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Punta Cana as a Cruise Port?


OceansOfTravels
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I was on the same cruise as Sandy and can report a similar experience. The port has no tenders, so we had to tender into Cap Cana via lifeboats. The rides to and from were hot and we had rocky seas.

 

We purchased day passes at a resort located about 20 minutes' drive from the port. Security in the port and the resort was heavy.

 

Like Sandy, I don't mind passing this port in the future. It's not quite ready for cruise passengers just yet.

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  • 2 weeks later...

We just returned from our NCL cruise that had a stop at Cap Cana.

 

Although it definitely wasn’t my favorite port and I don’t see them using this much in the future.

-rough waves heading back by tender in afternoon

-only one gift shop at port

 

However very organized and felt very safe to book on our own. We asked about zip lining at scape park, once we tendered.

We walked very short distance to building to purchase our tickets.

$89/2 hour zipline. Better deal to book 2 activities and lunch included for $109/person

 

We only did ziplining then toon taxi from scape park to beach.

 

Would highly recommend scape park

 

 

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We just returned from our NCL cruise that had a stop at Cap Cana.

 

Although it definitely wasn’t my favorite port and I don’t see them using this much in the future.

-rough waves heading back by tender in afternoon

-only one gift shop at port

 

However very organized and felt very safe to book on our own. We asked about zip lining at scape park, once we tendered.

We walked very short distance to building to purchase our tickets.

$89/2 hour zipline. Better deal to book 2 activities and lunch included for $109/person

 

We only did ziplining then toon taxi from scape park to beach.

 

Would highly recommend scape park

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

mjkulp00, how did you get to Scape Park? Did they provide transportation or did you have to take a taxi? If you hadn't taken a taxi to the beach, would have they provided transportation back to the port?

 

Thanks for any information you can provide. We stop in Punta Cana in a few weeks and Scape Park sounds about the most interesting thing to do, at least for us.

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mjkulp00, how did you get to Scape Park? Did they provide transportation or did you have to take a taxi? If you hadn't taken a taxi to the beach, would have they provided transportation back to the port?

 

 

 

Thanks for any information you can provide. We stop in Punta Cana in a few weeks and Scape Park sounds about the most interesting thing to do, at least for us.

 

 

 

Yes they provided a free bus shuttle to scape park and yes we could have taken it back to the port for free.

 

They had several activities to choose from at scape park

 

 

 

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Recently visited Cap Cana from Celebrity Silhouette, rough tide and windy, waited nearly an hour after taking a number to tender ashore. "Town" is a misnomer, really just a private development with no public transportation that we could find. There was a $20 bus to "downtown" which we did not take. The marina area has pleasant replicated old world architecture but was not populated and felt almost like a ghost town especially once the music and dance performance ended. One can rent a car for $55, if not at the info tent try the hotel. Wish I could be more positive, but this "port" was very disappointing.

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  • 1 month later...
I was on the same cruise as Sandy and can report a similar experience. The port has no tenders, so we had to tender into Cap Cana via lifeboats. The rides to and from were hot and we had rocky seas.

 

We purchased day passes at a resort located about 20 minutes' drive from the port. Security in the port and the resort was heavy.

 

Like Sandy, I don't mind passing this port in the future. It's not quite ready for cruise passengers just yet.

 

What was the name of the resort?

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Next March will be our first stop in the Dominican Republic. Reads all the posts but two questions:

 

1. Has anyone ever been on one of the Celebrity ships and had the port cancelled due to weather or rough seas?

 

2. Has anyone done the segway eco tour? It says it is about 4 hours long.

 

Several months before we go, so will keep watching this post.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Next March will be our first stop in the Dominican Republic. Reads all the posts but two questions:

 

1. Has anyone ever been on one of the Celebrity ships and had the port cancelled due to weather or rough seas?

 

2. Has anyone done the segway eco tour? It says it is about 4 hours long.

 

Several months before we go, so will keep watching this post.

 

Just returned from 8-days on the Equinox. Scheduled to stop in Punta Cana as one of 5 stops.

