Puerto Plata City Tour

I signed up for the 8am tour. About a week before the tour, I learn that it starts at 9am. On the day of, we were not picked up until 9:45am. There was little to no information about the town itself as we were driving by. We were told we had 2 hours at the cable car. We took 2 hours but when we arrived back at the parking lot, our tour guide was not there. Eventually, he had to send a taxi to pick us up because he had to deal with a situation elsewhere. We waited for 45 minutes. By that time, I just wanted to go back to the hotel. We returned to the hotel too late for lunch due to the delays. There is also no food on the tour, by the way. I will say though, that the sites themselves were great, but I recommend booking through a different company. The highlights were when we were sent on our own to join the tour guided by the owners of each place.

Now, I must admit to my mistake – not realising how far this tour is to our hotel, in Punta Cana. However, despite the hotel being nearly six hours drive away my booking was accepted, and money was taken. The day before the trip we checked where Puerto Plata City is and were shocked to find that it is a ridiculous six hours drive away, totally impractical! I attempted to contact Gillary Tours the day before, as it was too late to cancel the tour, but no one responded. On the day I waited at the pick-up time of 8 am. They called me half an hour before and said that no problem, we could reschedule to the next day for a slightly later time, add an additional traveller and the tour would be like the original tour, details of which to follow shortly – they didn’t. Next day, a shabby, very questionable roadworthiness vehicle turned up, the driver and tour guide “Stevie Wonder”. It became apparent that the tour guide wouldn’t fit so we set off without him, but still hoped we would have a fun tour, to include a Cable car ride; visit to park; and various other sightseeing opportunities, as listed in the Puerto Plata City Tour. Our driver had problems finding the first stop and had to reverse quite some distance on a dual carriage way, maybe the rules are different in Dominican Republic?! Anyway, finally arrived at a venue where we watched cigars being made, could sample some rum produce, but no free samples, and buy jewellery, etc. Then a long drive to a Cathedral, no idea as to where we were going next as we had no itinerary, we couldn’t speak Spanish and our driver could only speak very little English – we were getting quite anxious! We eventually arrived but had no interest to view what is I’m sure a nice Cathedral. Next visit was to a market, why? We were dropped off and invited to wonder around the market, in a strange place where I guess we could sample some of the local culture, but we couldn’t wait to get back to the shabby car, at least it worked and would take us away from the area. He took us to another supermarket, but we were basically so relieved when we were eventually taken back to our hotel. Maybe I should have had a better grasp of the local geography of the island, but once our money was taken one would normally believe that everything is in order. The replacement Tour, whilst I’m sure it was intended to make good the stupid error, it certainly was nothing like the original Tour and NOT what we should have expected for the money paid. I raised this with TripAdvisor/ Viator but they declined my request for a refund. You’ve been warned!

We wanted have a personalized experience with the culture and history of Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. We were concerned with excursions outside the cruise ship at port but were put at ease with our tour guide Jason who stayed with us the entire day, driving us to the best places to see and shops to fill our "want list". Jason took us to the places of historical value and beautiful views up above of the city. We had the best tour guide ever!! Jason you are the best!! We love forward to coming back to visit more!