We did take one excursion which I wouldn't really recommend, unfortunately. We did a catamaran trip to Cap Cans with some snorkeling and a visit to a natural pool. The drive was an hour......people were late so our boat left late, we only had 30 min to snorkel, and the natural pool was in the middle of the ocean....how is that a natural pool????? The snorkeling would be fine for beginners but most of of the coral was bland in color and there weren't that many colorful fish.

I don't think I am being too picky, I have just traveled to so many locations and have snorkeled so much I except a bit for how much I pay.

Overall my trip was great and I had a very relaxing time. My last vacation for a while unfortunately lol but I think I have had my fare share in the past 2 years lol.

I will upload some pics when the mobile app stops acting off lol