Were never allowed off the boat due to unsafe conditions for the tenders. Two to four foot swells made the 15-20 minutes journey to the marina too dangerous. The weather that day was absolutely gorgeous, so I hate to see what it looks like when the weather is a bit off. This was a huge disappointment for us, not just because we missed Punta Cana but it came at the beginning of a planned sea day which meant we ended up spending 4 days at sea on an 8-day cruise vs. 3 days at sea. Frustrating part is the Equinox was the ONLY ship on the Punta Cana manifest for the entire month of May. Not sure why Celebrity continues to try this destination? I for one will never again book a cruise that has Punta Cana as a scheduled stop.

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Thank you, Tablet. We too are booked on the 8-day Equinox sailing. Hopefully, others will post their experiences here, so we can get a longer term notion of successful shore excursions. Hope you otherwise enjoyed the Equinox.

 

Scanditaly

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  • 1 month later...
Does anyone wish to share their experiences about porting and visiting Punta Cana? I would really like to hear about it.

 

Thanks, Scanditaly

 

I did a review of our Oct 2017 Nieuw Amsterdam cruise that included a stop in Punta Cana. A link to our site is in my signature. I hope it helps some. It isn’t a great port.

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I did a review of our Oct 2017 Nieuw Amsterdam cruise that included a stop in Punta Cana. A link to our site is in my signature. I hope it helps some. It isn’t a great port.

 

Thank you for your very detailed very interesting travelogue. Can you please help me differentiate between Cap Cana, Amber Cove and Punta Cana?

 

TIA, Scanditaly

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Thank you for your very detailed very interesting travelogue. Can you please help me differentiate between Cap Cana, Amber Cove and Punta Cana?

 

TIA, Scanditaly

 

Cap Cana is the port for Punta Cana. Amber Cove is also in the Dominican Republic. Below is the map of our cruise showing the two different port locations.

 

Itin%20final.jpg

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Does anyone wish to share their experiences about porting and visiting Punta Cana? I would really like to hear about it.

 

Thanks, Scanditaly

 

Cap Cana (at Punta Cana) became one of our ports last fall on a Nieuw Amsterdam cruise after our planned stops encountered so much hurricane damage. (We were on the same cruise with MVPinBoynton.)

 

We did a tour with Outback Adventures but because they had a contract with Holland America, we had to book the excursion through the ship. However...HAL has a 110% price guarantee on their tours so I was able to get the difference in the ship price and the price if I had booked independently with Outback Adventures refunded (plus 10%).

 

The tour was a bit shorter than first advertised, but I attribute that to confusion from this being a new cruise ship port. Other than that, we really enjoyed our day and it was nice to be able to see a little of the "real" DR.

 

I have a description of our tour and quite a few pictures on my blog. Here is the link if you would like to get an idea of what we did: Outback Adventure Tour from Cap Cana

 

I also did a video of our cruise and the segment on Cap Cana starts at 9:00 minutes into the video.

 

 

It looked like the area around the port was being developed, but when we visited, you really needed to take a tour since there wasn't much to do near where the tenders dock.

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  • 3 weeks later...

For those who have already stopped in Cap Cana / Punta Cana, would you recommend a cruise line shore excursion or just taking the shuttle bus to the beach?

 

We're scheduled to stop here on our next Celebrity cruise, and their shore excursions seem a bit pricey. We have a bit of extra on board credit to use, so I'd like to book a shore excursion in either Punta Cana or Nassau. Since we've been to Nassau many times before and know we won't get off of the ship without a shore excursion, I'm leaning towards a shore excursion in Nassau and just doing the shuttle bus to the beach in Punta Cana.

 

Thoughts? Thanks!

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For those who have already stopped in Cap Cana / Punta Cana, would you recommend a cruise line shore excursion or just taking the shuttle bus to the beach?

 

We're scheduled to stop here on our next Celebrity cruise, and their shore excursions seem a bit pricey. We have a bit of extra on board credit to use, so I'd like to book a shore excursion in either Punta Cana or Nassau. Since we've been to Nassau many times before and know we won't get off of the ship without a shore excursion, I'm leaning towards a shore excursion in Nassau and just doing the shuttle bus to the beach in Punta Cana.

 

Thoughts? Thanks!

I’m looking for the same thing. I was surprised to see how pricey the Celebrity shore excursions are! I considered doing a hotel for a day, but that costs more than the shore excursions. We are taking our daughter and boyfriend for their college graduation so paying that much for 4 people is really getting expensive. I just can’t justify $600-$700 to go to a resort for a day, but we would really like to do something.

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